January 15, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
In 2015, I was separated from the U.S. Army with a General Discharge, Under Honorable Conditions. I returned to California with no idea what I was going to do. My hopes of attending a four-year college using the Post 9-11 G.I. Bill were squashed due to the characterization of my discharge. Over the next year, I would end up dropping out of community college and getting fired from my gas station job. My life was way off track, I lacked any purpose or vision, and I was headed nowhere fast. But this rock-bottom moment led me to a job posting for the California Conservation Corps (CCC), and my life was radically transformed in the best possible way.
I joined the CCC in July of 2016 and spent my first year in the traditional Corps program. I did activities such as litter clean up, fire fuel reduction, and invasive plant removal. The work opened my eyes to a whole new world of conservation and natural resource protection, but I felt the need to learn and do more. That’s when I requested a transfer to northern California and found out about the existence of the NOAA Veterans Corps Fisheries Program. I had no idea what “fisheries” meant or that California was home to salmon, but I liked that the job description included “working independently” and “hiking through creeks.” So, I took a leap of faith and took a position in the Vet Corps working at the Ukiah CCC Center. This turned out to be the best decision that I have ever made in my life.
Improving Habitat, Counting Salmon
Over the next two years I learned more about science and conservation than I ever did in any classroom setting. I spent three months leading a crew in the installation of “large woody debris” (a fancy science term for logs) on coastal streams. This improves the quality of habitat for endangered coho salmon.
After that, I spent about six months walking through the creeks of Sonoma and Mendocino counties. I counted spawning salmon and gathering data for biologists from the Mendocino Redwood Company and the Russian River Monitoring Program. When the salmon finished spawning, I used laser survey equipment to gather data about changes in the topography of stream channels. I spent one more season doing restoration work with the CCC before I decided to branch out once more. I transferred to the NOAA Vet Corps’ most unique site in Orleans, California.