Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project
Board of Directors
MPPP Board of Directors
Milner Plaza, Santa Fe 2024
Photo by Norman Doggett
Ten volunteers serve on the MPPP Board of Directors to plan, implement and oversee all of the MPPP activities as well as manage the Wells Petroglyph Preserve.
Alec Kercsó - President
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Having served just a bit over a year as a MPPP Board member, Alec agreed to accept the office of President. Alec fell in love with the Southwest during a series of National Parks road trips, visiting the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Keet Seel and several other archaeological sites. He returned home to California from these trips with new interests in Native American flutes (which he began building in his workshop), and petroglyphs. These interests, in turn, brought him and his
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wife, Sue, to the Wells Petroglyph Preserve for its annual Flute Player Tour in October of 2014. They returned for the tour again in 2015, and in December of that year, sold their house in California and moved to Santa Fe.
Alec’s professional background is as a software developer, starting as a computer games programmer with a well-known game company in the early 80s. A veteran of numerous Silicon Valley startups, he has worked in such diverse industries as logistics, biotech, healthcare, and accounting. He earned a B.A. in linguistics from UC San Diego, and his MBA from Duke University.
Alec has been an avid sailor, backpacker and snowboarder, and loves his new proximity to the Santa Fe Ski Bowl.
Dr. Linda Brown - Vice President
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As a professional anthropological archaeologist, she has conducted research in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras as well as the American Southwest. Her attraction to Mesa Prieta is an extension of a longstanding research interest in sacred sites and objects. Her dissertation project focused on the meanings and uses of topographical features in the cultural landscape, understood as animate by contemporary Maya ritual practitioners in the Guatemalan Highlands. Later she continued this collaborative research looking at the pivotal roles played by sacred objects, which include antiquities, in cultural preservation.
Currently, Linda leads the ethnographic component of research entitled Murals in Landscape: An Investigation of Human-Nature Relationships in Maya Myth and Design at San Bartolo, Guatemala.
Jan Martensen - Secretary
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Jan first visited MPPP on a public tour in October 2009 and was immediately entranced. She learned of a need for help with the databases used in the MPPP office and signed on, subsequently helping organize the library, both physically and digitally, logging in visitors, and tracking volunteer hours. She trained as a docent and for the last year has handled the merchandise table at the end of tours.
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She and her husband Russell moved to Taos in 2007 from Bethesda, Maryland, where they were both biomedical researchers at the National Institutes of Health. They enjoy road trips throughout the west, with an emphasis on geology and wildflowers, in addition to travels abroad.
For many years Jan served on the board of Los Jardineros, the garden club of Taos, performing various functions such as program organizer, corresponding secretary, and website manager. She has served as the president of the Taos Chapter/Native Plant Society of New Mexico and also serves as the chapter representative to the state board of NPSNM.
Sue Johnston - Treasurer
First learning about the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project from Katherine's memoir, Life on the Rocks: One Woman’s Adventures in Petroglyph Preservation, Sue could hardly wait to visit. And after viewing the petroglyphs, she became totally impressed both with the site and the individuals who work so diligently to protect it.
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Sue's most recent position was on the executive staff of a non-profit in the San Francisco Bay Area serving as its CFO. Prior to that she worked with healthcare and technology related start-up businesses serving in financial, strategic, and management roles. A fifth generation Oklahoman, Sue graduated from Oklahoma State University and received an MBA from Duke University. She loved the Southwest her entire life and finds Mesa Prieta to be a very special place.
Dr. Matthew Martinez - Executive Director
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We are very happy to announce that board member, Matthew Martinez has accepted the position of Executive Director of Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project. Dr. Martinez joined the MPPP Board of Directors in 2014 as a Member At Large.
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Studies and petroglyph histories. His knowledge and insight into the history of the area, as well as his vision, are invaluable and we are grateful for his contributions, both in the past and for the future of the project.
Dr. Martinez received his Ph.D. in 2008 from the University of Minnesota in American Studies and American Indian Studies, M.A. in 2000 from Arizona State University in Political Science as well earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of New Mexico in 1997.
Katherine Wells - Founder
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National Heritage Award for Lifetime Achievement!
In 2007 she gave the 156 acres of land that has become known as the Wells Petroglyph Preserve to The Archaeological Conservancy. Her memoir, Life on the Rocks: One Woman’s Adventures in Petroglyph Preservation, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2009. Katherine is a mixed-media artist and has provided the Project with extensive graphic design models over the years based on images found on the mesa.
