Meet the AMP Insights Team
We are an interdisciplinary group of experienced and versatile experts committed to inspiring and supporting our clients to address complex natural resource management and socioeconomic issues and produce practical and sustainable outcomes.
Davíd Pilz, Managing Partner
Davíd's first experiences with natural resources came at the age of five and involved a shovel, a tarp, an earthen irrigation ditch, and a couple hundred acres of hay that needed water. Growing up in the high desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico and the remote beauty of northwestern Colorado, and steadily moving north and west to his current home in Bend, Oregon, Davíd has been immersed in water, land, and natural resources issues throughout his life and career. After graduating from the Colorado College and Lewis and Clark Law School, David worked for ten years at the Oregon Water Trust and The Freshwater Trust, the nation's first water trust. Today, he works with clients across the West and beyond, with a focus on program strategy and design, legal and policy analysis of water, land, and natural resources issues, and communication strategies.
Email David
Amanda Cronin, Partner
Amanda was born in Forks, Washington, a town that averages ten feet of rainfall per year. After graduating from Whitman College with a BA in Biology - Environmental Studies in Walla Walla, Washington, Amanda spent two years as the Watershed Program Coordinator for a conservation group in Idaho. She then made her way to Arizona for a Masters in Environmental Science and Policy from Northern Arizona University. Returning to the Pacific Northwest, she spent eleven years with the Washington Water Trust developing innovative solutions to seemingly intractable water management problems. Over the last decade, Amanda has helped lead the development of water banks across Washington and in Arizona. Amanda works across the West providing strategic guidance for water resource planning, environmental flow restoration and groundwater mitigation. Amanda lives in Seattle, WA.
Email Amanda
Sarah Kruse, Associate Expert
When she was young, Sarah’s father promised her that some job existed that combined her love of the outdoors and mathematics. While this seemed impossible to her as a child in rural Ohio she managed to do just that. After graduating with a degree in economics from the College of Wooster, Sarah served as a Peace Corps volunteer working on agroforestry in Paraguay. She then returned to the US and completed her Master’s in Economics and Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics at The Ohio State University. For the next seven years, Sarah served as an economist at Ecotrust, a research and community development organization in Portland, Oregon. Today she works to identify and analyze linkages between economic, environmental and social systems to create out-of-the-box solutions for a diverse group of clients around the globe.
email sarah
Amy McCoy, Partner
When Amy was four years old, her grandfather asked her to describe where she lived. Like an aspiring young poet, she answered “where the mountains touch the sky.” Growing up in the shadow of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, Amy has always been fascinated by the intersection of water, land, human cultures, and language. After a stint on the East Coast earning a BS in Environmental Biology at Yale University, she returned to western North America for a PhD from the University of Arizona and seeded her career as a consultant. Amy is a founding partner of AMP Insights, where she applies strategic research and creative communications to the confounding social, legal, and practical challenges of water scarcity and climate change. She also serves as an Adjunct Research Scientist with the University of Arizona Southwest Center and participates in a wide range of ecological, climate, and water-focused research collaborations. Amy lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, along the creeks and mountain trails of her childhood.
email Amy
Andrew Purkey, Partner
Andrew’s connection to western rivers and watersheds began at age 12 when his family drove across the country en route to their new home in Eugene, Oregon. From that point forward he pursued this interest through his studies at the University of Oregon and then at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he earned a Master’s degree in Natural Resource Policy. Andrew began his water career as the first executive director of the Oregon Water Trust, a position he held for 9 years. He then worked for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for 16 years, first as director of the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program and then as director of the Foundation’s Western Water Program. In October 2018 Andrew began his consulting work with clients throughout the West on program assessment, strategic planning, organizational development, fundraising, capacity building, policy analysis, transactions, and communications and outreach.
Email Andrew
Tess Gardner, Senior Project/Technical Lead
Tess completed her Master’s in Environmental Science and Management at the Bren School of UC Santa Barbara. Her master’s thesis explored the opportunity for and effectiveness of enhancing public-private collaboration to reduce wildfire severity and improve watershed health in the Wildland-Urban Interface of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, CA. During her time at the Bren School, Tess worked with Trout Unlimited on issues of water scarcity, environmental flow restoration, and flood and drought mitigation across Montana. Her experience in the natural resources sector also includes work on critical habitat for threatened and endangered species and fisheries management in the Pacific. Tess has a BS in Ecology and Evolution from Stanford University. She resides in Bend, Oregon.
Email Tess
Alex Ehrens, Project Associate
Alex developed his passion for water resources upon moving from Chicago to California during one of the state’s worst droughts on record. He witnessed the effects of water scarcity on people and the environment and set out with the goal of understanding and developing solutions to the important water challenges facing California and the West. He earned a BS degree in Hydrological Sciences and a Master of Environmental Science & Management degree in Water Resources Management from the Bren School, both at UC Santa Barbara. For his master’s thesis, he identified opportunities in California’s Central Valley where floodplain restoration could achieve multiple benefits for flood risk reduction, ecosystem enhancement, and groundwater recharge. In an internship with the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California, he studied the impacts of groundwater management policy on agricultural water users. He has also performed field assessments of aquatic habitat health for endangered Steelhead trout in backcountry streams in Los Padres National Forest. After spending 9 years in Santa Barbara, he currently resides in Bend, OR.
email alex
Kim Leland-Walker, Project Accountant/Office Manager
Kim was born and raised in the Willamette Valley when the hills were full of trees and farms before they were covered in their famous vineyards. From age five she spent her summer days fishing with her father in his dory boat on the Pacific Ocean, exploring the beaches of Pacific City, and wandering the dunes along the banks of the Nestucca river. After high school, she ventured to Alaska to commercial fish for salmon and crab. These coastal pursuits led her back to Oregon to complete a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at Portland State University. Her resume includes work in wetland, watershed and estuarine restoration, fisheries and habitat
management, and marine renewable energy. She has worked for the Tillamook Bay National Estuary Partnership, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Johnson Creek Watershed Council, National Marine Fisheries Service, and several environmental and natural resources consulting firms. She currently lives outside of Sisters, Oregon with her favorite adventure companion, a yellow Labrador named Teton (named after her favorite non-Oregon mountain range). When she is not working you will find her skiing, biking, hiking, backpacking, paddling her kayak or SUP, and traveling random forest service roads in her self-built camper van to find the magical places that lie beyond the end of the road.
