Our Team

Kayla Bergman has served as a Story SWCD Commissioner since 2020 and served as an Assistant Commissioner for several years prior. Kayla grew up on a family farm in Lee County, IA and went to Iowa State University for a degree in Animal Ecology. She spent the first part of her career in watershed management and then worked in federal ag policy for several years. In 2023, she joined the team at Innovative Ag Services as the Sustainability Lead. In that role, she supports customers implementing conservation practices to ensure profitability and success by enrolling them in private market and publicly-funded financial assistance programs. Kayla and her husband Ryan, along with their dogs Rylee and Bailee, live south of Nevada— where they have CRP that was established in 2021.  

Alisha Bower currently resides in Franklin Township but was raised on a small hobby farm in southwestern Wisconsin’s picturesque Driftless Region. She has served on the Soil and Water Conservation District board first as an assistant commissioner in 2017-2018, and as an elected commissioner from 2018-2024. She is the senior operations director at Practical Farmers of Iowa where she has worked since 2017. Prior to moving to Iowa to join PFI, she worked in several other agricultural non-profits including Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America and the Liberty Prairie Foundation. Outside of work, Alisha enjoys gardening, singing with community choral groups, hiking with her dog and kayaking Story County's lakes and rivers.

Selden Spencer, a semi-retired doctor who relocated to Huxley in 1990, dedicated his career to the McFarland Clinic in Ames until 2024, and alongside his wife, they own farmland in Hamilton County; he was elected to the Story County Soil and Water Commission around 2012 and is passionate about promoting soil preservation and water quality improvement, appreciating the various state and federal programs that support these efforts.

Stephen is a designer, educator, farmer, and fierce advocate for regenerative agriculture. After a stint playing bass in a punk band, Stephen began his career in graphic design, eventually working his way up to vice president in the experiential design and advertising industry, and then, Chief Marketing Officer of an international development agency. During his time as CMO, he and his family moved to their family farm in Iowa with the hopes of making it more sustainable and diverse. Currently, Stephen runs ideaFarm studios, a design, branding, and strategy company, is an adjunct instructor in the graphic design department at DMACC, and raises and markets his family farms grass-fed and finished beef. 

Mark Tjelmeland has been a commissioner for the past 18 years.  He and His wife, Connie, are partially retired organic farmers who live near McCallsburg in northern Story County.  They currently crop-share their land with another organic farm.  Over the years they have implemented several conservation practices on their land.  The farm currently produces organic corn, soybeans, oats, and hay.

     Mark has had a long-term interest in soil and water conservation since about age 12 when he remembers his parents explaining the significance of the thickness of topsoil on different parts of their farm.  At the same time his sixth-grade class was studying soil loss and stream infiltration.  He was greatly impressed by what he saw as the rich soil resource being eroded on the tops of the hills on their farm.  This triggered his life-long learning about the tremendous loss of topsoil on Iowa farms and the use of conservation practices.

    Currently Story County SWCD helps to support early conservation education through Prairie Rivers of Iowa (RC&D) and ISU Water Rocks school programming.  It is one of the many and varied SWCD conservation education efforts.  Mark feels strongly that the value of early conservation education should never be underestimated