Members At Large
Norman Doggett
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Norman retired as a scientist in the Bioscience Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory and has lived in the Española Valley for the past 26 years. His work at LANL has included research for the Human Genome Project, diagnostic assay development for the CDC and DHS, and environmental microbiology projects.
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For the past many years, Norman has provided excellent photographic images of petroglyphs from across the mesa for the annual MPPP calendar. In 2024, he donated more than 50 original images of petroglyphs on Mesa Prieta for the 25th Anniversary - 25 Years on the Rocks - Stories of Long Ago Told. The Bond House Museum in Espanola featured the exhibit for three months during the anniversary celebrations. Executive Director Matthew Martinez provided narration for the exhibit.
Norman joined the MPPP Board in 2015 as a Member at Large and served as secretary for five years. He has served as co-President of the Española Valley Opera Guild from 2000-2014 and has been a volunteer for the Española Valley Humane Society for many years.
Pat Roach
Pat has lived in NM since 2003, having relocated from New York City. She has been a volunteer for many organizations: Rancho de Las Golondrinas, Wheelwright Museum, Interfaith Shelter for the Homeless, various musical groups and of course, Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project!
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Pat began her MPPP career as a recorder, helped with the Summer Youth Intern Program for many years, and eventually became a docent, leading tours of the Wells Petroglyph Preserve. If that is not enough - she also helps with various administrative tasks in the office. Pat is co-chair of the MPPP Development Committee which plans all the outreach and fundraising activities for the Project.
Pat was raised on a farm; she graduated from Ohio State University and Wright State University. She has had several different careers: dental hygienist, politician, teacher, and several different management jobs, primarily in the political world.
Candie Borduin
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Candie has been with MPPP for 23 years, one of the longest active volunteers, and is responsible for driving our monumental recording effort. Until 2019, she has provided yearly training to our volunteer recording teams and continues to support and manage their assignments across the many proveniences of Mesa Prieta.
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with recorders on Mesa Prieta and in 2017, was recognized by the New Mexico Archaeological Society with a Bice Award for Archaeological Achievement. In 2024, she and her husband and partner on the mesa, Lee, received a second Heritage Preservation Award for Individual Achievement recognizing the 22 years of volunteer effort with MPPP.
Formerly a registered nurse retiring after 37 years, Candie's years of experience developing and leading programs and her involvement with patient and staff education have been an asset to her activities with the project. She also has been a long time member of the Santa Fe National Forest Site Steward program since 2000.
Candie has volunteered with MPPP for over 23 years and served as a petroglyph recorder, board of directors member, web site manager and since 2008, the project Petroglyph Recording Coordinator. She considers working on the mesa to be a rare privilege and the opportunity to work with MPPP volunteers to be equally rewarding.
Laurie Gunst Santa Fean Laurie Gunst joined the Mesa Prieta Board of Directors in June, 2025.
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thirty summers and six winters in Wyoming. There, she was fortunate to meet and become friends with Native people who invited her to Shoshone and Arapaho “doings,” and took her to see the magnificent petroglyphs in the Wind River Basin.
As Laurie’s head spun and her heart shifted, she struggled to integrate these new ways of seeing into her academic work. How would she find a bridge between her original field of study, sixteenth-century Europe, and the Americas? The answer came in 1979, when a friend invited her to Taos and, on Christmas Eve, took her Taos Pueblo for Matachines. There, Laurie found her long-sought bridge: the dance that commemorates the epic encounter between Moctezuma and Cortes, while creating its own indelible version of that event.
Deeply influenced by her time in New Mexico, Laurie wrote her doctoral dissertation on the sixteenth-century Spanish visionary Bartolome de Las Casas (1484-1566), the first European to champion Indigenous rights. She went on to publish two nonfiction books: Born Fi’ Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld, a journalistic expose of the secret ties between that country’s politicians and its outlaw gangs; and Off-White, a memoir of her family and the woman of color who helped to raise her.
Laurie has been a full-time resident of Santa Fe since 2012. In addition to writing and teaching workshops on creative nonfiction, she’s involved with Community Palliative Care of Northern New Mexico, reflecting her concern with providing health care for the most vulnerable members of our community. She began visiting Mesa Prieta five years ago, and continues to be awed and uplifted by this site. Her favorite description of Mesa Prieta’s extraordinary power can be found in these words from the great Polly Schaafsma: “These images themselves are perceived as active agents, attracting the pictured forces, sanctifying place, and facilitating communication with resident spirits.”
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Alison Youngs
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