Shelly Plante is the Nature Tourism Manager for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, working in the Marketing Group. She oversees the Great Texas Wildlife Trail program and has been a coordinator for the annual Great Texas Birding Classic for the past 20 years. Plante also coordinates and helped develop the Texas Paddling Trails Program. She helps market and promote state parks, works with private landowners and communities on nature tourism development, and serves on the Steering Committee for Texas Children in Nature. In 2013 she became an adjunct professor and lecturer at Texas State University, teaching Planning and Development of Nature and Heritage Tourism. She holds a Master’s of Applied Geography with a focus on Nature and Heritage Tourism from Texas State University and a B.A. in Plan II/Geography from the University of Texas-Austin.