Kelly Johnston has been involved in the field of wildland fire management since beginning his career in 1991 as a seasonal firefighter for the British Columbia Forest Service. Kelly focuses his expertise in community wildfire risk assessment, wildland urban interface mitigation solutions, fire behavior analysis, prescribed fire and fire ecology. Kelly works collaboratively with all levels of government, community stakeholders, residents and indigenous partners through key roles and projects that span from local to international levels. His current portfolio of notable projects includes: project lead/wildfire risk and forestry lead for the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program, developer of the first national WUI Regulations training course for FEMA, co-development of the REALFire^® program and developer of the FireSmart Home Partners (Canada) national HIZ program. In addition to his role as Operations Manager, Kelly provides wildfire consulting services through his firm Wildland Professional Solutions; serves as the WUI Technical Specialist for FireSmart Canada; and sits on the National Fire Protection Association Committee on Wildland and Rural Fire Protection. Kelly also maintains his qualifications as a Registered Professional Forester, IFSAC accredited Structural Firefighter, Wildfire Mitigation Specialist, Fire Behavior Analyst and Ignition Specialist.

Cynthia Thrall is a Keller Williams REALTOR® in Vail Valley, Colorado. She is also a Neighborhood Ambassador and the Eagle County REALFire® Liaison for the Vail Board of Realtors. REALFire® is a wildfire risk reduction program that provides homeowners with an opportunity to take action on their property. The program provides free property assessments to educate residents on how their home and landscaping may be susceptible to wildfire and specific ways to reduce wildfire threat. The program is locally managed by Eagle County in collaboration with the Vail Board of REALTORS®. Before becoming a REALTOR® Cynthia was a Vice President at Chase Bank in Chicago for 23 years and managed operations, security, loan accounting, ATM Deposit Processing, and was a conversion coordinator for 14 branches. Cynthia’s next endeavor was to become President of eight car dealerships in the Chicago area. She was also President of Jacobs Part Center LLC. In addition she was Executive Manager of: Chevrolet, Cadillac, and the Subaru franchises. Once Cynthia and her husband moved to Colorado permanently she added volunteering to her schedule and became Chairwoman on the VBR Foundation. She was also earned her certification in Suicide first aid and Adult Mental Health first aid. For fun Cynthia took up flying Cessna’s, which had been a childhood dream.

Wayne Chen is the Assistant Community Development Director in the City of Mountain View, CA. Wayne has worked on a wide array of housing initiatives, such as leading the development of affordable housing projects, developing policy initiatives to respond to tenant displacement, funding non-profit organizations to deliver key public services, and collaborating with foundations and the private sector including global technology companies to create and implement innovative strategies to accelerate the local delivery of affordable housing. The issue of wildfire planning and resilient communities is of personal interest to Wayne. Over the past few years, in particular the last two years, Wayne witnessed the severe drought conditions in California that led to the extreme fires throughout the State, especially in the Central Valley and in Northern California. Not only did this destroy homes and directly affect the lives of so many families, it caused severe air quality issues that indirectly impacted the health of millions of households and caused billions of dollars of damage to the natural and built environment. Wayne has a masters in public policy from UC Berkeley and a masters in urban planning from Harvard University.