Chris was born in the Flushing Creek watershed (Forest Hills, New York), raised in the Rahway River watershed (Cranford, New Jersey) and has lived in the Gastineau Channel watershed (Juneau, Alaska) since 1991. He studied two years of forestry at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks (1979-1981), earned a B.S. in Natural Resources Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (1981-1985) and received a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Alaska Anchorage (1986-1987). He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer at Sapo National Park near Juarzon, Liberia (1987-1989).

Chris worked for the Environmental Protection Agency from 1990 to 2018, and performed a variety of jobs including: managing multi-million dollar grant programs for water pollution control; writing safe drinking water regulations; protecting water quality and fish habitat throughout the Tongass National Forest; promoting tools for watershed science and watershed management; preserving aquatic resources and wetlands in Southeast Alaska; and regulating ocean dumping. He joined the SAWC board of directors in 2019.