Meet stewardship interns (L-R) Alexander Galluzzo, Jonathan Vellanoweth, Stephanie Mendez-Garcia, and Haley Bosse.
Five students are spending their summer helping NCLC tackle two major invasive species initiatives and a photo archiving backlog. You’ll meet the stewardship interns if you join us on Saturday, July 21, to pull, pile, and stomp policeman’s helmet at Circle Creek. You may see our photo archive intern there too; he steals away from the computer to photograph NCLC events when he can.
STEWARDSHIP INTERNS
Three stewardship interns are working on two specific projects: Year Two of our effort to eradicate policeman’s helmet weeds from the Necanicum River watershed, and Year One of a project to restore our Wolf Bay and John Day Marsh habitat reserves on the lower Columbia River
Alexander Galluzzo is a student at Portland State University, where he is majoring in environmental studies with a minor in sustainability. He’s well acquainted with invasive species work; as an intern with Coleman Agriculture, a major hop-grower in St. Paul, Oregon, he worked with federal agencies to develop an invasive species removal plan to benefit wildlife habitat. He also works as a rock climbing instructor. And did we mention he’s an Eagle Scout? “I love the outdoors, as a climber and backpacker,” he tells us. “I’m excited to spend my summer out in nature!”
Stephanie Mendez-Garcia of Cannon Beach is a 2018 Seaside High School graduate heading to Clatsop Community College, where she plans to pursue studies leading to a career in biology or forestry. She spent much of the spring on NCLC properties in the Clatsop Plains, weeding out invasive species and planting native species as part of her senior-year Pacifica Project. “It’s fun, and it’s peaceful,” Stephanie says of stewardship work. “I like helping my community and helping conserve the land for future generations.”
Jonathan Vellanoweth has nearly completed work on his bachelor’s degree in environmental science and management at Humboldt State University in California. Last summer he worked as a restoration intern for Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, leading volunteer groups doing invasive species removal as well as trail repair and native garden upkeep. He has done volunteer restoration work with Redwood National Park, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Humboldt County Fish Action and other groups. On his own time, he enjoys hiking and “exploring unique bioregions within California.”
STEWARDSHIP VOLUNTEEER
Haley Bosse is volunteering with us for six weeks, helping with the policeman’s helmet project and assisting Project Manager Amy Hutmacher with some property monitoring. Haley grew up in Newberg and just completed her sophomore year at Williams College in Massachusetts, where she is majoring in environmental studies and American studies. She hopes this experience gives her a sense of what a career working to protect and manage natural environments would be like. She has some experience doing trail maintenance; otherwise this has been a new experience. As she wrote us, “I am excited to get started and get my hands dirty.“
PHOTO ARCHIVE INTERN
Ethan Whitecotton is spending the summer organizing NCLC’s ever-growing photography archive, which includes Neal Maine’s nature photography, and doing landscape and event photography for us when he gets the chance. Ethan just completed his junior year at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, where he is studying biomedical photographic communications with minors in biology, environmental science, and web design. He has expertise in microphotography and a special interest in conservation photography (featured in this month’s People+Plants+Wildlife blog post, Getting the Shot). Growing up in an Air Force family, he has lived all over the country—he finished high school in Hawaii—and has enjoyed doing photography in a variety of settings, from the laboratory to the seafloor.
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