Chris Smith - Chair
Chris grew up in Southwest Oklahoma and developed a love for the outdoors early in life. His father and grandfather taught him how to hunt turkey, quail and deer, as well as fish the local waters during his childhood. At a very young age he was given his first bow and began his lifelong pursuit of bowhunting big game.
He moved to Houston with his family in 2003 after completing an M.B.A. from Oklahoma State University, and fell in love with saltwater kayak fishing while exploring the coastal bayous of the area. Later in life, Chris began to travel West to hunt and fish in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and Arizona. He is passionate about being an advocate for public lands, water and conservation, and is honored to serve on the board of the Texas chapter.
Judson Brown - Vice Chair
Judson is a native Texan and grew up camping, fishing, and enjoying many other outdoor activities across the state. As a student at Texas A&M, he began waterfowl hunting on nearby public land and served on the board of the Texas A&M Ducks Unlimited chapter, where he became a conservationist.
As an adult, he continues to hunt and fish, bringing his friends and family with him to share his experiences firsthand. More recently, he was inspired to seek new adventures and grow as an outdoorsman. He joined BHA to give back to the resources he enjoys and help ensure these opportunities remain available to everyone.
Matt Lewis - Treasurer
Matt is honored to join the Texas BHA board to promote BHA's mission, expand learning opportunities for new hunters (like himself), and support the expansion, conservation, and maintenance of our public lands.
Ryan Buege - Secretary
Ryan grew up in the outdoors of Wisconsin, camping, hiking, hunting, and fishing. He joined the Army shortly after high school, bringing him to Texas. While stationed in central Texas, he fell in love with the state and what it offers for outdoor opportunities.
Ryan enjoys hunting ducks and turkeys around Central Texas. He is passionate about protecting the public lands and waters we have to save them for future generations. He wants to further spread the public land and conservation messages to people through education and conservation. He is honored to be a part of the Texas BHA Board.
John Sertel - R3 Chair
John grew up in Georgia and moved to Texas in 1998. He fished and explored the North Georgia mountains with his Granddaddy and went on the occasional dove hunt as a child. John’s passion grew stronger when he found waterfowl hunting. He started chasing whitetails about 10 years ago in Texas and picked up a bow a few years later. John now lives in central Texas with his wife and two daughters.
John is passionate about the BHA mission. As a certified “Huntmaster,” he has enjoyed organizing and leading hunts for the BHA/TWA Adult Mentored Hunting Program. As R3 Chair, John will focus on providing more hunting and education opportunities to novice hunters interested in keeping the Texas hunting heritage alive.
Jake Walker - Poicy Chair
Jake is a fifth-generation Texan who grew up hunting and fishing private land between the upper forks of the Brazos River on the fringe of West Texas. He had his first Western public land experience in college on a family trip to the Rio Grande National Forest, which sparked an obsession with conservation and the American West. He cherishes yearly opportunities to chase trout in the San Juans of Southern Colorado, but most of his time outdoors is spend floating and fishing on the public waterways of Central Texas, where he lives.
Jake is committed to protecting public land and water access throughout the state and out West, so all people – living and yet to come – can enjoy the beautiful, wild, and quiet places from where he draws so much inspiration.
Logan Hope - Stewardship Chair
Born and raised in the piney woods just outside of Nacogdoches, Texas, Logan is a lifelong outdoorsman who believes being outside is necessary. Growing up, he was an avid hunter and fisherman, fishing for catfish and bluegill on local ponds and chasing white-tailed deer and ducks.
Logan grew up with little access to public land and learned to obtain hunting and fishing permission from various landowners to pursue his hunting interests. He also lived in Washington State, where he developed an understanding of the balance that private and public lands play in the betterment of the ecosystem as a whole. He learned the importance of different land uses and how they interact with each other to enhance public access and wildlife habitat.
Logan served on the Washington BHA board as a Conservation and Policy Leader for two years before returning home to Texas. He holds a degree in Timber Management from Stephen F. Austin University and currently resides in Beaumont, Texas, working as a forester.
Shane Bonnot - Board Member at Large
As a sixth-generation Texan, Shane grew up hunting and fishing near the coast. He graduated from Texas A&M University with an Animal Science degree and later received a Master of Science degree from Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. After college, he worked for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science as the oyster hatchery manager. In 2006, he moved back to Texas to work for Texas Parks and Wildlife, spending five years as hatchery biologist and another five years as hatchery manager. He currently works as the Advocacy Director for Coastal Conservation Association - Texas.
Shane enjoys hunting public lands and is fortunate to have family property in Jackson County, where he pursues whitetail and wild pigs. He lives with his wife and three children in Lake Jackson.
Dell Bennett - Texas Armed Forces Initiative Liaison
Dell grew up in a military family, and has been active duty Coast Guard for over 14 years. Dell has used his military travels to his advantage throughout his career like fishing for native Bonneville Cutthroats while TDY in Utah.
