Kirk Mona
Kirk has been a professional naturalist for over 25 years working for nature centers, science centers, park districts and county governments. He worked for 13 years at the oldest private non-profit nature center in Minnesota and now works at the oldest public nature center in the state. He has worked as a columnist for the National Association of Interpretation’s Legacy magazine and hosts the YouTube channel Secret Nature. He is the past president of the Minnesota Naturalists’ Association.
Rachel Giemza
Rachel has been a naturalist for a decade at various nature centers, city governments and residential environmental learning centers throughout Minnesota, doing all sorts of programming, from survival to pond studies all the way to fairy hijinks and pirate adventures. She is currently the professional workshop coordinator for the Minnesota Naturalists’ Association. Her naturalist interests include pollinators, insects, birds, maple syruping, and wildflowers, but is willing to learn just about anything. In her downtime, Rachel enjoys hiking, gardening, playing dungeons and dragons, reading, and crocheting different projects. She also spends time with her leopard gecko and her cat.
Victoria Thompson
After escaping a desk-bound life as an environmental policy consultant on the East Coast, Victoria moved to the frozen northlands and discovered a new passion as an environmental educator/naturalist. She formerly sat on the executive committee of the Minnesota Naturalists’ Association. She loves teaching in the outdoors and discovering amazing new things about nature, and is also, for some reason, really into spreadsheets. Other favorite activities are reading, walking, visiting Little Free Libraries, baking bread and cooking, and spending time with her family (twin toddlers, husband). She lives in Minneapolis.
Strange by Nature 