Notes from the Project Team |
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Planning for Class 22
by Wendy-Lin Bartles, Interim NRLI Director
We want to thank our alumni for submitting ideas for NRLI 2022 session topics. The project team met to discuss over 25 suggestions and have begun creating a prioritized short list. As you probably know, we always try to include a forestry and agriculture session, as well as marine, urban, and wildland management. We aim to pick locations that reflect the geographic scope of our state and hope to ensure that our Fellows experience inland and coastal sites in both large cities and small rural towns. Of course, we seek a diversity of issues -- from intractable conflicts to promising partnerships. Finally, we consider fieldtrip potential: to maximize immersion in the resource and fun! NRLI sessions succeed because of the involvement and generosity of our alumni who help us plan, organize, and reflect on key insights. Thank you for your continued support of the program.
In early December we’ll be sharing the proposed schedule with you. In the meantime, please take a moment to look around your institutions or partnering organizations and consider nominating a potential 2022 Fellow. Stay tuned for info on application deadlines.
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8-Month Flagship Program | Session 2 |
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The Fort Pierce Connection
By Savannah Winstanley and Clay Archey, NRLI Class 21 Fellows
On September 20th, Class XXI reunited in Fort Pierce in a room overlooking the central focus of this month’s issue - the Indian River Lagoon (IRL). Though Ft Pierce, FL started as a U.S. Army outpost as early as 1838, unfortunately there’s not much left to see of Ft Pierce’s early military roots besides the National UDT-SEAL Museum on North Hutchinson Island. Those military roots, just like the tidally influenced inlet that feeds fresh beautiful blue salt water to the estuary, runs very deep! So many coastal towns share similar histories to Fort Pierce where populations of people tend to mix with precious natural resources and thus these resources get strained. The lagoon resource takes up 40% of Florida’s east coast stretching 156 miles from Ponce de Leon Inlet to Jupiter Inlet. Fort Pierce is situated in the Southern section of the IRL and it couldn’t have looked more innocently beautiful - not an algal bloom in sight! However, similarly to conflict management, sometimes issues don’t come right out and announce themselves. This is one of the key challenges in addressing the IRL’s water quality issues, and throughout the session there was a reoccurring focus on education - knowing how to reach the right audiences, how to adjust messaging to package scientific and technical ideas that are understandable by a lay-person, and how to motivate people to care. The last being particularly difficult as the Indian River Lagoon’s drainage basin has been artificially expanded to over 2,000 square miles meaning that key stakeholders for the lagoon live in areas that are very far removed from it.
Just as this unique water and land basin has inorganically grown and developed over time, in quicker fashion, so develops our class’s relationships. The class got to see this by sharing our own “two minute introduction” speech where you are tasked with letting your guard down and giving the group your history - your “nouns” so to speak - the people, the places and things who make you who you are. It’s truly amazing how hearing someone’s back story and seeing them smile or cry, laugh or joke about themselves makes you bond with them. It helps break down bias and barriers that others might be harboring. It reminds me of the words of a past NRLI great, Dr. Burl Long who would often say “We must go heavy on the issues and light on the people.” Because after all just like all the stakeholders in this basin….we all have a story to tell.
People are at the heart of all environmental issues, and this session highlighted just that in our tour of Moore’s Creek and stakeholder panel discussions. Humans have battled over natural resources around the world since the dawn of time and it's no different in Ft. Pierce. You have the usual suspects in the vast battle over resources be it sunshine or flora and fauna - all appealing to retirees with septic tanks, agriculturalists trying to feed our state, and weekend water enthusiasts trying to catch their next seafood meal. These issues and their stakeholders usually bring well-meaning problem solvers to the table but lest we forget, there are always two sides to a coin. Class XXI saw this face to face on a tour of the Moore’s Creek restoration area.
The NRLI experience thus far has been excellent at breaking down broad issues and re-centering it with a “people first” approach. The format takes you on a journey from a natural resources management perspective down to the local and deeply personal perspective of the people living, eating and breathing our “issue”. This can be a challenge to do but it is a critical habit to make. This point was made clear in Curtis Johnson’s story of how when the lagoon was experiencing bad blooms, the management focus was on the lagoon itself, but nobody had thought to talk to the people fishing and catching dinner out of Moore’s Creek, which drains into the lagoon, until Johnson with his personal history and knowledge of the neighborhood pointed it out. As natural resources managers, we often have blind spots we don’t know about and need to be intentional about not only educating others on what they may not know, but asking questions, seeing a natural resource through the lens of the people living there to find out what we don’t know we don’t know.
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Liesa Priddy
JB Ranch and Florida Conservation Group
Liesa was raised as an only child on JB Ranch, just south of Immokalee, FL. She is a third generation Floridian on both sides of her family. Living on a ranch gave her the opportunity to do one of the things she loves, be around horses and cows.
