Koan Mercer was elected to the Board of Trustees in May 2020. Mercer graduated from Whitefish High School in 1995 before attending Whitman College, where he met his spouse. After working two years in Washington, D.C. he earned a law degree from the University of North Carolina in 2004. Since then he has been a public defender in Missoula, practicing first as trial attorney and for the past twelve years as an appellate attorney before the Montana Supreme Court. Both Mercer's parents graduated from Missoula County High School and then UM.