MEET OUR WUIFI STAFF
Get to know the dedicated staff members who support the WUI FIRE Institute. Our team works tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure the success of our mission and initiatives.
Frank Frievalt
WUI Fire Institute Director
Chief Frievalt (ret.) has served since 1979 with Special District, City, County, State, and Federal fire agencies in roles from Firefighter to Fire Chief. He holds a M.S. from Oklahoma State University in Fire and Emergency Management Administration, and currently serves as Director of the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Institute at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Frank is an SME for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Wildfire Advisory Council, and previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, with an emphasis on the development of resilient Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) communities. His work is grounded in aligning key stakeholders around a core set of parcel and community level mitigations that will disrupt the fire pathways which lead to conflagration. He is pursuing the actuarial valuation of risk mitigations, for both the public and private sectors, because we share the same desired outcome, minimizing property loss to the peril of wildfire.
Margot McDonald
Faculty Liason
Margot McDonald, AIA, NOMA, NCARB, LEED AP, is a licensed architect and Professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she served as the former Architecture Department Head from 2002-03 and 2013-2022. With over 20 years of experience in the field of architecture, she has established herself as an expert in building energy performance, sustainability, and interdisciplinary building design. Her areas of teaching include passive solar heating, passive cooling, daylighting, acoustics, water and waste, resilience, and design for wildfire in the built environment. Margot holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Oregon and a BS in Mathematics and BA in French from UC Santa Barbara. She is a licensed architect in the State of Oregon and has been actively involved in numerous national organizations, including the American Institute of Architect’s National Resilience Initiative, where she served as co-lead with Dr. Bill Siembieda in City & Regional Planning at Cal Poly. She also chaired the national U.S. Green Building Council’s Formal Education Committee and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the American Solar Energy Society. Throughout her career, she has been committed to advancing sustainable architecture and has worked tirelessly to promote interdisciplinary collaboration between students and faculty in architecture, structural engineering, construction management, and landscape architecture.
Sydney Anthoni
WUI FIRE Institute Administrative Coordinator
Sydney Anthoni is the Administrative Coordinator for the Cal Poly Wildland Urban-Interface FIRE Institute. She previously worked in the power generation and agricultural business industries, both from a principal manager and sales/marketing/operations capacity. Sydney earned her BSc in Social Sciences with a concentration in Human Resources Management from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
Tim Northrop
Senior Director of Development
Tim is the Senior Director of Development at the College of Agriculture, Food, & Environmental Sciences at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. For more than 25 years, Tim has been a leader in nonprofit and higher education fundraising, developing strategic partnerships with individuals, corporations, and foundations, and recruiting and managing boards and advisory councils. He is excited to apply his background in land conservation, natural resource management, forestry, and environmental science to raise resources in support of the WUI Fire Institute. Tim earned his B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University, Master’s in Environment Management from Yale University, and certificates in Solid and Hazardous Waste Management from UCLA. He was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs in Los Angeles, and a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Garrett Lee
WUI FIRE Institute Student Assistant
After witnessing the selfless sacrifice of firefighters in the 2020 Silverado Fire, Garrett was pushed to pursue the same career to reciprocate the spirit of service despite the inherent risks. Motivated by those stewards who preserved his neighborhood, Garrett now hopes to follow in their footsteps in a career in firefighting and fire protection to reciprocate that same noble spirit of sacrifice in safeguarding lives and homes. Ever since, he has actively prepared for a career through EMT, OCFA Fire Cadets, continued education, prescribed burns, and interning with the City of San Luis Obispo Fire Department. Garrett is currently studying Forest and Fire Sciences at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo and working with the University's WUI Fire Institute under Director Frank Frievalt heading Simtable operations. Through these experiences, he has made numerous contacts with professionals and professors in the field which have only reinforced the focus of his career on protecting communities and infrastructure from wildfires. Garrett always aspires to learn more and is constantly looking for ways to expand his knowledge and experience within the field.