My mother tells me my interest in wildlife began at an early age. I would collect frogs in a bucket, name them all George, watch them in a special frog habitat I constructed in our backyard, then release them to their “families” at night. 

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot,” said legendary conservationist Aldo Leopold. I am one of those people who cannot. I consider myself the luckiest person in the world to have the role as California Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation, and to work with amazing people to protect the state's remarkable wildlife--from mountain lions in Los Angeles to pika in the Sierra Nevada. And as to that pika feces reference, my most notable contribution to science to date involves documenting a pika eating marmot poop.