Jon Breschak is a Graduate Research Assistant with Dr. Mark Rickenbach in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jon is working on exploring the link between social network structure, water quality, and landscape-scale management on forest and agriculture landscapes.

Jon graduated with a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point in forestry. Prior to his research position with Mark Jon divided up his time spending winters in forestry and summers as a professional sailing instructor on Lake Michigan. Most of Jon’s early adult life was spent in the United States Air Force in various roles from hostage negotiation to an evaluator for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, travelling throughout most of Western Europe in the early 1990’s. Jon went on to start a small wooden boat shop in Milwaukee and eventually work with disadvantaged children and the youth program at The Milwaukee Community Sailing Center. Jon has always been interested in environmental issues surrounding water and forests, but teaching children wooden boat building led to an enhanced interest in forestry, and subsequently how social behavior impacts environmental issues and their management.

Jon grew up exploring the desert southwest as well as the woods of Wisconsin with parents grounded in hiking, canoeing, fishing, and sleeping under the stars. Jon continues these activities along with sailing whenever the opportunity presents itself.