I've spent 30+ years in the Pacific
Northwest, and called Arcata/Eureka area home.
I attended Humboldt State University for close to
forever--I really enjoyed it and the surrounding
community. I reveived a B.S. and a M.S. in Natural
Resources Mamagement, and Vegetation/Forest Ecology.
For work, I spent most of the time working as
vegetation ecologist conducting research in forest
ecology and natural resource management of Federal
and State lands throughout California, Oregon, and
other areas on the Pacific coast.
A few of my more noteworthy jobs:
--I worked as Wilderness Partolman in the Trinity Alps
Wilderness (Shasta/Trinity National Forest ) for three
years. Here I met a historic character; George Jorstad
(of “Jorstad’s Cabin” on topo maps). George and his
wife had built a cabin on a gold mining claim on the
North Fork of the Trinity River, in the Trinity
Wilderness in 1937! In later years I transcribed his
journals from that time, and we published it
as “Behind the Wild River.”
--I was as a “Porpoise Observer” for the National
Marine Fisheries Service. I was put on a commercial
tuna purse-seiner ship that traveled around out in the
Pacific off of Panama and Columbia trying to catch
tuna. I was there to see how many porpoise they killed—
I suggest that you all eat only Solid White Tuna, to
avoid killing porpoise.
--I then spent my time, on land, as a
botanist/ecologist with jobs in private consulting,
and jobs with the Forest Service, Park Service, and
Universities. These jobs included;
--Botanist for the Hupa Indian Tribe in Northern
California,
--Interpreter and tree planting Inspector in the
Olympic National Forest,
--collected data on old growth forests throughout
Southwest Oregon for the classification of habitat
types of old growth forests,
--collected data in research on edible wild mushrooms
on the coast of Northern California,
--and collected much more data for the classification
of riparian/wetland vegetation types throughout the
Sierra.
I also spent some of the early net years working as a
computer techie(website design, etc) for a variety of
DotOrg's.
I moved back to Los Altos in 2004 to take care of some
medical adventures including, and associated with,
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (things are going well
now). I stayed down here to spend more time helping my
mother -who died in 2008.
I am now working for Caltrans at the Oakland HQ as an
Associate Environmental Planner Biologist/Ecologist
for transportation projects in Sonoma County--tracking
down endangered species and wetlands-- and working
to get permits from all of the Federal and State
resource agencies.