Meet our team.

The Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance is driven by a passionate group of volunteers and one staff member. We protect and preserve the dunes through the generous support and dedicated time of individuals in our community.

Bobbie Gaunt

Board Chair, Interim Treasurer

Bobbie was the first woman to enter Ford Motor Company's Management Program in 1972.  Twenty-nine years later she retired as a corporate vice president and President & CEO of Ford of Canada, a 16,000-employee global affiliate. 

  • Her career included many firsts as a woman within Ford and the industry, where she became known as a leader unafraid to speak her mind, including challenging how the industry addressed 'inconvenient truths' and the needs of under-represented populations.

    Bobbie and her late husband Bob retired to Saugatuck in 2000. She soon joined the board of the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, leading efforts to raise funding and friends to save the Center in the early 2000s.

    Bobbie is a lifelong advocate and activist for social and environmental justice.

David Swan

Board President

Together with concerned neighbors, David helped found the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance in 2007 to play a more proactive role in locally determined zoning and wise land-use.

  • Previously, David co-founded with Alison Swan the Concerned Citizens for Saugatuck Dunes State Park; they received the Michigan Environmental Council’s Petoskey Prize for Grassroots Environmental Leadership.

    David was honored with the West Michigan Environmental Action Council CR Everson Award in 2017. In 2011, David received the distinguished Landslide Award from the Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Holly Anderson

Secretary

After 40+ years consulting with organizations and leaders on corporate communications and change initiatives, Holly retired in 2021 to spend more time with family and friends, having fun, and serving the community.

  • Holly was elected to the Saugatuck City Council in 2023. She has served on the City’s Planning Commission since 2022 and chaired the City’s Short-Term Rental Task Force.

    A native of Idaho, Holly loves the outdoors, including walks and hikes with her German Shepherd. She moved to Saugatuck in 2018.

Dr. Frank Alfieri III

A lifelong resident of Allegan County, Frank has spent his life honoring and enhancing the natural environment through his support of local organizations.

  • He was a founding member of the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance and a past board member of the Outdoor Discovery Center. He is past president and current board member of the Lake Michigan Shore Association and a member of the Great Lakes Coalition. He has a thriving Saugatuck Township chiropractic practice and has served as team chiropractor for Saugatuck and Fennville high schools.

Christian Birky

Christian’s work is at the intersection of climate and investment in the apparel industry. He is the founder of Because Capital and the co-founder and Board Vice-Chair of the Industrial Sewing & Innovation Center.

  • Previously, he co-chaired the Ethical Fashion Lab within Nexus, the leading global network of significant young philanthropists and impact investors. Christian was a founding board member of the Coastal Alliance and rejoined the board in 2022. He holds a degree from Princeton.

Kathryn Birky

Kathryn co-founded Because Capital alongside her brother. Her work over the past decade around sustainability in apparel supply chains builds on a track record of conservation and NGO work in West Africa.

  • She currently chairs the board of Youth Action International, which focuses on economic development in postwar Sierra Leone and Liberia. Kathryn interned with the Coastal Alliance in college and joined the board in 2022. She holds a graduate degree in environmental studies from Brown.

Cynthia McKean

Emerita

Cynthia has lived in Saugatuck for 35 years. New in town, she joined the Saugatuck Planning Commission and several months later was elected chair.

  • After 16 years as chair of the Planning Commission, she ran for City Council and served on the council for six years. She remains active in the community and officially joined the Alliance Board of Directors in the fall of 2017. Cynthia began her career as a biologist before pursuing a degree in architecture. In the 1990s she learned to weld her ideas into sculpture and remains an active sculptor.

Vicki Rosenberg

Vicki Rosenberg is president of Vicki Rosenberg & Associates, a national firm that helps leaders turn inspiring visions into measurable results through executive coaching, organizational development and change consulting.


  • She formed the firm after a 30-year career in management and executive leadership with the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Council of Michigan Foundations. Rosenberg has an MBA from UCLA and BA from the University of MN. She has served on numerous boards including the Saugatuck Public Schools Board of Education, Allegan County Community Foundation, and Resilience, Advocates for Ending Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Dawn Schumann

Dawn was raised in Oak Park, Illinois, where she chaired a 300-member council to create the village’s long-range strategic plan.

  • This led to the development of the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic district and acquisition of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, of which Dawn was the founding president. She has worked with national, state, and local government to create preservation law and environmental policies in three states. In 2020 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Michigan Historic Preservation Network.

Nick Wallace

Nick grew up in Chicago, visiting his historic family cottage in Saugatuck on summer weekends.

  • Canoeing, fishing, hiking, birdwatching, and foraging were commonplace in his family among the forests of the Kalamazoo river mouth neighborhood. He became very familiar with the species present within the Saugatuck Dunes. This exposure to wild spaces motivated him to pursue a degree in Biological Sciences with a concentration in ecology, environment, and evolution. He is passionate about climate justice and habitat conservation, preservation, and reconstruction. At 24, Nick is the youngest Coastal Alliance board member.

The Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance has been recognized with the Michigan Historic Preservation Network Leadership Award (2014), the West Michigan Environmental Action Council Leadership Award (2012), the Fresh Water Futures Leadership Award (2010), and the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society Leadership Award (2009).


Right: The Prairie Warbler is an endangered species found at the contested marina site.