Staff Members

Krista McDermid
President & Owner
Krista is responsible for managing complex environmental compliance projects from proposal through completion and has developed a deep familiarity with the regulatory framework surrounding endangered species. Krista has performed surveys for candidate and listed mussel, avian, herp, and karst species on thousands of acres in central Texas and in several national parks including Yosemite and Grand Canyon. Her expertise includes the development of Natural Resource Management Plans, Habitat Conservation Plans, NEPA documentation, Aquatic Resource Relocation Plans, and consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As President of Zara, Krista is responsible for overseeing the entire Zara team, ensuring excellence in Zara’s responsiveness and product quality, and fostering internal and external opportunities for collaboration.
Rachel Barlow
Vice President
Rachel is a consultation specialist with an extensive background performing surveys and mapping for federally listed species. Rachel has conducted numerous wetland delineations and co-authored a variety of NEPA documents during her consulting career.  She is pre-certified to conduct wetland delineations, protected species determinations, and biological surveys.  Prior to joining Zara, Rachel worked as a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where she authored 90-day findings for the Jollyville Plateau salamander (Eurycea tonkawae) and the San Felipe Gambusia (Gambusia clarkhubbsi) and co-authored the 12-month finding for the Jollyville Plateau salamander and Critical Habitat designation for the Devil’s River
Jean Krejca, Ph.D.
Founder
Dr. Jean Krejca specializes in karst biology and co-founded Zara with Peter Sprouse in 2003. She holds USFWS endangered species permit (TE028652-0). Dr. Krejca's doctoral research focused on troglobites of Texas and Mexico. Dr. Krejca received a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Read More
Peter Sprouse
Founder
Peter Sprouse is a cave management specialist and co-founded Zara with Dr. Krejca in 2003.  He holds USFWS Permit number TE014168-0 as well as Texas Department of Agriculture pest control license number 0362274. Peter has been exploring and studying caves since 1970, having led the exploration of Sistema Purificación in Mexico, one of the longest and deepest caves in the world. He began collecting cave fauna for study by taxonomists in 1977. He attended the University of Texas at Austin in 1974 as a geology major, and since 1991 he has worked professionally in the fields of cave biology, management, and cartography.

Read More
Barrett Clark
Senior Project Manager &
​Senior Biologist​
Barrett joined the Zara family in July 2014. Barrett has both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degree from Louisiana Tech University. He has extensive experience conducting and managing a wide range of ecological and environmental compliance projects for a variety of clients including communications, chemical, energy, pipeline, seismic, and electrical transmission companies; transportation departments; municipalities; utility and water districts; and other federal, state, and county/local agencies.
          
Read More
Liza Colucci
Project Manager
Liza holds a Master’s of Science degree in Environmental Sciences from University of New Haven, Connecticut, and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology and Environmental Chemistry from Roger Williams University, Rhode Island. Liza has a decade of experience working with endangered species in central Texas as a conservation biologist with the City of Austin. She has extensive experience monitoring Eurycea salamander species, restoring endangered species habitats, and monitoring ecosystem health. Liza’s experience includes developing habitat conservation plans, biological assessments, and research projects with endangered species. 

Read More
Wendy Dickerson
GIS Analyst &
​Technical Editor
Wendy joined the Zara family in September 2014. She is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst with concurrent experience in document creation, technical editing, and environmental data collection. Wendy holds a Bachelor of Science in Geography with an Environmental Science emphasis from Texas A&M University, College Station.

Read More
Lisa Flynn
Office Manager
Lisa joined the Zara family in March of 2018. Lisa graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver receiving her BA in Speech and Mass Communications. Prior to coming to Zara, Lisa spent over 14 years providing office management, HR & bookkeeping for start-up companies in Austin’s thriving software technology community.
 
