Molok Luyuk Conservation Campaign Organizer
Nate Lillge • August 2, 2022
Position Title: Administrative Assistant
Formed in 2002, Tuleyome is a regional non-profit organization headquartered in Woodland, CA, with a footprint throughout the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument region. Tuleyome is a Lake Miwok Indian word that means “deep home place,” illustrating our organization’s deep connection to our environment, our communities and our regional lands. Tuleyome’s Mission is to provide advocacy and active stewardship to conserve, enhance, restore, and enjoy lands in the Northern Inner Coast Range region. Working with partners, we have protected vast areas of public lands, from large swaths such as the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and Cache Creek State Wild and Scenic River to Woodland Regional Park Preserve. We are also neighbors, holding title to nearly 3000 acres, plus an additional 1200 in conservation easements and 640 in Williamson Act easements, all of which protect key ecological parcels and enhance access to public lands across the region. Tuleyome’s leadership on Northern Inner Coast Range protection, restoration, access, advocacy and education has led increasing numbers of people to protect, restore, and enjoy the natural landscape of the Northern Inner Coast Range.
Position Description
The Administrative Assistant will help advance Tuleyome’s expansion, restoration, protection, education and engagement efforts for the Northern Inner Coast Ranges of California. The position works collaboratively with Tuleyome’s team and local, regional and statewide conservation organizations, local, state and federal agencies, and local landowners and businesses to enhance support for, and stewardship of, the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. The Administrative Assistant is an integral part of the team and works under the leadership of the Executive Director. This is an excellent opportunity for a motivated individual with strategic instincts, high-level organizing, and administrative experience to maximize and strengthen Tuleyome and its efforts to defend, protect, expand, and restore the lands in our region.
The Administrative Assistant will have a love of outdoor recreation, an appreciation of wildlife and the importance of public access to public lands, strong leadership and interpersonal skills, the ability to work with people from a range of diverse backgrounds and work on dynamic, high-performance teams. The candidate is committed to Tuleyome’s mission, is emotionally intelligent, and has high integrity.
Position Objectives
- Ensure the seamless operation of the office and its administrative and financial systems.
- Work collaboratively to create efficient document and Member Relations Management systems that integrate Tuleyome’s operations and data.
- Create and implement effective IT systems for implementing Tuleyome’s programs and mission.
- Work collaboratively to create efficient systems for engagement with, and representation of, Tuleyome with members of the public.
- Liaison between Tuleyome and members of the public.
- Streamline scheduling, primarily Executives’, and ensure that meeting requests have agendas and supporting documents.
- Seek grant and fundraising opportunities, write grants and assist other staff with the same.
Qualifications of a Successful Candidate
- Outstanding organizational and project management skills.
- Experienced communicator with excellent interpersonal skills and proven ability to interact with a wide diversity of people.
- Experience with office management, office systems and database management.
- Technology savvy with experience using a wide range of social, digital, and multimedia tools to share information and reach target audiences.
- Ability to travel regionally and work extended hours as needed. Driving, travel, temporary assignments and occasional extended work hours are required. A valid driver’s license is required.
- Experience handling confidential information appropriately.
- Commitment to advancing equity, inclusion, and diversity within the organization and in the environmental movement.
- Problem solver with the ability to prioritize, adjust focus, and wear many hats in a fast-paced environment.
- Passion, creativity, integrity, positive attitude, and intellectual curiosity.
- Fluency in Spanish is a plus.
Hours and Salary Range
This is a part time position at 20 hours per week, with the possibility of future growth.
Salary: $21,000 - $26,000 annually, with vacation time.
To Apply
Send a cover letter and resume to information@tuleyome.org.
Tuleyome will begin reviewing resumes on June 1, 2022. The position will remain open until filled.
No phone calls, please.
Tuleyome is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis race, color, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, sex, marital status, disability or status as a U.S. veteran.
This job description reflects the assignment of essential functions; it does not prescribe or restrict the tasks that may be assigned.
PDF of job description is available HERE.
