The past fourteen months have been among one of the most challenging yet rewarding chapters in my life. A rollercoaster of emotions filled with hope, fear, exhaustion, stress, sense of community, success, burnout, loneliness, and everything in between. This wild ride began in February 2020, when I returned to school to earn a Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership (MSOL) from the University of Redlands. The choice to return to school was two fold. The first was to learn and overflow my toolbox with skills to be a stronger leader that will positively increase my leadership at The Wildlands Conservancy, the California 4-H Youth Development Program, and beyond. The second was that it was the right time in my life to return to school. I was financially sound with no debt, currently single with no family, and qualified for some financial assistance through work to help pay for the program. As I stepped on campus for the first time for the program orientation in mid-February, my classmates and I had a clear expectation of what the program would be. We all knew we would be on campus once a week from 6:00 to 10:00 pm working together through discussions, group projects, and lecture. In addition, we knew we all would spend a great deal of time outside of class studying, researching, working on group projects, and more. Little did we know that one month after beginning our program, the world would change and that we would all have to cope with a global crisis at work, our personal lives, and our school work.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the recent novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. While the world began to panic, my sister and I traveled into the Eastern Sierra to my work's brand new Bodie Hills Preserve in Bridgeport. I was promoted to the Eastern Sierra Nevada Regional Director for Wildlands a few months past and traveled up to the preserve to clean the house that came with this recently acquired preserve. Oblivious to what was happening across the country and world, we spent the few days in a quite and beautiful part of the state working on a few work projects. Ashley fell ill on the second day of the trip and I woke up sick on the day we drove home. We believed to have been ill with the flu with our simpotoms being fever, bodie aches, and congestion. I came to the conclusion Ashley was already infected during our drive north which was how I got infected. The timeline from infection to signs of symptoms seemed to quick for it to be COVID-19. As we ended the trip and was driving home, the nation was in panic. Our parents reached out that morning asking to stop at stores on our way home to purchase toilet paper. Our uncle desperately needed a few rolls and could not find any throughout Highland, Redlands, and San Bernardino. We stopped in Lone Pine to get some flu medication and looked around but found no toilet paper. After we got home, we both saw the videos and images on social media of what was going on. Being sick, I wasn't able to make my own supply run until my fever broke two days later. It was the most stressful, fearful, and anxiety filled trip to the store. Still coughing, I feared those at the store would immediately react to my presence in the store. Much of the staples at the store was gone, with people having their grocery carts overflowing with what they can find. As an exhausted, sick, and scared person I was able to find food to eat but nothing I usually purchase to create meals.
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| The first day of virtual learning for my masters after the stay at home order was issued. |
Billions of people's lives had changed that week. Governor Newsom issued a stay at home order on March 19, 2020. This order resulted in the University of Redlands to frantically shift all of its instruction to online platforms. This grew challenging to instructors for the MSOL program since it was never designed to be taught online. At The Wildlands Conservancy, Executive Staff rushed to assess the situation and quickly had to develop policies for our staff to follow. In partnership with our Executive Director and Human Resources Director, I was one of the primary staff to develop our policies and protocols our staff across the state would follow for months to come. Outside of school and work, I had to spend a great deal of time in my volunteer roles at the California 4-H Youth Development Program. We had to cancel all in-person events and determine how we can deliver programing in a virtual world. For the California 4-H Youth Summits, we had to cancel our youth planning team retreat, cancel the four in-person conferences, and move over to a virtual conference which was held just one month ago. For the 4-H Summer Camp, we simply canceled the week program; the first time since the camp began over 80 years ago. Today, the camp is canceled for a second year in a row and we hope to bring it back in the summer of 2022. Overtime, things fell into a new normal. The rest of my masters program and 4-H programing was online. Work was a mix of working from home, working in the office, and traveling into the Eastern Sierra. I was extremely blessed that Wildlands allowed for six staff or less to be in our office at any single day. I live in a small studio apartment on Oak Glen Preserve. I am not sure how mentally sound I would have been during this pandemic if I had to spend my entire time (work, school and 4-H work) in my small studio apartment. Cabin fever would definitely take over. Once the professors got used to virtual instruction, it turned out to be a blessing in that I was able to travel for work and continue my schooling.
