PARK MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT                                                                     8/91 - present

This highly active career education department is more like having an extended family than your typical college department. I take students out into the field every month of the semester in every season and in all kinds of weather. During the students' first year I engage and involve them through a spectrum of classroom and field courses from Introduction to Park Management to Basic and Intermediate Outdoor Skills. In the students' final years in this program I instruct them in use of hand and power tools from the conventional framing hammer and table and compound miter saws to the chainsaw and supervise them in their Field Internship. I am just as comfortable assisting students winding their way through a class dealing with the politics of land use or instructing on the finer points of climbing on the side of a vertical rock cliff.

PAST POSITIONS

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

Columbia, CA
Adjunct Instructor
1987-91

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

Yosemite, CA
Park Ranger
1986-91

SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS NATIONAL RECREATION AREA

Woodland Hills, CA
Park Ranger
1981-86

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK

Hoodsport, WA
Park Ranger
1978-80

HUMBOLDT COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

Eureka, CA
Level I Reserve Deputy
1978-80

MAMMOTH CAVES NAT’L PARK

GATEWAY NRA
Sandy Hook, NJ
Park Aid
1976

I received a B.S. in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University and a M.A. from Prescott College in Experienced-Based Leadership Training and Program Development.

In addition to my college job helping students become responsible land stewards, I am also the Emergency Services Coordinator for West Valley College. This means helping the college and it inhabitants prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters. I also do some testing of backpacking and rock rescue gear.

I spend as much time as I can playing in the woods. My passion is anyplace wild. In winter I thrash about in the backcountry on 3-pin "skinny skis"; in spring I mess around the California and Nevada deserts on foot tracking wildlife, bagging peaks and hiking dozens of miles solo; the summer and fall I train with vigorous cross-country hikes and mountain bike rides so I can spend my nights under the stars backpacking, rock climbing and mountaineering. One of my personal goals is to spend a minimum of 60 nights in my sleeping bag every year. I've made it each year. Easily. In 2004 I spend 108 nights in my sleeping bag. I've climbed and backpacked throughout the western states, stood atop 19,000 foot Mexican volcanoes, climbed rock faces and alpine peaks in Austria and Italy, trekked in Nepal, hiked around the Italian Stella Massif in one day, driven a motorcycle through Northern Thailand and from my home in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Arctic Ocean and back, ridden camels in Turkey, elephants in the Nepalese jungle, photographed wild rhinos, rattled about the Alaskan Brooks Range by single engine plane, canoe, and on foot, and drove the entire length of the Alaskan, Stewart-Cassiar, Klondike, Glenn and George Parks Highways in one summer.

Besides reading a daily newspaper and 6 or so "trade magazines" and journals every month, I read another dozen general interest publications that emphasize the environment, conservation and preservation, public land use and outdoor recreation. Having never owned a television (and still don't), I read.

I am a member of several parks-related organizations, and I attend several conferences annually. I also participate in the International Technical Rescue Symposium every year and on occasion, present at this conference.

I participate in ongoing in-service training to keep my EMT license current and maintain my skills in first aid and rescue.

Along the way I have collected a couple of academic awards, some commendations, half a dozen work-related performance awards and a valor award for heroism.

The rest, well, you are going to have to enroll in one of my classes.