Biographies

Who's Who at the Preserve
 

Volunteers
These are some of our most active volunteers.

Bob Barnes     Darrell Barnes      Denis Dunning     Bill Foster     Birdie Foster     Christine Hancock       Gordon Hancock      Chloe Kennedy       Martine Metzenheim      Marya Miller       Bob Showers     Holly Sorenson     Gerry Tessman    

The Kern River Preserve could not operate without its dedicated volunteers. Do you know a helpful hero who should be on this page? Email and tell the webmaster all about the missing volunteer.

Staff

Reed Tollefson: Preserve Manager. Reed started as a dedicated volunteer / part-time staff member.

Jeff King: Jeff takes the lead on or helps with habitat enhancement, irrigation installation and repair, electrical work, mechanical work, painting, and general Preserve maintenance. He constructed the hummingbird garden found near the start of the Nature Trail. Jeff   put up eight Bluebird nest boxes that were almost immediately occupied by several pairs of Western Bluebirds. He is very clever at improvising. Jeff built a fence post puller and several other contraptions that have made several hard tasks easier. He is an incredibly versatile, consistent, and effective volunteer.

Thanks, Jeff, for your many, many hours, days, and months of volunteer work on behalf of the Kern River Preserve. We appreciate you in ways that no paragraph on a web site could ever do justice. Let us just say that the preceding words serve as a very small token of the appreciation that we have for you. Thanks, Jeff.

Alison Sheehey: Our Outreach Coordinator and webmaster is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the KRP website. Her other creative projects important to the outreach efforts of the Kern River Preserve include coordinating the nature festivals, kiosk signage, the newsletter, and visitor brochures.

She runs Nature Ali a volunteer project educating the public on the natural world in Kern County and beyond. She continues to research many different facets of Kern County natural history. Research projects include: the status and distribution of the naturalized Rose-ringed Parakeets in Bakersfield and the status and distribution of vertebrates of Kern County.

Sandra Wieser:  Sandra has been volunteering at the Kern River Preserve since 1992. With the departure of our former Assistant Manager, Lynn Overtree, Sandra assumed greater responsibility in the Friends. But, that is only the beginning of her Preserve volunteer resume. Sandra has worked on habitat restoration, irrigation layout and maintenance, hummingbird gardens, trail upkeep, and all other manner of general Preserve maintenance. She served on 1997’s Turkey Vulture Festival organizing committee and was the coordinator of the 1998 festival. She is also a committee member on the Kern Valley Festivals. Her chief Festival responsibility continues to be the processing of all festival registrations including field trip sign–ups. Sandra keeps the Kernville Chamber of Commerce updated on the space availability on field trips.

Sandra was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. She joined the Navy in 1968 where she received her Associate Degree. Sandra retired in 1987 and moved to the Kern Valley in 1991. During her 20 years in the service, she had plenty of opportunities to travel and learn about wildlife in many parts of the world. Sandra is a member of the Sierra Club (she was outings chair and newsletter editor for the Chesapeake Bay Group in Norfolk, VA), The Nature Conservancy, and several other organizations. Words fail us when we want to truly express our appreciation of Sandra’s contributions.