When Ken Owen made the decision to abandon his computer company as the dot.com bubble began to burst in the early 2000s, he didn’t have a clue what he wanted to do.
Then, a chance trip with Steve Junak, a botanist for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, offered him the opportunity to visit the Channel Islands and participate in a restoration project there. He jumped at the chance.
The weekend encounter would end up changing Owen’s life.
“I had no formal training in ecology or botany when I went on the trip,” Owen told me as we sat on a bench overlooking the San Marcos Preserve, “but afterwards, I knew I wanted to know more.”
Within a few weeks, Owen enrolled in classes at Santa Barbara City College and began attending seminars by noted wetland specialist Wayne Ferrin. At the same time, he also began volunteering at the Coal Oil Point Reserve to get more on-the-ground experience.
There, he met Duke McPherson, a local arborist who shared his interests. More trips to the islands ensued, and eventually the two decided they would join forces to create an organization that would focus on organizing volunteers for their restoration efforts there.
“Duke had a bachelor’s degree in botany from UCSB, a landscape contractor’s license and was a certified arborist,” Owen explained. “He was skilled at working with people and organizing field work.”
In short, he was a perfect partner for the still-learning former computer guru.
What Owen contributed from that business was how to organize, build membership numbers and help recruit the volunteers.
Building a Volunteer Force
“The thing that I’m most proud about that we’ve done over the 20 years,” he explains to me, “is the number of kids we took out to the Channel Islands, many of them from underserved communities.”
Owen estimates the number to be more than 2,500 by now and is looking forward to the next 2,500.
For a number of years, Owen and McPherson scrambled to attract enough grant funding to keep the trips to the islands going, and they began to look for opportunities for projects on the mainland for their volunteers.
They pulled out tons of ice plants on Anacapa Island, rooted out a nasty invasive called arundo in Carpinteria creeks, and worked locally for Santa Barbara County Parks and several nonprofit organizations.
Becoming a Nonprofit
Eventually, the success of their volunteer efforts would lead to the decision to form a nonprofit organization, which Owen and McPherson called Channel Islands Restoration, or CIR for short.
CIR began operations in 2002 with McPherson serving as president and Owen the executive director.
“Making a living then was pretty tough,” Owen remembers. “I loved what we were doing, but I was barely making enough to survive.
“Thankfully, we were doing a lot of work at the Arroyo Hondo Preserve right then, and I was living off avocados on many a night.”
He came to the point where he couldn’t stand eating them anymore.
Fortunately at that point, CIR was able to obtain a number of grants through partnerships they developed with the Botanic Garden and the Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Celebrating 20 Years of Volunteer Effort
This Saturday, Channel Islands Restoration will be celebrating its 20th year as a nonprofit organization with a gathering at Manning Park starting at 3:45 p.m.
Along with the celebration, CIR has also added a unique fundraiser, with the winning bid receiving a hand-built two-person kayak.
Focus on San Marcos Preserve
Perhaps CIR’s most important achievements to date, and made possible by its 20-year investment in the local community, involve its work at the San Marcos Preserve.
This includes many years of restoration work in Atascadero and Cieneguitas creeks at the preserve, and last year’s successful efforts to raise the funds needed to purchase the adjacent property known as West Mesa and protect it from development.
Currently, CIR is completing work on the development of a long-term plan for West Mesa that is required before the property title can formally become a part of San Marcos Preserve.
Once that is complete, Owen expects that its restoration efforts will begin to take shape.
Developing a Preserve Volunteer Program
This winter and spring, CIR is focusing its efforts on the development of a volunteer docent program for its restoration efforts at the West Mesa at the San Marcos Preserve.
Volunteers will be trained in many aspects of the natural history of the preserve, including the diverse habitats that local animals depend on for survival. Docents will learn about native plants, local geology, bird identification and the cultural history of the land, including the history of Chumash, the first people to live on the land.
A trails restoration and maintenance program is also being developed that will help support more sustainable trails in all parts of the preserve as well as the addition of several new trails that will help complement the overall experience.
That may also include an accessible trail that will meander through a new native plant garden, the addition of hundreds of new plants raised from seeds collected by CIR volunteers, and improved signage to help visitors enjoy the preserve without disturbing those that call it their home.
If you would like to learn more about serving as a docent or helping support the preserve’s sustainable trail efforts, contact Owen by calling 805.448.5726 or emailing ken@cirweb.org.
— Noozhawk outdoor writer Ray Ford can be reached at rford@noozhawk.com. Click here for his website, SBoutdoors.com. Follow him on Twitter: @riveray. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.