Ashley Muench 
In October of 2007, Ashley’s family moved from the city of Fond du Lac to the countryside. Up until then, she wasn’t a nature person, but fishing, her family's new house, traveling, and her later educational experiences slowly changed that. Her land and watershed conservancy interests didn’t fully begin to unfold until her adult years. Once thinking she could be a waitress forever, she obtained her Associate’s degree in Arts and Science in 2021, where all it took was two environmental science classes to open Ashley’s eyes to the real crises that ecosystems face and carve her career path.

Since then, Ashley has volunteered with the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, assisting with water quality and aquatic invasive species monitoring, among other tasks. She’s a site leader for the Annual Fox-Wolf Watershed Cleanup, guiding volunteers to clean up trash in efforts toward trash-free waters. Over the years, her volunteers have cleaned up more than 900 pounds of trash from local waterways! She worked in various research positions, ranging from QA/QC to lead data analyst, which put her in the field and in the lab. Her focus areas were implementing a lab procedure for PFAS analysis between UW-Green Bay and UW-Milwaukee and addressing how runoff, rain, and restoration affect stream water quality in Manitowoc, WI.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Environmental Engineering Technology from UW-Green Bay. In addition, she is working on a research project addressing how manure-spreading regulations impact groundwater quality in Northeastern Wisconsin. She hopes to get her research published.

    Ashley started with GLC as an intern in 2023 and slowly worked her way up to Land Manager and Water Quality Monitoring Coordinator. She spearheaded and continues to build and refine water quality testing protocols across our public preserves. In addition, she assists with conservation easements, coordinates various projects, assists with land stewardship activities, writes grants, and works closely with volunteers and interns.

In her free time, she likes to travel, cook, bake, hike, spend time with her cats, go to the gym, and she’s known for her cake pops.