Mitigation and Conservation Banking, Company Culture, and Ecological Work with Amanda Dwyer and Dayna Winchell

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Amanda Dwyer Sales and Business Development Manager and Dayna Winchell Conservation Planner/Project Manager with Westervelt Ecological Service about Mitigation and Conservation Banking, Company Culture, and Ecological Work.   Read their full bios below.

Thank you to this episodes advanced sponsor Westervelt Ecological Services (WES). Wes is an environmental mitigation company based in the US. They specialize in providing ecological restoration, conservation, and mitigation banking services. WES works with both public and private sector clients to address environmental challenges and achieve regulatory compliance.

WES undertakes a variety of projects related to wetland and stream restoration, habitat enhancement, and species conservation. Their initiatives often involve the creation, enhancement, or preservation of natural habitats to offset the environmental impacts of development projects. These efforts aim to restore or improve the ecological functions of ecosystems, enhance wildlife habitats, and promote biodiversity. Check them out at https://wesmitigation.com

Showtimes:
2:59 Interview with Amanda Dwyer & Dayna Winchell starts
14:39 Mitigation & conservation banking
16:58 Ecological work
24:20 Field Notes
27:24 Company culture

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Amanda Dwyer at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwyeramanda/
Connect with Dayna Winchell at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dayna-winchell-6a0b8258/

Guest Bio:

Amanda Dwyer currently serves as the Sales and Business Development Manager for Westervelt Ecological Service’s Western Region Office. In this position, Amanda coordinates with a variety of clients to identify their mitigation needs and possible solutions to ensure their projects are completed in a cost-effective and timely manner. Prior to joining Westervelt Ecological Services, Amanda worked at the California Department of Water Resources doing environmental permit compliance for salmonid restoration projects in conjunction with water infrastructure improvements for California’s State Water Project. Amanda received her bachelor’s degree in 2014 from the University of California, Davis, in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning.

Dayna Winchell is a Conservation Planner/Project Manager with Westervelt Ecological Services. As a conservation planner Dayna prepares the mitigation documents and coordinates with the regulatory agencies to get approval of the mitigation and conservation sites. Before working at Westervelt, Dayna worked as a biologist for various environmental consulting firms where she completed species habitat assessments and wetland delineations. She has a master’s in Conservation Biology from the University of Queensland and currently resides in Sacramento, CA.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Chapters

• 2:59 Interview with Amanda Dwyer & Dayna Winchell starts
• 14:39 Mitigation & conservation banking
• 16:58 Ecological work
• 24:20 Field Notes
• 27:24 Company culture

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Laura 
Hello and welcome to NPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I talk about mitigation banking. I talked to Dana Winchell and Amanda Dwyer from Westerville ecological services about mitigation and conservation banking, company culture and ecological work. And finally, the world's largest protected wetland is yellow state boxes which is found in Bolivia. It is more than 17 million acres roughly equal in size to North Dakota.

Nic 
My Wow was for you getting the pronunciation correct. I was I was nailed it, and even then even swear that's been Yellin. poquito I think that's Yes. See? It's as easy.

[NAEP Events]

Nic
Northwest association of environmental professionals is hosting their next Happy Hour on Thursday July 6, from 530 to 730 Pacific rogue Eastside pub and pilot brewery. NWA EPS free monthly first Thursday, networking mixers are open to both NWA EP Members and non members and are a great opportunity for you to meet network stay informed and stay connected. With local environmental professionals. And W AP provides some snacks and gives each member two free drink tickets. For more information visit their website@www.nwe.org and that sounds fun. It does sound fun. I wish I was there. Today's episode is sponsored by Westover. Ecological Services, which is an environmental mitigation company based in the US. They specialize in providing ecological restoration, conservation and mitigation banking services. They work with both public and private sector clients to address environmental challenges and achieve regulatory compliance. Wes undertakes a variety of projects related to wetland and stream restoration, habitat enhancement, species conservation. Their initiatives often involve the creation, enhancement or preservation of natural habitats to offset the environmental impacts of development projects. These efforts aim to restore or improve the ecological functions of ecosystems enhance wildlife habitats. and promote biodiversity. The company operates across multiple regions the United States, West has products across the country, including California, Colorado, Nebraska, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. They were collaborating with landowners, agencies and stakeholders to design implement effective ecological solutions that balance economic development with long term environmental stewardship. Check them out at www dot West mitigation.com Special thanks to West for sponsoring today's episode at the highest level. If you would like to sponsor an episode yourself, please check us out at www dot environmental professionals radio.com. Let's get to our segment.

[Interview with Amanda Dwyer & Dayna Winchell starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today, we have Amanda Dwyer, a sales and business development manager at Westerville ecological services and Dana Winchell, a conservation planner also at West. welcome Amanda and Dina.

