Raquel E. Aviles (Chair) was born and raised in Tucson, AZ. She is the mother of three (David Jr., Emmaleen and Anthony) and wife to David Aviles. Raquel is a tribal citizen of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona. She has devoted most of her life to serving her tribe and community in various services of health and wellness. She completed her Bachelors in Organizational Studies and Masters of Healthcare Innovation at Arizona State University.

John Mclean (Vice Chair) has a life-long passion for the Sonoran desert, and has spent many years exploring the bounty and diversity of this habitat on both sides of the border. Trained as a mathematician, John enjoyed a thirty-five year career developing high-resolution remote sensing systems. He has held a variety of executive and board positions for both corporate and non-profit organizations. John is currently raising various heirloom crops on the banks of Sabino Creek.  

Bill McGuire is retired from a long career of technical consulting in the banking sector and 10 years of university teaching prior to that. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Current interests include arid lands gardening, desert native bees, British cars from the 50’s and 60’s, and creative tinkering.

Joy Hought (Executive Director) has built her career as an executive, researcher, educator, and author, having received a Master of Science in agroecology from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Joy pursued fieldwork in northern Europe and Cambodia before arriving in Arizona to explore low-input agriculture and on-farm conservation. She has co-authored several journal articles as well as the book Saving Seeds in the Southwest: Techniques for Seed Stewardship in Aridlands.

Joy’s focus is in leveraging Native Seeds/SEARCH’S resources in support of cultural restoration for Native American farmers, economic development, youth agricultural training, and direct local access to nutrition to address food insecurity.                       

Noah Schlager (Conservation Program Manager) has worked for several years on deconstructing the colonial legacies which have historically excluded Indigenous people from participating in western conservation, and to see spaces opened up for Indigenous people to have the agency and discretion to practice and share (or not share) our Indigenous knowledges around caring for plants and the land. In his capacity at NS/S, Noah is working to integrate the conservation of the collection’s seeds with the support and development of Native American farmers and their communities. Through his mother, Donna Wiggins, he is Mvskoke-Creek and Florida Catawba/Cheraw— mixed with Carolina Indian, West African, and European Settler heritage. Through his father, Dan Schlager, he is Jewish, his family settling in Colorado as refugees of the Eastern European pogroms. Noah’s maternal grandmother, Mama Nell Wiggins, was the one who first taught him to garden, forage, and cook foods that have been in his family since time immemorial. Out of the passion she and other elders have planted in him, he works to support his and other communities’ Indigenous foodways and relationships to the land. Noah received his Masters of Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is grateful to be working on the lands of the Tohono O’odham and Yaqui, and takes seriously the responsibility to care for the plant relatives of Indigenous nations and communities across the greater Southwest. 

Sheryl Joy (Collections Curator) works to organize the thousands of samples in the seed bank, assists in maintaining the health of the collection, and helps to connect the seeds with the people who need them. Sheryl has been on staff with NS/S for 6 years in several roles including retail store staff, accounting assistant, and Seed Distribution Coordinator before taking on her current role. This time spent working with the seeds and with other experienced staff has given her a strong working knowledge of the collection. Sheryl has a BS in Sociology from the University of South Florida, and a Masters of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Laura Jones (Distribution Manager) provides oversight to our volunteer and distribution programs. In the eight years she has been with us, Laura has served in a variety of roles, from doing pollinations at our Conservation Farm, to coordinating bulk foods, and most recently, serving as Interim Executive Director. Laura has a B.S. in Environmental Studies and is an alumna of AmeriCorps.