That assignment calls on all the skills she has acquired since she first learned to love rivers and water during childhood boating trips with her family in Ohio.

Amy came to California in 1992, immediately after graduating from the University of Virginia, where she majored in urban and environmental planning. She came to work as an intern for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. During her eight months at the refuge, in Fremont, she enjoyed getting to know the Bay Area and its wildlife. When another internship came up on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, however, she jumped at the chance. Then, after a year in Hawai’i, a “real” job came up at the San Francisco Bay refuge. She applied and was hired to work in public outreach and environmental education. “It was nice being out in the marshes,” she said, “though dealing with groups of teenagers was sometimes a challenge.”

Four years later she went to work for Save the Bay, where she got her first experience at project management running the environmental education program, Canoes in Sloughs, and managing staff. “I got to meet a lot of agency people, and to learn about how public and private groups can work together,” she said, “as well as good experience in project management.”

With each career move, Amy added to her qualifications to work on important restoration and conservation projects. In 2000, the Coastal Conservancy hired her and assigned her to the Napa-Sonoma Marsh Restoration Project. That project had been under way for six years, moving slowly. It involves restoration of 10,000 acres of salt ponds along the lower Napa River to a mix of tidal habitat and managed wetlands. Construction is expected to begin in 2005. “I learned a lot about working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and technical consultants on the project,” she says. “Also about restoration modeling and preparing Environmental Impact Reports and Statements—all of that was good preparation for the South Bay Salt Ponds project.”

In February 2003, the California Wildlife Conservation Board approved $100 million for the purchase of 25 square miles of salt ponds, using federal, state, and private foundation funds. A month later, title to the lands was transferred to the Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Planning is now under way for what will be the largest tidal wetland restoration project on the Pacific Coast.

The salt pond restoration project takes most of Amy’s time now, and it allows her finally to make full use of her education in planning. “Restoring the South Bay’s ecosystem will take decades, and probably hundreds of millions of dollars,” Amy says. “We plan to manage the work adaptively, and involve scientists, land managers, and the public throughout the project.” She enjoys working with scientists, and explaining their work on the project to the public. “I love all the wetland restoration issues—the scientific components and their complexities.” She coordinates the technical side of the work with policy and regulatory agencies; handles permits, contracts, agreements, and invoices; secures funding and drums up public support for the project.

Sure, she’d like to be in the field more, she says, and she has not entirely let that go. “I do still take part in the annual clapper rail surveys. I go out in air boats with Fish and Wildlife Service staff and count the birds. It’s so interesting to be in these wetlands that are surrounded by millions of people, and see that such fragile species can survive there.” One of the exciting things about restoration work is that nature responds so vigorously to even small efforts, says Amy.

Huge projects like the South Bay Salt Ponds also need lots of people sitting at their desks—especially a “collaborative process coordinator.”

—HMH