After high school, Liesa attended Georgia Southern University where she obtained a BBA in finance. She then married her husband, Russell, and they moved to Charleston, SC. Liesa worked in mortgage lending for nine years before she decided to move back to Florida to be closer to her family. Another 13 years in banking and 12 years as a law firm administrator was enough to realize it was time for a career change.
With both of her kids grown, it was time to return to ranch work (almost) fulltime. At this point Liesa became a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioner and returned to college, obtaining a degree in Environmental Studies with a minor in biology from Florida Gulf Coast University in 2014. Two of her favorite hobbies is raising a Cracker Cattle herd and turkey hunting.
Liesa is active with the Florida Cattlemen’s Association and has been involved in numerous community groups, including Operation Outdoor Freedom, Leadership Collier, Farm-City Week, and Collier County Junior Deputy League.
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Jennifer Thera
Environmental Consultant, Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services
Jennifer Thera received a BS in Marine Science and a MS and PhD in Environmental Science where she studied the biomagnification of contaminants in fresh and marine food webs. She is currently an Environmental Consultant with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in the Office of Agricultural Water Policy where she covers water policy and water supply planning issues related to agriculture in the Northern Everglades region of the South Florida Water Management District. Jennifer also worked as an Environmental Scientist for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on water quality, policy, and biological assessments in freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems for nine years. She has over fifteen years conducting environmental research in Florida systems. When Jennifer is not working, she enjoys spending time outdoors hiking and fishing.
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Armando J. Ubeda
Florida Sea Grant Extension Agent, UF/IFAS
Armando is currently a Florida Sea Grant Extension Agent in Sarasota County. His extension program focuses on the FL Master Naturalist Program, living shorelines, sustainable fisheries, marine resource conservation, marine debris prevention, and water quality/quantity. Before joining the University of Florida in 2016, Armando has worked as a coral reef researcher in Nicaragua, as a technical assistant for a conservation project led by The Nature Conservancy in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, as a staff biologist at the Department of Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory, and as Mesoamerican program manager for the conservation organization, LightHawk.
Armando received his bachelor’s degree in marine sciences with a minor in chemistry from the University of Mobile’s Latin American campus in Nicaragua. Under a Fulbright Scholarship, Armando received his master’s degree in Marine Resource Management from Oregon State University. His master research focused on the recruitment and survival strategies of the red sea urchin and their implications in the fishery and management of this species. Currently, Armando is enrolled in a doctoral program at the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation department at the University of Florida. Armando is interested in ethology, especially studies of animal behavior that seek to understand how animals compete and cooperate during feeding and mating, and how animals migrate to and survive in what are often strikingly different environments. At UF, his doctoral research focuses on the movement of elasmobranchs, specifically spatial segregation patterns of sharks and rays by size and sex.
Some extracurricular activities that Armando enjoys are hiking, camping, foraging mushrooms, surfing, scuba diving, fishing, traveling, reading, writing, music, grilling, traditional karate, and soccer.
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Class 21 Fellows & Schedule |
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Rob Aldredge Wildlife Biologist, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Chad Allison Partners for Fish & Wildlife/Coastal Program Coordinator, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Chris Altes Archaeologist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Clay Archey Senior Manager of Purchasing & Corporate Facilities, A. Duda & Sons Inc.
Kelly Aue Suwannee River Partnership Outreach Coordinator, UF/IFAS Extension
Jessica Blain Wildlife Biologist, U.S. Forest Service
Rosezetta Bobo Diversity Director, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
Katherine Clements Ecology & Natural Resources Educator, UF/IFAS Extension
Greg DeAngelo Deputy Director, Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Kristin Foss Biological Scientist IV, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
Travis Franklin Captain, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
Maxine Hunter Urban Horticulture Extension Agent, UF/IFAS
Cat Ingram Intergovernmental Liaison, Florida Forest Service, FDACS
Kristen Kosik Program Associate for the Conservation Leadership Initiative, Audubon Florida
Jared Lanier Field Representative, Florida Farm Bureau Federation
Jason Lawor Public Affairs Specialist, National Forests in Florida – USDA
Chris Marble Associate Professor, Environmental Horticulture, University of Florida
Nate Mouzon Technical Program Manager, St. Johns River Water Management District
Gregory Owen Senior Planner, Alachua County Board of County Commissioners
Brian Pelc North Florida Restoration Project Manager, The Nature Conservancy
Liesa Priddy Owner, JB Ranch
Jennifer Thera Environmental Consultant, Florida Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services
Armando Ubeda Florida Sea Grant Agent, UF/IFAS
Savannah Winstanley Ecosystem & Asset Analyst, City of Winter Haven
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