Dayna Winchell 
Thanks. Thank you.

Laura 
It's great to have you here. And also you guys are sponsoring the episode super, super appreciate that. So we're gonna dive into your backgrounds, your work, and then also we'll talk about Wes a little bit. It's been a while since we had two guests on at once. So I want to give our listeners a chance to kind of recognize your voices. I've listened to some other podcasts where they have multiple people and I'm like, who's talking? I don't know what's happening. So let's start off with what each of you does. So Dana, can you maybe explain what a conservation planner does on a daily basis?

Dayna Winchell 
Yeah, so as a conservation planner, I'm a project manager on a variety of our projects that were looking to get approved by various agencies, whether it's California Department of Fish or wildlife, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, it just kind of depends on what the project is. But what I do is work with the agencies to get our long term management plans approved and everything kind of that we need to get our mitigation site or conservation site approved. By the agency so we can enter into our long term instrument.

Laura 
Very cool. Thank you and Amanda, describe your role as a sales and business development manager. Imagine it's a little different.

Amanda Dwyer  
Yeah, so it's almost on the opposite side of Dana and more outward facing I'm working with clients who have permits from the regulatory agencies in hand and they need to compensate for impacts that they're having to special status, species habitat, wetlands, riparian, that sort of stuff. And I'll walk them through the different options that les may have to help them meet their needs and allow their projects to move forward with construction and a lot of that is working closely with Dana and our other conservation planners, making sure I'm representing our properties correctly and working with the client understanding what their needs are and how we could meet those

Laura 
awesome and I kind of love this, I'm gonna give a shout out to Sarah Korea who put this together and reached out about sponsoring and asking if, you know, some folks from your actual work could come on here and I love that idea that we're talking to both of you from both sides of this, especially for people who are listening, that are looking for jobs and don't necessarily know what all the different roles are. So from you know, whoever which one of you wants to start first, but tell me about your backgrounds. And what led you to working at Wes and Amanda like, do you have an environmental background or is it more from the sales aspect?

Amanda Dwyer  
I do have environmental background I got my degree from UC Davis in 2014, and environmental policy analysis and planning. And I started my career as a state versus State Water Resources Control Board we're reviewing applications, or Clean Water State Revolving funds for improvements to wastewater treatment plants or water recycling facilities, reviewing them for impacts to cultural resources, species habitat, wetlands, everything kind of environmental there. I then switched to California Department of Water Resources working on restoration projects in the Yolo bypass to improve connectivity for sound loaded, or populations largely there. I did everything from writing California Environmental Quality Act documents, applying for permits from the regulatory agencies, and doing biological monitoring during construction, which somewhat brought me the West because I had to get familiar with the species that we were monitoring for the way you do that, or the way we did at DWR is going to mitigation banks like lesses, where you know the species are going to exist, you don't waste a day out in the field and you don't have to actually see a giant garter snake or a California tiger salamander. And going to those properties. Realizing that restoration conservation is such a broad term and there's companies that just focus on doing restoration and that's what brought me to less having my background, almost a regulator and a project advocate needing to find mitigation has been really helpful on the business development side so I can talk to our clients on what they need, and either walk them through what permits that you need to apply for before they come to me. All right, really have an understanding of what are impacting and how we can help.

Laura 
Awesome sounds like you got some really cool jobs. circle back to that a little bit more. We get into job advice, Dayna, how about you?

Dayna Winchell  
 Yeah, so I have a undergrad degree in biology. And then I have a master's degree in conservation biology, always wanted to work in some sort of environmental field. So I was working for a while as a biologist for local environmental consulting firms here in California, where I would go out and do surveys looking for endangered species, wetlands, and any protected habitat or species that might affect project whether it be a road project, bridge project, any sort of kind of variety of projects that you may have developing in the area. And based on the results of those surveys, I would help a client with their permits to get through the Sequa process and are just regulatory permits to get their project approved to move forward. And that's how I came across Wes is I would have to reach out if my clients were impacting habitat for endangered species or wetland areas, you know, you have to do some sort of compensatory mitigation. And so I would call Wes and ask if they had credits available or kind of look for what's that mitigation solution that they can provide for my clients. So I mean, it wasn't here when I was a consultant, but I would typically be calling Amanda now at this point, and yeah, tell her what we need what we're looking for. And in doing that, I really got to enjoy the people I called during the time, but I liked the idea of moving more on the conservation side of things. And I liked that Wes, we own our property, we conserve the land, the habitat, the species, and so over a few years, I just started getting more and more interested in what we do here.

