President: Brock Ortega

Brock Ortega previously served as Treasurer and Member-at-large, and currently serves as President. He attended Humboldt State University where he obtained a B.S. degree in wildlife management. He is a senior wildlife biologist and principal at Dudek where he has been employed for over 26 years. He hold federal permits for several listed species, and particularly enjoys working on wildlife movement and renewable energy projects. Mr. Ortega has been involved with TWS for 25 years and with the local TWS chapter for the last 12 or so.  Mr. Ortega lives in San Diego County, and is trying to deal with “empty nest syndrome” and he has three kids in college (2 at University of Missouri, Columbia and one at Northern Arizona University).

Contact: bortega@dudek.com

President-elect: Lisa Fields

Lisa Fields has worked as an ecologist for California State Parks since 1998. She is currently based in San Diego at the Southern Service Center, which takes her to parks extending from the Mexican border to central California. She has also worked in California State Parks throughout the Sierra Nevada. Her passion is raptor management, particularly her research with the Osprey at Mono Lake – a piscivorous bird on a fishless lake.

Contact: Lisa.Fields@parks.ca.gov

Past-President: Wendy Loeffler

Ms. Loeffler is a senior project manager and senior biologist with RECON Environmental, Inc. She obtained both a B.A. and M.A in Biology from California State University, Fullerton, where she studied the diets of locally nesting seabirds. Upon completion of her advanced degree, Ms. Loeffler entered the environmental consulting world. She worked first and briefly in Orange County, and then settled with RECON in San Diego over 17 years ago. She holds a recovery permit to study and survey for the coastal California gnatcatcher, fairy shrimp, and the Quino checkerspot butterfly. She has trained and conducted surveys for desert tortoise and flat-tailed horned lizard, as well as focused surveys for rare plants, sensitive riparian bird species, burrowing owls and other sensitive raptors, and assisted with mammal trapping, insect inventories, and pitfall trapping.

Ms. Loeffler has been involved with the local chapter for almost 5 years, starting out as the membership chair and subsequently being appointed as the Interim President when the previous leadership stepped down. She looks forward to growing the local chapter and seeing the program expand to provide greater benefit to southern California wildlife biologists. Ms. Loeffler resides in La Mesa, California with her son Garrett.

Contact: wloeffler@reconenvironmental.com

Secretary: Caroline Garcia

Caroline Garcia is a wildlife biologist for ECORP Consulting, Inc. She studied at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign where she earned a B.S. in Integrative Biology and minor in Animal Sciences with a pre-veterinary course track. She also studied geographic information systems at San Diego Mesa College. Her experience includes field surveys, biological monitoring, and technical report preparation for terrestrial biological resources in southern California. Her favorite part of her job is assisting with special-status species surveys for coastal California gnatcatcher, burrowing owl, least Bell’s vireo, light-footed Ridgway’s rail, desert tortoise, Quino checkerspot butterfly, and small mammals such as giant kangaroo rat and Palm Springs pocket mouse. She currently also serves as the media communications committee chair sharing Chapter happenings and news on Facebook and LinkedIn. Her love of wildlife comes from her original career path in veterinary medicine – an itch she still scratches by volunteering with wildlife rehabilitation organizations.

Contact: CGarcia@ecorpconsulting.com

Treasurer: Brian Parker

Brian Parker serves as the Treasurer for the Southern California Chapter. He has also been the chapter’s professional development chair since 2016, coordinating the educational and training workshops for the Chapter. He has an undergraduate degree in biology from UC San Diego, a master’s in ecology from UCLA, and an MBA from UC Davis. He has been a biologist in Southern California since 2001, and has worked at RECON Environmental since 2011. He holds a federal recovery permit to survey for coastal California gnatcatcher and Quino checkerspot butterfly, and also regularly conducts surveys for arroyo toad, burrowing owl, flat-tailed horned lizard, and other plant and animal species. Most of his work focuses on city and county infrastructure projects.

Contact: bparker@reconenvironmental.com

Chapter Representative to TWS Western Section: Colleen Wisinski

Colleen Wisinski is a Research Coordinator in the Applied Animal Ecology Division of the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, where she has worked with golden eagles and cactus wrens and is currently the field team leader on the burrowing owl project. Colleen earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay, and her master’s degree in Fish and Wildlife Management from Montana State University in Bozeman, where she examined survival and habitat use of greater sage grouse in southwestern Montana. She is interested in conservation biology, population dynamics, and habitat use of birds. Before coming to the Zoo, Colleen worked as a wildlife rehabilitator where she trained several raptors for educational purposes, and as a whooping crane tracker where she used radio and satellite telemetry to monitor a reintroduced population of whooping cranes. She has been a member of The Wildlife Society since college and has presented her work at a number of conferences over the years. Colleen loves that she gets to work outdoors and be creative to figure out how to answer research questions in the field. Her love for animals and nature grew from her time spent outdoors in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

Contact: cwisinski@sandiegozoo.org

Member at Large: Kim Klementowski

Kim Klementowski is the Member at Large for the Southern California Chapter.  She is the Orange/Riverside Counties Regional Preserve Manager with the Center for Natural Lands Management, where she manages preserves set aside for threatened and endangered species.  Her work focuses on all aspects of conservation lands management, including weed control and habitat enhancement, surveys and population trends, and long-term vegetation monitoring, with emphasis on coastal California gnatcatcher, vernal pools and fairy shrimp, and burrowing owl.  After earning her master’s degree in Geography from CSU, Chico, Kim worked in various positions in the Lassen foothills, the Sonoran Desert, and San Clemente Island, before landing back in SoCal where she grew up.  When not working, she can be found rock climbing in the desert, snowboarding in the Sierras, or tearing apart her house for another DIY project.  She lives in Homeland with her partner Will and their “kids”, Jojin and Dalea.

Contact: kklementowski@cnlm.org

Appointed Positions