Lisa loves the outdoors, camping, hiking and spending time at the coast with her family and friends. 
​
Aubri Jenson, Ph.D.
Hydrogeologist
Aubri earned a B.S. in Geology from Bucknell University, PA in 2007, following which she gained six years of experience as an environmental consultant at an engineering firm in Austin, Texas. She obtained her PhD in Aquatic Resources and Integrated Biology from Texas State University in December 2019. Her research examined speleogenesis and hydrogeologic properties of a coastal karst aquifer in Quintana Roo, Mexico. ​ Prior to graduate school, Aubri gained six years of experience as an environmental consultant in Austin, Texas. She has worked on a wide variety of projects related to oil & gas development and environmental remediation in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. 

Read More
Jimmy MacMillan
Staff Scientist, Safety Officer & Lead Diver
Jimmy is a certified commercial diver with over a decade of technical underwater experience supporting engineering and scientific projects. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Marine and Freshwater Biology from the University of Texas, Austin where he focused on the effects of anthropogenic outflows on estuarine systems from Texas to Mexico. His responsibilities as an staff scientist at Zara include conducting surveys for threatened and endangered species, cataloging data and specimen samples, statistical analyses, aiding in geological assessments and karst investigations, leading field work and document preparation. 
​
Read More
Jeremy Maikoetter
Project Manager
Jeremy has a Bachelor of Science in Aquatic Biology and a Master of Science in Aquatic Resources from Texas State University. Jeremy’s previous experience has focused on aquatic ecology, including life history, physiology and community ecology of fishes, benthic macroinvertebrates and freshwater mussels. He also has experience with karst invertebrates. He holds a Texas Parks and Wildlife Scientific Research Permit (SPR-1019-168) to collect and study freshwater fishes and mussels as well as a USFWS permit for endangered karst invertebrates.

Read More
Kara Posso
Geologist
As a proud Austin native, Kara earned a B.S. in Environmental Science with an emphasis on geology from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin in 2017. She is a Texas Registered Professional Geoscientist (PG #15382) and a USFWS 10a permitted biologist (ESPER0004042) for endangered karst invertebrates working with Zara Environmental LLC. Her experience with environmental compliance and conservation includes geologic assessments, void mitigation packages, presence/absence surveys for endangered karst species, freshwater mussels, and golden cheeked warbler, biological and hydrological monitoring, water quality sampling, invasive species control, regional habitat conservation plan applications, environmental resource inventories, geophysical (electrical resistivity) surveys, GIS analysis and cartography, cave mapping and cartography, and phase I environmental site assessments. In her free time, Kara participates in national and international cave exploration expeditions and seeks to advance her knowledge in the broad science of speleology.
Barbara Rutherford
Bookkeeper
Barbara joined Zara as a bookkeeper in May of 2019.  Barbara graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Special Education from the University of Texas at Austin.  After teaching for a number of years, she left the profession to raise three children.  As a hobby caver, Barbara has spent time with her husband exploring caves in Texas and Mexico.
Most recently, Barbara, together with her husband, owned and operated CaveSkinz, providing custom clothing, cave packs, and bags to the caving community.  They also manufactured custom collection nets for environmental companies and US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Lucas Pustka
Biologist
Lucas joined the Zara family in May 2019. He holds a B.S. in Aquatic Biology and a M.S. in Aquatic Resources from Texas State University. He specializes in population genetics, endangered and threatened species, with an emphasis on ecological research. His experience includes natural resource management and monitoring, bio monitoring, data collection and statistical interpretation. The threatened and endangered species he has worked with include Texas Pimpleback (Cyclonaias petrina), Texas Fawnsfoot (Truncilla macrodon), Fountain Darter (Etheostoma fonticola) and various endangered karst invertebrates. Lucas has experience in genotype-environment associations (GEA) partitioning the genetic contributions of geographical space and local environmental factors. He is familiar with most standard field equipment used to conduct scientific studies, and his expertise includes devices used to collect fishes, aquatic macroinvertebrates, freshwater mussels, and karst invertebrates. He is also experienced in experimental design and data analysis in ecological and biological contexts.