Portfolio

How do you measure the health of a mountain? In 2015, One Tam member organizations set out to answer that question. Andrea served on the Technical Advisory Committee and as main author for several vegetation chapters of the final report; helped facilitate staff and expert stakeholder meetings to review indicators, thresholds, status and trends for ecological land health on Mount Tamalpais, Marin County, California. Reviewed and revised the 2023 Open Canopy Oak Woodlands chapter as well.

Marin Water's rare plant inventory hadn't been updated in nearly 30 years. Compiling several seasons of field work into a clear document with objective local status, trend, and management information allowed prioritization of limited resources to where they could have the greatest impact.

In 2015, the California Native Plant Society needed help working through a strategic planning process. Andrea's work, from a large-group facilitated SWOT analysis to targeted meetings and editing sessions, helped bring the project to fruition.

How do you create a shared set of agreements around preventing weed spread? Andrea was part of the group that helped design and facilitate the first National Park Service "Working Together Against Weeds" workshop in 2007 to create a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive plants during park operations, from contracting and concessions to fire and ranger activities as well as natural resource activities.

Fuel reduction, invasive plant control, sudden oak death response, and other land management and monitoring need to be planned in concert for best effect. Andrea worked on a team of staff and consultants to produce a vegetation management plan for weed control, fuelbreaks, and biodiversity monitoring on watershed lands. The plan identified stressors such as disease, climate change, and invasive species as well as management objectives, priority habitats, and costs associated with each action. 

While at Marin Water, served on the Asset Management Steering Committee and gained certification in Asset Management Planning, producing an asset management plan for fuelbreaks on watershed lands. The asset management process identifies objective metrics for risk and condition assessment; determines maintenance, replacement, or improvement needs and costs; and builds a calendar and shows tradeoffs in risk and responsiveness based on resources given to operations and capital budgets.

What are the priority invasive plants and places in Bay Area National Parks? Andrea worked with vegetation specialists from Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, and Pinnacles National Monument (now Pinnacles National Park) through a years-long meeting, editing, and testing process to create a comprehensive, documented process to prioritize species and areas for searching and levels of mapping required for a thorough invasive species early detection program.

Andrea has served on boards and in leadership since the 1990s, including the California Native Grasslands Association, California Invasive Plant Council, Calflora, and numerous internal advisory and steering committees. Trained as a facilitator through NOAA's "Navigating in Rough Seas" workshops, and skilled at incorporating structured decision-making methods and creating process agendas to have clear, shared objectives and expectations.

Created curriculum for "Apps and Snaps" field course covering computer- and smartphone-assisted plant identification, mapping and tracking; regular instructor for grass identification courses; developed "How to Cheat at Botany" offering tips and tricks on plant identification for all skill levels. Most familiar with plants of Coastal and Northern California but able to identify or train others on plants of the California Floristic Province.

From a full-day workshop to a section in an introductory course, trainings on ways to plan for efficient weed management can be tailored to your needs. 

Initial work on ecological indicators with the National Park Service's San Francisco Bay Area Inventory and Monitoring Network led to innovative projects such as the botanical inventory of Marin Water lands and the Peak Health Report. If you need help choosing indicators of land health, adding participatory science as a line of inquiry or evidence, or working through monitoring ideas, WEAP can help.