We have had many staff changes over the past year.  We are sad to see our long-term staff go, but we welcome new young faces!

Rachel Alford has recently joined the San Clemente team as a restoration ecology assistant.  She graduated from UC Davis in 2006 with a degree in Environmental Horticulture and Urban Forestry with an emphasis in biodiversity and restoration.  She has interned with the National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service in the San Francisco Bay area doing habitat restoration and working with federally listed species. 

Bryan Apple was recently hired as a restoration ecology assistant for the San Clemente restoration project.  Originally from San Jose, he graduated from UCSB in 2005 with a BA in Environmental Studies.  After graduating he worked for eighteen months with Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and was involved in a variety of restoration and watershed protection projects spanning fifty thousand acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  In 2007 he returned to the Santa Barbara area and worked with Channel Islands Restoration in Refugio Creek, Carpinteria Creek, and Coal Oil Point Reserve.

Richard Figueroa graduated with a BS in Physics from UCSB in 2007.  He served as a student volunteer for one year and is now working full time with the Center on the San Clemente restoration project.  Richard is developing a vertebrate monitoring plan for the storm water management basins at San Clemente. 

Ryan Lippitt finished his undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies at UCSB in late 2007.  He served as a student volunteer during fall and winter quarters, working on the Cheadle and Esau plant anatomy collection as well as doing an internship in the restoration program.  He is working full time for the Center with Jan Myers on the Manzanita Village project. 

Melanie Powers, Project Manager for Manzanita Village and the San Clemente project, left CCBER and UCSB last fall, after seven years here. She moved to Sacramento with her husband and son to be closer to family.

Ben Reder, Restoration Coordinator, has taken a leave of absence from CCBER this summer to work as an education staff member on cruise ships in French Polynesia for the Ocean Futures Society’s Ambassadors of the Environment program.