Women's Equality Day 2025 - Jennifer Onufer

Nate Lillge • August 26, 2025

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution - granting women the right to vote - was certified on August 26, 1920. In commemoration of this, in 1973 Congress designated August 26 as "Women's Equality Day" to remind us of the heroic women who advanced the Women's Suffrage movement. In recognition of Women's Equality Day, Tuleyome is highlight two women who are dedicated to our public lands: Jennifer Onufer (Bureau of Reclamation), Kay-Leigh Barnitz (Bureau of Land Management), and Laura Leidner (US Forest Service). Hear about Jennifer's journey below and learn about Kay-Leigh here and Laura here.


Thank you, Jennifer, for your passion and dedication to our public lands!



I accepted a lateral transfer to the Bureau of Reclamation at Lake Berryessa after working 10 years with the National Park Service. Seven of those years were at Grand Canyon National Park. Working for Reclamation was never my dream however, I always respected that the agency’s mission to deliver water and power benefited a variety of people from diverse walks of life.

 

As a child, I visited National Parks with my family and became enamored with how uniformed National Park Service staff would perform a variety of duties like staffing a visitor center, cutting grass, or demonstrating how to fire a Revolutionary War Cannon (with or without making it clear that the cannon wasn’t about to take my arms off!). I liked the diversity of tasks in this line of work.

 

I started work at Lake Berryessa in July 2015 as a GS 09 Park Ranger and eventually became the sites’ Supervisory Park Ranger in 2018. I maxed out the available Park Ranger Series positions at Berryessa and took a position with the National Park Service at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in 2022 before earning enough time in grade to qualify, compete, and earn a chance to serve as Lake Berryessa’s Park Manager in January 2024.

 

My predecessor, Margaret Baily [has inspired me]. I always appreciated being able to discuss and troubleshoot ongoing topics with her.

 

While a Park Ranger at Grand Canyon, we received a grant from the National Park Foundation to create the Grand Canyon Active Trails program to promote trail use among local residents. This project became a great outdoor laboratory for trying new outdoor hikes, walks, and bike rides. My most rewarding program was a walk of an old South Rim burn area that took people through the timeline of that incident, its causes, the challenges, and its conclusion. It was the last hike I had the privilege of leading at Grand Canyon before transferring to Berryessa.

 

2020 was a very rough year professionally, and personally. If I had to go back and do it again, I’d have placed more of a priority on my family.

 

What advice would you give young women starting their career: It’s convoluted, but I have to regularly remember to “forget to say I can’t” as often as possible.

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