Our Team

Danielle Katz (she/her)

Co-founder, Director, and Treasurer

Rivers run through Danielle’s blood. At four months of age, Danielle took one of the last runs down the Stanislaus River before it was dammed. At 14 she became a river guide, regularly working trips on the Klamath, Rogue, and Tatshenshini-Alsek in Alaska for James Henry River Journeys. In 2009 she paddled her first river from source to sea; 2,271 miles down the length of the Mississippi for the non-profit What About Blue, raising funds to build wells and sanitation projects in Rwanda. Inspired to connect more communities to rivers and each other from source to sea, she co-founded RFC in 2011. She has since completed several StS journeys including on the Tuolumne, Sacramento, Yuba, San Joaquin, and Androscoggin to name a few. She has an MBA in Environmental Management and is the founder of Source to Sea Productions. She loves inspiring people to connect with the water in their lives, sharing her passion for rivers, and increasing Source to Sea literacy.

John Dye

Co-founder, Vice-President, and Secretary

John (he/him) grew up focused on water. Swimming, teaching sailing, racing sailboats, and building boats in America’s breadbasket. After a brief bought with higher education, he moved west to the golden state. He soon embraced the pace and life of rivers and coastal waters. Running whitewater rivers and working with non-profits and local outfitters on weekends remains the soul food that balances a challenging and rewarding career in design and architecture. Helping others safely experience rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans in small paddle craft continues to be a great joy for him.

Sarrah Claman

Board Chair

Sarrah (she/her) grew up in the mountains of Colorado, but her connection to rivers began as a child paddling the unceded lands and waters of the Temagami, Anishinabewak, and Moose Cree in Northern Quebec and Ontario. Since then, rivers have been a guiding force in her life, shaping her passion for community, conservation, and connection to the natural world.

Sarrah has worked as a river guide since she was 18, beginning with youth canoe expeditions and later moving into raft guiding on the Middle Fork and Main Salmon Rivers, the ancestral land and waters of the Nez Perce and Shoshone Bannock. She weaves together her background in gender studies, trauma-informed education, and nature-based psychology with her work as a guide, fostering spaces where people can deepen their relationships with the land, water, and each other. She believes that connection breeds stewardship, and is passionate about using experiential education to inspire care for wild spaces and the communities that depend on them.

When she’s not on the river, Sarrah is based in Bend, Oregon, where she is a midwifery student, working toward supporting individuals in rural communities who wish to give birth at home. She also works with various river conservation and education-based nonprofits that serve marginalized communities. Sarrah finds joy and connection in the simple magic of existing outside—drinking tea by the river, running mountain trails, kayaking, climbing, and mountain biking. She also enjoys printmaking, natural dyeing, foraging for herbal medicines, and cooking and sharing meals with the community, believing food, like rivers, brings people together. For Sarrah, rivers are a space of deep listening, reflection, play, and laughter. Whether guiding, learning, or simply being, she is continually drawn back to their flow.

Amy Byers

Board Member

Amy (she/her) has been paddling for over 15 years in all types of water from New Haven, Connecticut to San Francisco, CA to the Yukon Territory, Canada.  She has raced the Yukon River Quest (444 miles of the Yukon River) in a sea kayak five times.  Amy has a Master’s in Public Health and a Doctorate in Epidemiology.  She is a research scientist who studies multiple chronic diseases within the aging process, utilizing large-scale data and a public health approach.  Her own quality of life with aging has been supported by a deep connection with nature.  Amy believes that one of the most important things we can do for ourselves and the world is to come alive in and connected to nature; and inspire others to do the same.

Samara Rosen

Board Member

Samara (she/her) first fell in love with rivers on the bow of her mom’s kayak. Over the years, her love of rivers inspired her to guide rivers commercially, run citizen science programs around water quality, mobilize her community around river conservation, and facilitate environmental education with a riparian focus. When she’s not strategizing her next river project, you can find her working to empower recreational communities to protect the places they love with the science behind LNT practices. You can also find her educating students on her raft, running citizen science water quality programs, mobilizing communities around river conservation, or undertaking ethnographic studies of river communities. Her love of rivers is inspired by her years of guiding in CA, OR, and UT.

Annie Nikolaus

Board Member

Annie (she/her) grew up in Colorado where she fell in love with spending time outside from a young age. Annie was excited to share her passion for the outdoors with others and so she began working as an outdoor educator and guide during her summers in college. She has since worked as a backpacking guide in New Mexico, a ski instructor in Colorado, a canoe guide in the Boundary Waters and a raft guide on the Payette River. Her experiences outdoors have fostered a love for conservation and stewardship to protect the places we recreate. She has now transitioned to working for environmental non profits to promote sustainability and conservation. When not working on conservation projects, you can find Annie on a local trail, river or scheming up her next big adventure.