About Friends of Park County
Created to work on just one issue – the challenge of growth in Park County, Montana.
There are many issues in Park County, Montana and many organizations addressing them. Decades of experience elsewhere has demonstrated the need for having an organization dedicated solely to the issue of managing growth.
Growth is a complex, politically sensitive topic, which requires specialized knowledge, persistence over time and the ability to advocate, educate and communicate effectively to a wide range of audiences.
That is why Friends of Park County was created.
We carry out our mission through a solid program of research, education, advocacy, and outreach that will enable our elected leaders and residents to move forward confidently, despite the almost inevitable controversy generated by land use planning and regulation.
Board of Directors
Ken Cochrane
Heidi Barret
Thomas Blurock
Kathy Foote
Mike Dailey
Eleanor Clark
Ken Cochrane is deeply invested in Park County, where he has dedicated his retirement to enhancing community life. An experienced lawyer with 48 years in family law in California, Ken now focuses on local issues such as land use measures to shape rural development, smart economic development, protecting water quantity and quality, sustainable working lands and health natural environments.
An enthusiastic fly fisherman, Ken settled in Park County in 2008, building his dream home and embracing the region's natural beauty. He co-founded and directed both Friends of Park County and Protecting Paradise, and currently serves on the board of the Park County Community Foundation.
Ken holds a bachelor’s degree in food science from UC Davis and a law degree from University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. His legal expertise and passion for environmental stewardship make him a valued leader in our community.
Heidi Barrett has over 30 years of non-profit experience, in Park County, beginning as the sole employee of a small grass-roots organization, the Beartooth Alliance, in Silver Gate, Montana in the early 90’s. This group successfully halted an industrial gold mine on the border of Yellowstone National Park in 1996. She then worked for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition for 17.5 years in the development department. She directed the Park County Senior Center for nearly two years before joining ASPEN as its Executive Director in 2016.
Heidi grew up on a farm in Nebraska and visited Silver Gate, Montana in 1983. She fell in love with the area and began working summers there in 1984 and met her husband Jim, they married in 1991 making their home in Silver Gate until 1998 when they moved to Livingston.
Heidi has served as a board member for Park County Environmental Council, Livingston Center for Art and Culture, Angel Line Transportation Services, and currently serves as founding Chair of the Park County Public Transit Advisory Board which operates Windrider, a free fixed route bus service in Livingston. She and Jim are proud of serving as tour coordinators for Shakespeare in the Parks for Silver Gate collectively for over 32 years.
Heidi’s passion has always been about protecting the natural amenities of Park County and creating healthy communities. She enjoys people from all walks of life and is energized when making a positive difference for those around her. Heidi has BFA from the University of Nebraska, and an endorsement for K-12 in Art Education. She lives with her husband, Jim, in Livingston.
Thomas Blurock is a Livingston resident and an architect with 50 years of experience in design and planning. He and his wife Kathleen live in a historic building in downtown Livingston which he recently rehabilitated as residential and retail space. Before moving to town, he had a fishing cabin for thirty years in Tom Miner Basin. An active member of the community, he serves on the City of Livingston Historic Preservation Commission and The Guiding Principal Strategic Planning Committee.
His award-winning firm for 35 years specialized in the design and planning of educational facilities in urban areas. He has been involved in the development of healthy communities for his entire working life. Early in his career, he was involved in a number of downtown revitalization projects in California and along the East Coast. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Kathy Foote is a fourth-generation Montanan, raised on a ranch south of Bozeman. Kathy moved to Park County in 1988, and lives with her husband, Jonathan, on a ranch east of Livingston, where they raise and show award-winning cutting horses. Kathy is a top amateur rider and a past president and director of the Montana cutting Horse Association. She is a past board member of Big Brothers and Sisters of Park County. Kathy is a CASA with the Park County Casa Program, and currently works with the Park County Attorney’s Office. Kathy has seen the significant changes in the Gallatin Valley during her lifetime. She believes that she has insights as to how Park County may avoid some of the negative impact from sprawl and development.
Mike Dailey headed for the mountains of Colorado at a young age where he worked as a ski patrolman at Vail and Arapahoe Basin and began his construction career. In 1973 he moved to Northwest Montana with his new wife, Sue, where they settled on a farm on the Flathead River and where he established his custom homebuilding business. He later became a self-employed real estate appraiser.
Over his time in the Flathead, Mike volunteered on numerous boards and citizen groups: the Bob Marshall Foundation, the Wild and Scenic River Commission, the Limits of Acceptable Change Commission, the Homebuilders Association of the Flathead, and school boards large and small. He was awarded the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce’s Great Chief award for his long history of service to the community. In his leisure time, he raised hay and horse packed into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, white water rafted and kayaked, got his pilot’s license, and wet many a fly.
In 2003, Mike and Sue moved to their historic farm on the Shields River, where he put his building skills to work restoring the old buildings, including a 1922 dairy barn. He served on the Citizen’s Advisory Council for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Region 3. He was co-chair of the Park County Planning Board which wrote the current Park County Growth Policy. He has also served as the ditch rider for the Lower Shields Valley Canal Company for many years.
