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About Our AmeriCorps Members
- Alphabetical by last name

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Team Leaders

Sonja Kulstad-Hurst (Outreach Team Leader)



Bio:

Sonja likes to remove items, large and small that have been dumped into the river. She is a surrogate mother to a 15 year old Guamanian. A lover of of her small yet spunky pets, FoxyLuLu the chihuahua, GabbyRella the jack russel, and Raoul the Magnificent (a beta). Sonja also has a somewhat surprising fondness for cowboys(one in particular), as well as a taste for anything spicy, noodly or in any way resembling SouthEast Asian cuisine. When Sonja is not chained to her computer at the WSP office she can be found trying out field work at many of the different WSP sites, attempting to plant a garden in her gi-normous backyard, or maybe even taking road trips that somehow lead to hotsprings in the middle of nowhere.



Brock Nedland (Education Team Leader)



Bio:

When I was 19 years old, the art school that I was going to went bankrupt; they lost my transcripts and put me thousands of dollars in debt. I was burned out on higher education, was in a garage band, made an appointment to get a tattoo of a snake that was going to wrap around my arm, but the appointment was canceled by the artist who was deathly ill. I used the money that I saved by not getting more body art and purchased a round trip ticket from Minnesota (where, I was born and raised) to Anchorage, Alaska where my Uncle Joe and wife PJ live. After five days hiking, camping and fishing in the forest I decided to stay. I spent the next four years (still burned out on higher education) working at Kinko’s, fishing lodges and US Fish and Wildlife before deciding to attend classes at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. The northern lights in this region are some of the best displays in the world and since I lived in a hostel at the time, tourists (mostly from Japan) would take me out every night to watch the colors move in the sky. I want to get back up to Fairbanks someday soon to stand in -40 degree temperatures and stare into the morning sky. The nights were long and cold and the days were few in far between. I missed the sun and daytime activity, so I joined National Student Exchange which brought me to Humboldt State where I met a woman, got married and divorced, and then graduated from school with a bachelors of Science in Environmental Science. I’m a second year member with the Watershed Stewards Project and currently serve as the education team leader. I plan on pursuing a career as an educator after my second year of service with WSP



Melissa Scott



Bio:

Melissa grew up along the banks of the American River nurtured among oak woodlands. While perusing her degree in Recreation at Chico State, she was able to indulge in her wanderlust by working with Chinese children in China and American campers in Germany. Her first “real” job out of college included being an Environmental Educator in her native Sacramento along the banks of the American River where she became an expert in nature play. She was picked up by the Department of Fish and Game to lead education programs among other various fishy related projects. While at DFG Melissa realized how precious our fisheries resource are, and was inspired to attend Humboldt State where she got another BS, Fisheries Biology. Melissa loves her job with AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project because it encompasses all things she is passionate about including educating the public about watershed restoration, teaching environmental education and getting her feet wet the field. When Melissa is not out promoting the “Creek Geeks” program she can be found at the beach flirting with surfers and frolicking with their dogs, hunting for nudibranchs in tidepools, cooking up locally caught sustainable seafood, and giving out hugs! Now that Melissa is out of school she hopes to learn how to fish, Got Boat?