I fell in love with wilderness before I could spell my own name. From a toddler-carrying backpack on my parents’ shoulders in the North Cascade Mountains to slicing across Bellingham Bay in my own sailboat, my childhood was shaped by the outdoors; it was where I went for fun, for solace, for vacation, and eventually for work. My first job was whitewater raft guide, followed in college by outdoor journalist and then mountain guide, with every step showing me new and wonderful corners of nature. Conservation was indelibly tied in from the beginning as I watched endangered bald eagles nest along local trails and logging scars grow and fade. Every park, trail, and clean waterway was to me a success story proving that anyone really can make a difference, and I have never lost my determination to pitch in.
My mom worked as an aerospace engineer and both my parents found aircraft engineering fascinating, so I grew up around a lot of flying books if not actual planes. I remember long hours flipping through the Big Book of Airplanes, always stopping on my favorite–the SR-71 Blackbird. Despite this early introduction, though, no one in my family was a pilot and the pathway felt financially far out of reach. Then after college I got a magazine editor job in Boulder, Colorado, where flight school students flew over my house every day. It reawakened the dream of flight I had carried since childhood. I booked an intro flight, took the controls for the very first time, and immediately knew I was where I belonged. The rest, as they say, is history.
When I found out that I could combine my two greatest passions at LightHawk I wanted to join immediately. While I don’t yet have the flight hours to become a volunteer pilot, my decade in journalism gives me the perfect skill set to share LightHawk’s stories: From transporting Colorado’s new gray wolf pack to flying local leaders over the San Joaquin Delta, I’ll be taking you along with me on some of our incredible missions. There are so many powerful stories in conservation that can inspire hope, action, and awe, and as a writer I want to spread those stories from LightHawk to as many people as possible. So fasten your safety belt, read your flight briefing, and join me in the sky!