I grew up in northeast Texas and as a child it seems I was happiest in the outdoors, often completely unsupervised with the world to roam. In adolescence I saw the woodlot behind our old neighborhood razed and developed and the grandparents’ farm sold and subdivided. I began to realize that these places, and all others like them, where I made my best memories needed protection.
I studied biology and chemistry at Southwestern University and earned a M.S. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am now the senior biologist for the City of Austin’s Water Quality Protection Lands program which conserves and manages over 27,000 acres south and west of Austin, TX for the protection and improvement of water quality and aquifer recharge.
Over the last decade of restoring and managing natural systems, my focus has shifted from nature to people. I have come to view restoration not as a means of benefiting nature for its own sake, but as one in a suite of tools for achieving sustainability and a fair standard of living for all people.