As my world got used to the new normal under a global pandemic, things seemed to flow well until two new back to back crises that would spiral my life out of control. On July 31, 2020, the Apple Fire was ignited in Cherry Valley from a deisal fuel vehicle. Over time, the fire spread to the east towards Cabazon and north towards Oak Glen. The next day, evacuation orders for the region was given. Evacuation of Oak Glen Preserve is never easy. First, we need to evacuate the public from the preserve trails and our leasee's business at Los Rios Rancho. Once the public is evacuated, non-essential staff are sent home. My office, the Executive Headquarters (HQ), is a priority for evacuation. Majority of the important organizational files that date back to the organization's beginning are in physical form and not backed-up electronically. It takes a team of staff up to two hours to pack-up vehicles and trailers with over 50 file drawers, countless maps, technology equipment, and other items. Outside of our office, there are seven residents that live on the preserve (including myself). All of them need to pack-up their belongings and evacuate. Once our HQ office was evacuated, I rushed home to pack my car to the rim of everything I need to save. The fire kept to the east of Oak Glen, burning on the eastern slopes of what is known as Pine Bench and spread north onto the Yucaipa Ridge (an area of the San Bernardino National Forest that hasn't had a fire event in over 100 years). What helped this fire keep out of Oak Glen was the large amount of fire resources assigned to the fire. It was the first large fire event of the season. No other fires were burning so the emergency services were able to give that fire everything it needed. I could have stayed in Oak Glen during the evacuation but couldn't afford to lose valuable time needed for my masters program. After a few days, the fire had ended and the evacuation order lifted and we began putting our lives back to gether at work and at home. Experinging a wildfire event while in school and dealing with a global health crisis was beyond stressful and exhausting. My professor at the time lived in Beamount to the south of the fire and was completely understanding of my situation. I was allowed to complete my work late once the fire had ended which I was extremely blessed for.
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| Evacuating HQ during Apple Fire |
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Apple Fire from Oak Glen Preserve trailhead the day of evacuation.
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A few weeks later, as all of our lives were almost back to "normal", a family hosting a gender reveal party at El Dorado Park on Oak Glen Road near Yucaipa set off a pyrotecnic device filled with colored powder in tall, dry grass. The grass caught fire and quickly spread towards Yucaipa, Mill Creek Canyon, and Oak Glen. The El Dorado Fire sparked new evacuations and posed as a greater threat to Oak Glen. We began the entire process over again with evacuating the public, HQ, and our residents. Unlike the Apple Fire, multiple large fires were burning across the state meaning less fire fighting resources were available to control the fire. Eventurally the fire reached Oak Glen Preserve and burned through old-growth oak woodlands. Our staff fought on the front lines to protect the historic structures and apple groves on the northside. Wildlands did not lose any buildings but others were not so lucky. The entire southern slope of the Yucaipa Ridge burned. After the evacuation was lifted, I first hiked into the burn area on the preserve. The forest was devastated. My feet felt the heat of the ground still smoldering beneath me and injured wildlife looking for shelter. We were lucky. We could have lost all of our offices and our residence in this fire. Re-growth is already happening but we now have the risk for major flood events. We were already evacuated once due to threat of debris flows and flooding from the El Dorado Fire and we will have that risk for years to come.
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Aftermath at Oak Glen Preserve
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Injured doe and her fawn in the burn area
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The aftermath of the El Dorado Fire sparked personal conflict I would fight to overcome over the course of the next few months. The continued stress of school, working full time, COVID-19, 4-H responsibilities, and two major wildfire events that threatened my work & home put me into burnout. Over the span of a few months, I was constantly exhausted, lacked motivation, and spent multiple days after work in bed not able to focus on completing normal chores (laundry, dishes, general cleaning), working on my 4-H responsibilities, and struggling to keep up with my course work. This burnout lasted from the beginning of September until January. The biggest impacts this burnout had went to the 4-H program. Planning for the virtual 4-H Youth Summit kept being delayed in part due to the lack of leadership I was providing. I ignored my emails for weeks at a time and only present for meetings already on the calendar. This resulted in the youth conference being pushed back from January to March. Through the hard work and efforts from our staff liasons, other volunteer leaders, and the youth, we were able to successfully plan and run a virtual 4-H Youth Summit. Once the Youth Summit was complete, I had to shift my entire attention back to the final push of my masters program.
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| Fellow Cohort and August 2021 Cohort Members celebrating our graduation at Escape Craft Brewery, April 23, 2021. |
This past Tuesday, April 20 was the official end of my masters program and graduation is this coming Saturday. It has been one crazy journey but I was able to power through. I wouldn't have been able to make it without the tireless support of my cohort and other classmates. We have spend a great deal of time working together and supporting each other through the challenges we all faced throughout this global crisis. They have become close friends and we hope to keep in touch for years to come. We choose to break out of our sheltered, pandemic protective life to meet and celebrate on Friday at Escape Craft Brewery. This was the first time we had seen each other in person since the beginning of the pandemic and it felt amazing to hang out, drink some beer, and reflect on what we accomplished. I am extremely proud of myself as I will graduate with a 3.9 GPA. For those who know my long education history, it would have been unthinkable of me having a GPA this high. I couldn't have done it without the support of my co-workers who also contributed to my research and assignments throughout the program. In celebration, I will be spending the next five days on the central coast in San Simeon to relax, explore, reflect, and contemplate my next endeavors.
In thinking on some of my future goals, I hope to lose weight (something I have talked about several times in the past), be more active, and continue to improve my leadership skills. I also plan to get back to writing in this blog, something I haven't done in quite sometime. Until then, this serves as a quick and short update of what has occurred over the past year.
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