Jerry has been working in conservation in a variety of roles for 45 years. Starting in 1977, Jerry worked with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), now called the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), preparing conservation plans on farms, grazing lands, and forest lands while also doing vegetation data collection on forest and rangelands for the Cibola and McKinley County Soil Surveys. From 1982 to 2009, Jerry served as State Staff Forester for USDA, NRCS, and SCS in both Davis, CA and Albuquerque, N.M. where he wrote agency conservation standards and specifications, provided formalized and non0-formal conservation planning training, was a member of the Burned Area Emergency Response/Emergency Watershed Program Team and provided forestry site data and interpretations.
In 2009 Jerry retired but then un-retired to serve as a Forester for the National Older Worker Career Center (NOWCC) and Agriculture Experienced Services (ACES) to provide support to implement Farm Bill Programs, provide technical assistance with conservation planning, forestry screening and ranking, development of conservation plans, and performed cultural resources surveys.
Jerry then joined the Placer Resource Conservation District (Placer RCD) as a part-time conservation planner to support implementation of Farm Bill Programs within the District by providing technical support including cultural resources surveys, preparing environmental documents, and developing conservation plans on individual landowner’s property. Furthermore, Jerry provides technical assistance to landowners within the District including those in wildfire burned areas and assists in completing fuel load surveys.