Brad’s adventures in the southern Los Padres over the last decade have given him a deep love of the landscape and a sense for how the Los Padres shapes the identity of the region and the character of its people. His book, The Sespe Wild: Southern California’s Last Free River explores the environmental and cultural history of Sespe Creek. Brad is Professor of English and Director of the Center for Integrative Studies at California State University, Channel Islands where he teaches environmental and multicultural literatures and works closely with the program in environmental science and resource management.

Pat is a longtime advocate for wildland conservation in San Luis Obispo County and across the state of California. He is formerly the State Chapter Liaison for Sierra Club California, and was Chair of the club’s Santa Lucia chapter in San Luis Obispo county. Pat has also worked as the Executive Director of the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo (ECOSLO), and previously worked with the Sitka Conservation Society in Alaska. He is a former San Luis Obispo county Planning Commissioner, and currently works in the California Coastal Commission's Southern California Enforcement Division in Ventura. Pat also serves as the caretaker of the historic Goodwin Ranch on the Carrizo Plain National Monument.
 

Phil, a Santa Barbara-based attorney, has worked on a variety of social and environmental justice campaigns. He is a co-founder and former grants manager of the Shoreline Preservation Fund at U.C. Santa Barbara. Phil also created the inaugural Solutions Conference in Vermont, bringing together students, conservationists, and practitioners to develop innovative approaches to problems facing global and local communities.  Phil holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Microbiology and a Juris Doctorate from Vermont Law School.

For more than a decade, Mike has worked to protect the lands in and around the Los Padres. He was formerly Fundraising and Outreach Director for the Conception Coast Project, a Wildlands Project affiliate group. Mike is also the former Conservation Organizer for the California Wild Heritage Campaign in Santa Barbara County, and worked as the Environmental Liaison for Patagonia, Inc. Mike holds an Environmental Studies degree from U.C. Santa Barbara, and a Juris Doctorate from the Santa Barbara College of Law.

Ruth lives in Ojai, where she is involved in several aspects of community enrichment, including the Ojai Library, the Ventura Library Adult Literacy Program, and the Ojai Music Festival outreach musical education program, Bravo. Ruth received her M.D. from Yale and completed her residency in adult psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh, she practiced psychiatry and taught psychiatric residents for 25 years. She and her family enjoy hiking within the nearby Los Padres National Forest.

Louis graduated from UC Santa Cruz with degrees in Natural History and Biology, where he studied peregrine falcons and Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep. In the 1980s he worked as a wildlife biologist for the California Condor Recovery Program on the Los Padres National Forest. He later went on to become one of the first volunteers for the Los Padres Site Steward program, surveying and monitoring archaeological sites throughout the forest, and has also assisted with studies of California red-legged frogs. For the past twelve years he’s served as the caretaker of Jameson Lake in the headwaters of the Santa Ynez River. Louis enjoys bicycling, mountaineering, ski touring, backpacking, and hiking.

Jeff is the Executive Director of ForestWatch, and brings more than a dozen years of experience in legal and policy advocacy on behalf of the environment. Before founding ForestWatch, he worked as a Legal Analyst at the Environmental Defense Center, a non-profit law firm in Santa Barbara. Jeff holds a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Oregon School of Law, with a certificate in Environmental and Natural Resource Law. He has worked with several of the West's leading public interest environmental law firms, including the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, Oregon and Advocates for the West in Boise, Idaho.

As ForestWatch's new Program & Outreach Coordinator, Zack oversees our volunteer program and coordinates public outreach activities. Originally from the base of the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico, Zack earned his Master’s degree from the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at U.C. Santa Barbara, where he specialized in Conservation Planning and studied blue oak woodlands in the Southern Sierra Nevada. Zack brings several years of experience working with other non-profits both prior to and during his studies at Bren. In his free time, Zack enjoys flyfishing, hiking, surfing, and reading sci-fi novels.