Dell originally joined BHA to be a part of the Armed Forces Initiative. Moving constantly in the military makes it tough to keep momentum hunting and fishing and AFI helped keep the momentum for Dell. This is an important and current issue for service members and Dell aims to ease the accessibility to the outdoors for all service members.
Dell is currently stationed outside of Houston where he enjoys dove and waterfowl hunting, as well as fishing and crabbing in Texas’s coastal wetlands.
Tim McArthur - Social Media Manager
Originally from the panhandle of Idaho, Tim grew up camping, hunting, and fishing on the many public lands the state has to offer. Some of his earliest outdoor memories involve hunting ruffed grouse with his father on reclaimed logging areas or snowshoeing through the woods following moose tracks after a fresh snow. Tim has a passion for wild things, wild places, and the right for folks to have access to the things that shaped much of his youth. Now a long time BHA member, he’s incredibly excited for the opportunity to help bring awareness to BHA’s mission and do his part to ensure the future of hunting, fishing, and the incredible public lands we enjoy.
Residing in Austin, Tim spends much of his time fly fishing the numerous Hill Country rivers, streams, and creeks for native fish. In the fall you’ll find him hunting doves and whitetail, with hopes of adding waterfowl and upland game to the list very soon.
Tim Strickland, Board Member at Large
Tim's father introduced me to hunting and fishing. He was an avid hunter and fished to feed our family. He waterfowl hunted in southern Illinois and each year made a trek to Wyoming to hunt antelope and mule deer with his dear friend- faculty member at the University of Wyoming. Tim's father introduced him to fishing at a young age and then to upland bird hunting and gun dogs. Once he could drive, my buddies and I would hunt public access land for waterfowl.
Tim's dad took me on my first big game hunt to Wyoming when I was 16. That trip got me hooked on the wide open spaces of the West and the Rocky Mountains. Public access passion came from water fowling along the upper Tx coast in refuges open to the public and big game hunting in Wyoming.
Tim went to Texas Tech University and pursued a degree in Wildlife Management, following his passion and graduated from Tech in 1988. He came back to SE Texas for law school at UH Law Center, during which he worked as a biologist technician for TPWD-Coastal Fisheries division out of the Seabrook Lab on Galveston Bay.
Tim was also a fishing guide in the early ‘90’s but the law thing started to take all my time. His passion remains duck hunting and wade fishing along the entire TX Coast. He lives near Galveston Bay, about ½ way between Houston and Galveston with a female wire haired pointer named Storm and a big male black Lab named Caz. He has two adult sons and is expecting to be a grandfather soon.
Regional Coordinators
Gaylon Kilcrease - Region 1 Coordinator
Gaylon was born and raised in southeast Arkansas, and grew up pursuing bass, crappie, catfish, doves, squirrels, waterfowl, and white-tailed deer thanks to his mom making sure that he and his older brother never missed a fishing or hunting trip with their grandpa or uncles. Being born in a region with a culture that placed value on the outdoors and its bounty seemed to be the natural order and a way of life for him for over 30 years.
After relocating to the DFW metroplex in Texas for work in 2016, Gaylon quickly discovered that his perceived natural order did not exist everywhere! The realization that Texas land access was cumbersome and expensive led Gaylon to research ways to hunt public land in Texas and he soon discovered BHA. Since that discovery, Gaylon has been a dedicated volunteer for BHA R3 programs and has volunteered with other conservation groups to preserve and improve habitat for native species as well as open the outdoors for those that weren’t fortunate enough to have been born into an outdoors family like he was.
Gaylon lives with his wife of over 20 years and their 16-year-old daughter in Fort Worth, TX, and you can catch him slipping back to Arkansas every fall to chase whitetails in a national forest if he isn’t lucky enough to draw a tag in Texas or out west!
Reagan Evans - Region 2 Coordinator
Reagan grew up camping, fishing, and hiking in Texas as well as the East and West coasts. He then arrived at the hunting table after being introduced as a young adult. His interest grew as he and his son began hunting together which lead to Reagan volunteering to guide youth hunts helping introduce other kids to the sport.
As Reagan learned firsthand about the challenges facing new hunters in Texas he sought out ways to help advocate for hunters and anglers. He believes the next generation of hunters and anglers will need an understanding of how to support conservation efforts in Texas, as well as access to public lands and waters.
Reagan currently resides in the Texas hill country, where he enjoys all manner of outdoor pursuits with his wife, children, and their dogs.
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Contact the Texas Chapter Board
Contact Western Field Director Katie DeLorenzo
Joel Smith, Board Member Emeritus
Joel grew up fishing with his family on the Texas coast and has always had a love for the outdoors. Encouraged by the locavore movement, Joel’s passion for procuring his own food led him to learn to hunt, process his own meat, garden, and cook all sorts of wild game.
As an adult onset hunter, Joel is passionate about removing the barriers to entry to the hunting world that some people find so hard to overcome. He prides himself on being available to anyone looking for help. As a board member, his goals are to help with adult hunter recruitment programs, support hunter retention, help broadcast the public lands conservation message to more Texans, and to be a voice for the conservation ethos espoused by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.