The Red Deer River Watershed Alliance would like to acknowledge and thank RDRWA staff members Kelly Dodds and Rosemarie Ferjuc, who are both celebrating milestone anniversaries with the Alliance this fall. 

As a core RDRWA team member, and representative of a provincial Watershed Planning and Advisory Council (WPAC), you can expect to wear many different hats; tackling everything from watershed planning to stakeholder engagement to briefing government ministers to mentoring post-secondary students and even being the unofficial office health and safety manager in the midst of a global pandemic. Indeed, the only certainty is that no two days are ever the same, and it is this diversity of new challenges that are part of what Kelly and Rosemarie feel makes working for the Alliance so enjoyable. 

Many of you know Kelly Dodds, our Executive Assistant at the RDRWA, who is celebrating 10 years with the organization. Since she was hired by the Alliance in 2012, Kelly has had the privilege of establishing positive working relationships with many great people over the years. Kelly has been instrumental in working with our members and helping to assist with the coordination of many core events during her time with the RDRWA.  

We asked Kelly to reflect on some of her favorite moments with the RDRWA over the past 10 years, a few of which include :

• RDRWA’s Dry Island Buffalo Jump Hike
• 10 Year RDRWA Anniversary Float
• Project Blue Thumb – Action Pathways Workshops
• Tea at the Confluence

Kelly is very proud to be a part of a dynamic organization that continues to create meaningful ripples throughout our watershed and looks forward to continuing to work with this amazing team of staff and board members in the years to come.

Many of our partners and stakeholders have also come to know Rosemarie Ferjuc, our Watershed Engagement and Communications Manager, who is celebrating 5 years with the RDRWA. Rosemarie was hired by the Alliance in 2017 for her extensive science and communications expertise and to lead the work of the Alliance’s new strategic focus on engagement and communications.

Rosemarie’s position with the RDRWA has been pivotal in bridging the role of watershed planning with focused communications messaging and implementation, and an integral part of her role is dedicated to collaborating with key municipal and provincial stakeholders and communities, and leading on strategic watershed-focused planning and communications within the Red Deer River watershed to ensure that the RDRWA continues to build new momentum and narratives around local, regional and provincial water and land use issues and policy. 

We asked Rosemarie to reflect on some of her favourite moments with the Alliance over the past 5 years, a few of which include:

• Organizing a watershed bus tour for municipal elected officials.
• Working on the 10 Year review of the South Saskatchewan River Basin Approved Water Management Plan with SSRB WPACs and stakeholders.
• Mentoring post-secondary/elementary students studying wetlands, land and water issues.
• Filming Source Waters and travelling by horseback to the headwaters of the Red Deer River in the Skoki Valley in Banff National Park. 

Rosemarie is thankful for the opportunity to have built strong relationships with many groups and people across the watershed, and values being able to contribute to many diverse issues and projects over the past 5 years. She looks forward to continuing to work with an incredible team of talented staff, Board and committee members, partners and community members in support of collaborative watershed management and is proud of what we’ve accomplished together over the last 5 years. 

Once again congratulations to Kelly and Rosemarie on reaching these milestones! On behalf of the staff, Board of Directors and members, we would like to thank them for their dedication and time with the organization.