I’ve been extremely busy since my last check-in, which is exactly how I love to work.  Remember, diamonds are made under pressure! 

I’ve learned a lot since publishing my last post –

1. Creating and supporting ocean policy can be a difficult hands on process of legality, long timelines, and networking.
2. Engaging the public is necessary at all stages of a policy process, and even though you pride yourself on opening new doors to make it easier to engage, you may not always like what you hear.
3. Sometimes you have to be comfortable throwing away a meeting agenda while facilitating a large group.
4. Not every hotel offers complimentary hair conditioner...

The Rocky Shore Road Show

Presenting some background on the TSP Part 3 to some community members in Brookings, OR.

Since we last spoke I have been involved with creating, distributing, and managing a public scoping process to make sure all voices are heard in the Territorial Sea Plan – Part 3 update.  Oregon’s 1st Land Use Planning Goal focuses on public engagement, and as an over controlling, too connected to communication outlets, millennial, I was pretty excited to dive right into doing my best to make sure we explored every way of engaging rocky shore lovers.  This included creating online and printed outreach material, 2 online questionnaires, partnering with organizations who can promote on social media, and hosting 9 public scoping workshops all over the Oregon Coast and Willamette Valley (hence the hair conditioner revelation).

Naturally, lots of pit stops were made during the Rocky Shores Road Show. My mentor Andy Lanier thought it would be fun to document my nearly getting blown off Cape Blanco while trying to take a photo down the South Coast. Update – I did survive these Gail force winds, but my scarf sadly did not.

Some exciting news came recently!  The NOAA Project of Special Merit that I applied for in January has been accepted (based on federal funding of course).  This is by far the largest grant I have ever applied to, let alone gotten!  It will provide nearly $250,000 to support the continuation of the Rocky Shores Management Strategy update process and will also fund the creation of a communications plan to help engage and educate the many people that love and use Oregon’s rocky coast!  Stay tuned, more information is set to be coming in soon!

There are some perks to your mentor doubling as a photographer =]

Some Other Thoughts

In addition to the rocky shores process, I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to aid in other capacities around DLCD and with it’s partners!  Being able to expand into other projects has really opened my eyes to the multitude of things that Oregon’s Coastal Program is really involved in.  It’s astounding that the amazing people here are able to do so much with such a limited staff and a 30% funding cut.  I can’t even imagine what it would be like with full funding.

Reminded myself that I’m still afraid of heights at Blacklock Point!

Here are some of the other aspects of coastal management that I have been thrilled to be involved with – just to name a few

1. Helping to staff another exciting Ocean Policy Advisory Council Meeting – and creating briefing materials to update the council on the Rocky Shores Process.
2. Lead the efforts in promoting tribal nations correspondence for the Rocky Shores process and the Coastal Program as a whole.
3. Learning about the many aspects of federal consistency and enforceable policies and bringing those into the Rocky Shores Process.
4. Too many presentations to count!
5. GIS – turns out I’m not naturally gifted at using ArcGIS…go figure…but I’m still working along to gain those skills!  Thank goodness for a patient mentor =]
6. Gaining experience reviewing participant and company applications for different RFP’s and positions

I figured I should mix it up for once and show one of the amazing terrestrial things I’ve gotten to enjoy as a part of all of my travels. During one of our first trips to the south coast we got the most spectacular glimpse of a heard of elk in the Umpqua River Valley. The whole heard was grazing on the juicy grasses supported by the estuary. As we stood there the heard moved closer and closer until they were only tens of feet from us! Being an east coaster I couldn’t help but stand in aw of these vegetarian beasts and jokingly think “that’s the biggest white tailed deer I’ve ever seen!”

Finally, and somewhat non-related:  My possible over-use of #ILoveMyJob on Instagram has now become the butt of all my friends jokes…but what can I say… #ILoveMyJob and I don’t care who knows it!