Our shared core values
Respect is at the heart of Wild Ones. We have respect for each other, for nature and for the earth.
We’re an inclusive community. Diverse voices and backgrounds make us stronger. That’s why we welcome everyone to join us.
We provide evidence-based information, because the seeds of change spread most efficiently when grounded in data. We monitor and share the latest evidence informed strategies.
We’re action and growth oriented. Just dig in! We learn, grow, and share our knowledge.
You can view our chapter’s bylaws here.
Meet our board of directors
Jessica Ausenhmer, President
Jessica Ausnehmer is the President and Director of Chapter Strategy & Strategic Initiatives for Wild Ones Greater Cleveland. She was the founding President of the chapter and helped launch it in late 2022. She held Vice President for a period of time before being re-elected in 2026 as President. Under her leadership, the chapter became the second fastest-growing and one of the most active in the United States by its second year. Jessica also came up with the idea for the Northeast Ohio Native Habitat Corridor — inspired by similar projects and initiatives — and is currently developing a new initiative called Seeds for the Future. She’s collaborated on native plant educational events, activities, and projects throughout Northeast Ohio, including partnerships with local schools like Berea-Midpark High School and the installation of a 3,000-square-foot native wetland garden at Impett Park in collaboration with the Friends of Impett Park.
After obtaining her Bachelors in Horticulture, she went on to get her Masters in Landscape Architecture and took a native plant ID course which drove her love of natural, healthy, and thriving ecosystems even more.
Though she didn’t start out as a gardener—her house was once a place where plants went to die—she was inspired by a friend who transformed her entire front yard into a thriving native landscape. Wanting to improve her own curb appeal in a meaningful way, Jessica saw the potential to create something both beautiful and environmentally functional. She began designing her landscape in late 2020 during the pandemic and installed her main garden in July 2021, originally focused on becoming a Monarch Waystation. Since then, it has grown to support a wide range of pollinators and native species.
Her latest efforts include installing a soft landing and reimagining areas of her original design to increase biodiversity. She often describes native gardening as a mix of living art, Environmental Tetris, and Pollinator Pokémon (“gotta catch them all”). That journey ultimately led her to join Wild Ones—and realize she could use her skill set to help build a strong, inclusive, and free resource for communities across Northeast Ohio.
Jessica’s favorite native plant is the Bald Cypress Tree.
Sarah Blair, Treasurer
Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Sarah has been passionate about native plants for many years. A designer and online retailer by day, she spends as much of her free time as possible in her garden or in nature.
She has worked in environmental fields such as invasive plant removal and wildland firefighting, and has studied environmental science at the graduate level. Recently she has been working on slowly establishing a food forest and native plant garden in her yard.
Anya Milgrom, Co-Secretary & Membership Chair
Anya has lived in Southern California & New York City, and moved to Northeast Ohio in 2014.
She is a Training & Process Improvement Manager for a legal research company during the day, but having gotten the gardening bug later in life, spends a lot of her spare time learning about plants, insects, and birds to make up for lost time. Her exposure to native plants and their importance for a healthy ecosystem began with a lecture by Doug Tallamy, and she has not looked back since.
She has been a certified Master Gardener Volunteer in Cuyahoga County since 2022, with particular interest in native plants and horticultural education for children and youth, and she volunteers with West Creek Conservancy and Holden Arboretum. She lives in Strongsville with her husband and two rescue dogs, and is currently working on removing invasive plants from her yard and replacing them with native alternatives that support wildlife. She loves meeting others who are passionate about native plants, and can’t wait to hear your native plant stories!
Allison Welch, Board Member & Education Chair
Allison Welch is a Northeast Ohio native and a passionate environmental advocate. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Hiram College and a Master’s in Special Education from Cleveland State.
She has worked in horticulture at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Kendal at Oberlin and is an active member of the Lakewood Tree Advisory and Education Board. Allison is also pursuing a degree in Sustainable Agriculture at LCCC.
Her work and personal life reflect her commitment to regenerative practices, urban reforestation, and ecology. At home in Lakewood, she enjoys the company of her wife and many plants and animals.
Ray Stewart, Board Member, Community Science Chair, & Lorain County Regional Coordinator
Ray Stewart is a retired public school science teacher from Amherst in Lorain County, Ohio. Before teaching, he worked in the ‘Green Industry’ in garden centers, nurseries and as a landscape manager. He is the founder and past president of Ohio Wetlands Association (OWA). He now serves as the OWA Wetland Ambassador.