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Have you ever been hiking in the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument (or almost anywhere else in the world for that matter) and come across a plant or animal and not been able to identify it? Have you ever thought, “hmmm, if only there was an easily accessible phone app that could help me identify this thing nearly instantly?” If that exact thought wandered through your cranium; boy, oh boy are you in luck! Enter iNaturalist! The iNaturalist app is primarily an online social community sharing their findings and information to network and help others learn about the environment. The iNaturalist website states that “INaturalist is crowdsourced species identification system and an organism occurrence recording tool. You can use it to record your own observations, get help with identifications, collaborate with others to collect this kind of information for a common purpose, or access the observational data collected by other iNaturalist users.” iNaturaist was developed as a Master’s final project by Ken-ichi Ueda, Nate Agrin and Jessica Kline at UC Berkeley’s School of Information back in 2005; the same year that YouTube and Reddit were initially introduced to the public - a vintage year for social media developments! It officially launched in 2008 and work continued on the site and iNaturalist, LLC was born in 2011. By 2017 National Geographic was onboard and in 2023, what began as a student project became an independent nonprofit organization that grew into a globally recognized Citizen Science driven platform that connects millions of people to the biodiversity around them. iNaturalist is a compilation database that contributes valuable collective intelligence to conservation and science from around the world. iNaturalist is a valuable tool for species identification as well as organism occurrence crowdsourced information, it is also a practical resource for species identification and distribution. And guess what else! It’s free to use. Sound good? Want to know how you can benefit from iNaturalist? You can use iNaturalist to record your own species observations and locations. You can use it to help identify species you aren’t sure about or may be new to by using other individuals' entries. You can even work with other users to collaborate and continue to add information to the site or you can access other’s information regarding species observations and occurrences. You can look up and enter data using scientific nomenclature or common names. You can look at other’s photos and locations for reference and contribute your observations. Students and Professors alike are using and recommending iNaturalist. So how’s it been going? On March 20, 2008, the very first entry was made into iNaturalist. To save you from doing the math I’ll tell you that iNaturalist just had its 18th birthday! Guess how many observations people have recorded in those 18 years… you’ll never guess so I’ll just tell you - iNaturalist has over 3.5 million individual observations ! And it’s increasing every moment, you can literally watch the counter on their homepage rise. Guess how many individual species have been recorded! Not to be disparaging but you’ll never get it...iNaturalist is up to just under 560,000 species ! There are currently over four million registered individuals making and recording observations and more than 483,000 people helping other people by making identifications. In just 18 years, a student project has grown into a globally recognized and respected tool to make and record species observations adding information to a world-wide biodiversity database. If you want to be a part of this community simply download the iNaturalist app or go to their website and get out there and start entering your observations. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument region is an incredible place to practice using iNaturalist because it hosts such a huge diversity of habitats and species.
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Finally, they’re back!! I’ve been waiting and watching for them and just this week I heard the first one of the summer. Swainson’s hawks ( Buteo swainsoni ) make an impressive journey every fall and then do it again in reverse every spring. Where do they go and why is it so impressive you ask? Stay tuned and find out! Our Swainson’s hawks, the hawks that summer here in California’s Central Valley, that raise their babies in old cottonwoods and valley oaks along our riparian areas, the same hawks that weigh less than two pounds and gorge themselves on grasshoppers and rodents all summer long, travel all the way to ARGENTINA! That is nearly 6,500 air miles and would take 18-20 hours on a commercial flight without any layovers. Are you impressed? If not, consider the fact that they do that epic journey TWICE a year! Swainson’s hawks are a close relative of our year-round resident, the Red-tailed hawk and are similar in size and habitat requirements. Swainson’s hawks have two color morphs; a light morph and a dark morph, and although both sexes wear the same colors and patterns, females are typically slightly larger and heavier than males. In the light color morph both females and males sport a chocolate-colored “bib” with a white throat and face patch and bright yellow rostrum. Their tails are barred and their flight feathers are dark with a light-colored leading edge - a unique color pattern in North American raptors. Dark morphs are all dark chocolate brown with the same barred tail with a light patch just under it. Swainson’s hawks occur roughly west of the Missouri River during the warm summer season and like some people I know, take off for warmer regions when the summer weather turns chilly. In California, Swainson’s hawks nest primarily in the Central Valley although there are small populations in northeastern California, Shasta Valley, Owens Valley and the Mojave Desert. Historically it was estimated that California supported over 17,000 breeding pairs but in 1980 that number had declined to only 375 breeding pairs. In 1988 it was up to an estimated 550 breeding pairs statewide and in 2005 the number of breeding pairs had inched up to just under 2100. They were listed as a threatened species in California in 1983 due primarily to habitat loss. An endorsement of their adaptability, Swainson’s hawks have not only learned to co-exist with many agricultural practices but they in fact thrive alongside irrigated pastures and tractors which has helped their number improve. Swainson’s hawks have learned that the rumble of a tractor pulling a harrow disk equates to what we might consider a drive through meal. They’ve also learned that when a rancher turns on the water and begins to flood irrigate a pasture, that advancing waterline flushes out underground rodents resulting in a heavenly smorgasbord of unwelcome pests to the human behind the water controls. I’ve seen 20 hawks lined up following the waterline with 20 more circling waiting their turn at the chow line. If their migratory journey hasn’t impressed you, their rodent/lizard/grasshopper eating capacity surely will. These gourmands will gorge themselves so heavily that they realistically cannot lift themselves off the ground for a time which results in oodles of hawks hopping about like unathletic feathered toads. Mutualism at its finest - the hawks get a gourmet meal and farmers and ranchers get free pest control. If their stamina and gluttony doesn’t impress you, maybe this will. It’s not uncommon for wild Swainson’s hawks to live and continue breeding into their 20’s. But that’s not just hanging around and raising babies in the laid back summer months. During those 20 years, that individual bird has flown about 260,000 miles to safely return to the same area, perhaps the same tree, that held the nest that it fledged from. That’s undeniably impressive!