Mike’s varied expertise gives him a unique perspective to look at growth and land use issues from the perspective of a builder, an appraiser, a wilderness advocate, and a farmer.
Eleanor first began working in Yellowstone National Park as Chief Landscape Architect in 1985. Her work involved ”Context Sensitive Design” for park roads and the Beartooth Highway amongst other duties. Working in fragile environments with abundant wildlife, historic resources and a construction season that coincided with the visitor’s travel required developing unique guidelines. She worked with the Yellowstone Park Foundation on numerous projects, including Artist Point. After 32 years, she retired as Chief of Comprehensive Planning and Design, having implemented comprehensive plans for developed areas and a park wide foundation plan for future change. She holds landscape architecture licenses in Montana and Wyoming.
Educated at Smith College in environmental biology and geology with a Masters in Landscape Architecture from University of Colorado, she now spends time pursuing art and field journaling of which she has over 200 volumes. She has taught artistic field journaling around the Yellowstone Ecosystem and contributed to several books.
Her dedication to protecting wild places includes property she rehabilitated in 1990 in Mill Creek where she spends time with her family and golden retrievers. She has watched this area change dramatically over the years, fearing that its allure will likely be its demise if growth isn’t thoughtfully managed.
Executive Director
Randy Carpenter
Randy Carpenter has had a career working with community leaders in the Northern Rockies, helping them understand the challenges that come with growth and change, and tailor locally based solutions to those challenges. Randy was a community planner in Iowa, followed by 13 years with the Sonoran Institute’s Northern Rockies Program. Randy served as a Project Director for Future West from 2014 to 2022, which included assisting with the creation of the Gardiner community plan and advising Friends of Park County. Today he is the Executive Director of Headwaters Community Housing Trust.
Staff
Friends of Park County contracts with Robert Liberty for staffing support.
Robert Liberty
Strategic Advisor
Robert has almost forty years of experience with the design, implementation, evaluation and politics of land use and transportation plans, at the local, regional and state levels. His advice has been sought from places as different as Bozeman, Montana and Beijing, China.
Robert’s experience in both the public and private world gives him a unique ability to bring people together, speak their language and bridge divides to get tangible results.
Key Past Leadership:
Founder & Director of the Urban Sustainability Accelerator and Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University
Smart Growth Consultant and Public Speaker – US and International
2-term Councilor at Metro Regional Government
Senior Counsel to Congressman Earl Blumenauer in the Third District of Oregon
Executive Director, 1000 Friends of Oregon
Robert is passionate about helping communities translate lofty planning goals and visions into the policies and practices that bring to reality compact, vibrant, sustainable and equitable cities and neighborhoods and the conservation of working farm, ranch and forest lands.
Robert has a JD from Harvard Law School, an MA from Oxford University, a BA from the University of Oregon Honors College and was a Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
Board of Advisors
Friends of Park County established its Board of Advisors in February 2023
Our inaugural Board of Advisors will be expanded and diversified in the coming months.
Our Advisors share their expertise with us in the main fields relevant to the mission of Friends of Park County, including land use planning and regulation, housing, wildlife, water, agriculture, transportation, natural hazards, nonprofit organization and advocacy, and local politics. We will also benefit from their community connections and knowledge of the history, places and people of Park County.
Frank Schroder
Dennis Glick
Tom Murphy
Sandra Lambert
Frank Schroeder is the Past President and a co-founder of Friends of Park County. For 13 years Frank served on the Park County Planning Board, including navigating the drafting and adoption of the County’s most recent Growth Policy. Frank brings to his advisor role more than 40 years of private sector general management experience in the US and Europe, including providing executive search services in the not for profit and corporate sectors. More recently, Frank founded Campus2Career Transition Services to assist young adults to identify their career direction and land the right job in their chosen field.
Dennis Glick has had a long career in both national and international conservation. He has been involved in conservation and growth management efforts in the Greater Yellowstone Region for over 30 years, most recently as the co-founder and Director of the non-profit Future West. He has authored several publications and has organized many conferences and workshops on growth management and rural conservation topics. A resident of Livingston, Montana for over 30 years, Dennis has been an active participant in many community and county planning issues.
Tom Murphy is a nationally celebrated wildlife photographer based in Livingston. His photography is in private, public, and museum collections around the world. He creates photographs which illustrate his passion for the remaining wild places on our earth. Tom is featured in a PBS Nature film, “Christmas in Yellowstone” which has regularly aired worldwide. He has traveled the United States presenting the wonders of nature through his photographic slide shows. In agreeing to join the Board of Advisor Tom said he wanted to “help to keep this place a wonderful place for wildlife and wild land.”
Sandra Lambert grew up in Kansas City and earning degrees at the University of Missouri, she began a career of college teaching and then being an author’s editor. After moving West, a forest fire destroyed her family’s home and they moved to Jackson Hole, where she taught skiing and kayaking, rode horses, and climbed. She has served on many boards including for Mountain Journal and led the capital campaign for a shelter for abused women and children. She lives in Livingston, when not fishing she monitors meetings of the Park County Commission and Planning Board.