Ray founded a non-profit landscape design and consultation firm, Webbedfoot Designs, Inc., a carbon neutral company that turns its proceeds toward public pollinator gardens. His role here is Lead Designer and Project Manager. He is a trained Botanist, Certified Master Rain Gardener, and a Certified Pollinator Steward. Recently the iNaturalist web app has designated Ray an iNaturalist Ambassador.
As a member of Rotary International, Ray is championing their global environmental agenda as a member of the Operation Pollination Ambassador Team and is the Environmental Chair for his Rotary club. Ray is a member of the board and serves as the Lorain County Regional Coordinator for Wild Ones Greater Cleveland. He is a frequent speaker at community organizations and other public outreach events.
Meet our officers
Jane Lindmark, Assistant Membership Chair
Jane Lindmark joined Wild Ones as an Assistant Membership Chair because she has a keen interest in the work that Wild Ones does to promote knowledge about the value of native plants and how they work to sustain landscape diversity. Jane majored in Biology and graduated from Kent State University.
She is now retired from various careers and could not wait to get involved in projects that have lasting impact for the future. She is slowly working to convert her lawn to support more native species and maintains a large herb garden and a pocket prairie garden. Her 2 rescue cats observe her digging in the dirt from their window perch and wistfully watch the birds at the feeders. She enjoys hiking, birding, reading, gardening, and the many cultural attractions offered in NE Ohio.
Erin Jennings, NEO Native Habitat Corridor Chair
Erin Jennings is an engineer by day and a botanist at heart. She got her degree in Environmental Engineering and Biology at Ohio State.
She grew up hiking in the Fall hiking spree through Summit Metro Parks and has wanted to be in the woods ever since. She focuses on restoring native communities, stream and wetland restoration, and environmental education.
She lives in Tallmadge, Ohio with her husband, dog, cats, and chickens and is working on creating a homestead and native garden.
Jim Wolen, Assistant Volunteer Coordinator
Jim has been a gardener all his life. His dad always had a vegetable garden and he would help him as he was growing up. As an adult Jim also had a vegetable garden and as homeowner he began planting decorative plants.
About ten years ago he went to a lecture on host plants, mostly highlighting trees. After that lecture, he began to notice bugs in his garden and would get excited when seeing bugs. He then began adding natives and eliminating non-natives, including 100 square feet of beautiful day lilies.
Jim and his wife get a lot of joy seeing bees, butterflies and birds who frequent their garden. Jim also appreciates the many benefits of using native plants and has a desire to share his knowledge with others.
Taylor Kozak, Website Chair
Taylor is a northeast Ohio native who works in the financial services industry as an enterprise risk analyst. In her spare time, she enjoys baking, spending time outdoors with her family and dog, and expanding her knowledge of plants and their many properties.
Since purchasing a home in 2021 Taylor has intentionally selected plants for various locations on the property, as well as within her raised bed gardens.
During her 2024 gardening season Taylor became increasingly aware of the lack of bee activity in her garden, and began to actively select native flowers to plant around her property to attract pollinators. This natural curiosity towards plants and wildlife is what brought Taylor to the Wild Ones Greater Cleveland Chapter and inspired her to not only become a member, but to volunteer as well. She is deeply committed to supporting and creating a healthy local ecosystem through the decisions she makes to her own landscape, and recognizes the importance of native plants to accomplish this.
Shelley Tender, Medina County Regional Coordinator
Shelley Tender is a NE Ohio native and naturalist who has been fortunate to make her living for the past 20 years inspiring others to love nature too while working for the Medina County Park District.
With a combined passion for native plants and desire to make them accessible to everyone, she and her partner Bill started Camel Creek Natives, a home-based native plant nursery. The duo grows native plants, trees and shrubs to sell during special sale dates through the park district, with sale proceeds going to the non-profit support group Friends of Medina County Parks for use in future stewardship projects.
Antonio Zodda, Community Garden Chair
Antonio is a native of the city of Cleveland where he runs his ecological consulting company, Paradise Natives.
A graduate of Ohio State’s Ecosystem Restoration major, he has enjoyed several years of experience working on projects across our state’s varied landscapes. In his career, Antonio relishes the opportunity to rewild the yards of Northeast Ohioans as well as help restore larger tracts of degraded woodland and wetland habitat.
He aims for a complete cultural overhaul regarding the way in which we relate to the natural world. He sees and seeks to bolster the strong potential for the Northeast Ohio community to be a national leader of this paradigm shift in the coming years.
Diab Dar-Issa, Cuyahoga County Regional Coordinator
Diab Dar-Issa lives in Cleveland as a proud homeowner of a gorgeous historic Victorian home with beautiful native gardens.
He has always loved native plants and has always been stressing the importance of native plants to his local ecoregion. Through education, Diab wants people to re-wild, un-lawn, and move away from boring monocultures of non-native turf grass. He refers to his yard and gardens as ‘My Urban Woodland & Meadow,’ which is how he has it listed on the Northeast Ohio Native Habitat Corridor Map!
It was at Meadow City – his favorite native plant store – in Summer, 2024 where he first saw the yard sign for the Northeast Ohio Native Habitat Corridor and that was what led him to discover the Wild Ones organization. A sign was purchased, and Diab became a member of Wild Ones Greater Cleveland chapter that day. Since then he has attended WOGC events and started volunteering with the chapter in 2025 (including processing gardens for the Northeast Ohio Native Habitat Corridor). Now, he is proud to represent the west side of Cuyahoga County as the Cuyahoga County Regional Coordinator!
Kim Starr Rybicki, Summit/Stark Regional Coordinator
Kim has spent her (almost) 30-year career focused on Intersectional Social Justice. She has a Bachelor Degree of Science in Social work from Miami University, an Associate Degree in Nursing from Tri-C and is 2/3 of the way through a Master Degree in Sustainability, Security, and Resilience from Ohio University. She is an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist and a Certified Case Manager. She spent her early career as a social worker in urban Chicago working with teen moms who were committed to graduating high school. She also spent time in California working with HIV+ prisoners and their families at San Quentin State Prison. As an RN, she has worked with critically ill patients in the ICUs and in the PACU at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital. She has also managed various programs funded through the Ohio Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. She currently manages a team of nurses that provide medical case management services to individuals severely injured in work accidents through a program partnered with the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation. This 8-4 job has allowed Kim to spend much of her time in her yard building native habitat and watching to see what moves in. Kim is 100% dedicated to the mission of Wild Ones and is excited to bring more native plants to Northeast Ohio!
Cassie Hoover, Social Media Chair
Cassie is a passionate nutrition and sustainability professional with a husband and 3 cats. She loves the textures, sounds, shapes and possibilities of the natural world, especially in the context of native plants.
She’s inspired by the idea that we can use our own corner of the world to make life a bit better for ourselves and others (human and not) by planting native and thoughtfully evolving our practices. And finally – she believes you never really know a plant until you’ve killed it at least three times, which tells you a lot about how she is still constantly learning and evolving in her understanding of plants!
Mary Lou Budziak, Broadcast Production Chair
When Mary Lou was seven years old, she had a nightmare and described it so well that her older brother lent her his manual typewriter and told her to make it into a story. Then she got her first camera. Snapping nature photos while teaching herself to pluck away at the typewriter grew into a lifelong interest and then career as writer and photographer which earned her three awards for best news and feature stories.
Her parents were avid gardeners and taught Mary Lou. Her mother was a member of the Western Reserve Herb Society and took her to activities which included culinary and craft herb projects and partnered with the Cleveland Botanical Garden where she joined weed-pulling enthusiasts!
Volunteering grew into a desire to make Cleveland a greener place so she became a charter member and volunteer for the City of Cleveland’s Tree Commission (later renamed the Urban Forestry Commission.) In 2023 she was a GardenWalk Cleveland participant, having transformed her front yard into a deer-resistant garden. When she attended an Old Brooklyn Market Day, she was greeted by members of Wild Ones and became a member in 2025.
While attending a seed collection event only two months after becoming a member, Brunswick Area Television (BAT) asked for an interview and this is that episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEWKJMhSoS0 . BAT then invited Wild Ones to partner with them to produce episodes for broadcasting! Mary Lou has volunteered to assist with that endeavor and BAT has been training her to use their studio, equipment and editing software at no cost.
Mary Lou’s career included roles: Editor for a small legal publishing firm and grant writer and fundraiser for two universities and non-profits. Her education includes: Post Graduate studies (multi-media coursework) at Case Western Reserve University; a Master’s of Business Administration from Myers University; Liberal Arts & Social Sciences degree from Cleveland State University; and, Pharmacy Technician certification and license from having attended NewBridge Cleveland Center for Arts & Technology (which knowledge comes in handy when she makes herbal tinctures from plants she grows.) She is currently semi-retired and part-time home health care aide for senior citizens in which she said that, among other tasks, she affectionately assists with their gardens too as it lifts their spirits and provides fresh garden food!