Laura 
That's awesome. So let's talk about that a little bit more because I could just get the feeling from the emails from Sarah in. I don't know I just get this you can kind of get a vibe from a company and from people who work at it that you know, as a great culture and stuff. So let's, again, whichever one of you wants to jump in, but you guys are in California, too, right. So the let's talk about where the property is and kind of the different types of projects you do there.

Dayna Winchell 
We have properties across most of California or based in Sacramento. We have properties from about two and a half to three hours north of here and then about four and a half hours south of here. So it's a variety of properties that some of them are just straight species conservation. We went out we found a great piece of land that we know protected species are using their breeding. They're all over the property. We purchase it and replace a conservation easement over the property and just maintain it really typically in the same way that property has naturally been occurring. Other properties that we own maybe lands that maybe used to be wetlands or vernal pools that were converted maybe to pasture you know, ag land, and we have purchased it and we convert it back to what it was or enhance maybe the features that are existing there, and then continue to maintain those or whether it's just waters or maybe we have vernal pool fairy shrimp and also protect the species on the properties.

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah, and add on to that real quick. Our business is largely driven by regulatory drivers. So like Dana was mentioning, permits that clients get that they need to compensate for their impacts and California, very strict regulatory market here. But we do also have offices across the country. We've got an office in Colorado, we've got offices in Nashville, Alabama, and Florida. We've got properties. Several states across that it's doing similar work largely more on the wetlands and river side versus California and does have a lot of conservation and species mitigation. But we are all

Laura 
across the country. That's awesome. I find that really fascinating. I feel like most of the mitigation work and the lands that I have worked with in Florida in the past were usually like government owned. Is this like a unique business model and how long is WES been doing this?

Amanda Dwyer 
Work has been around since 2006. But the business model has been around for quite a bit longer. It's really driven by that 2008 rule by the US Army Corps that put in a ranking system almost for how people with permits should do their mitigation with mitigation bank credits being the number one option in Luffy programs being the number two option and permitting responsible mitigation being the second and the founders of West all used to work at a different mitigation company wanted to branch off and start their own and partnered with a Western oil company which is based in Alabama. It's 140 Something here old timber company that has been in paper and timber that whole time and has really invested in the lands and understands that land is a long term process and it's not just something to quickly turn over. So mitigation and restoration really fit with their vision on what they wanted for the properties that they were acquiring. So a few of our properties in the southeast, our Westervelt company properties that we've been able to do mitigation on for the Westervelt company or other clients. But I know in the industry at large there's an interest in looking at mitigation on public lands, as well.

Dayna Winchell 
And just the follow up on that. It is I mean, it's been a business model. As Amanda said that's been around for quite some time. I find that it is a small niche kind of company. We're not a nonprofit. We're not a regulatory agency, but we're also not a consultant. So we kind of we work with everyone. We work with all those different groups, but we kind of fall somewhere in the middle. That's kind of what's fun about it too is we like to do something just a little bit different.

[Mitigation & conservation Banking]

Laura 
Yeah, I totally get that when I worked at the Environmental Protection commission and in Hillsborough County, my department my specific office was the only habitat restoration non regulatory in the agency and so we got to do all the fun stuff while everyone else was doing the permits. And of course, we've worked with them directly. But yeah, so I get that vibe as well. So let's talk about the projects because if someone's listening, and you're like, Okay, mitigation banks, first of all, don't know what that is. And then you're talking about like a client, who's a client and then the projects themselves. You mentioned that, you know, land projects, mitigation are not short term things. This is a long term thing. So if a client does a transaction with you, and then what does that look like? For someone who maybe doesn't have any idea what mitigation banking kind of is?

Dayna Winchell 
Well, I mean, a client you know, mitigation banking, as Amanda said, there's a few different kind of the three steps we can do. One of the biggest things we do I'd say is our mitigation banks, conservation banks. I think the simplest way to kind of explain it is you know, we've got this property we have it approved as a conservation or mitigation bank, and a client who's, you know, through their permits is required to offset the impacts of their project and can be, you know, we're working with California Department of Transportation Department water resources, you know, developers may call us solar companies, you know, we're getting all kinds of companies call us for project impacts. And, you know, they may impact a half an acre of species habitat and they need to offset. I mean, are they going to go by a half an acre but a conservation easement on it and be responsible for it? Long term and management in perpetuity? That's a lot for a half an acre for a company. So what they do is they call us and if we you know, we have the property with the correct habitat, they purchase towards a half an acre of the land of the contribution, and that takes the responsibility off of them. They can satisfy their mitigation, go forward with their project, and not really have to think about it again, while we continue to use those funds to help maintain that land in perpetuity, as we said we would under the conservations.

Laura 
Yeah, Amanda, did you want to answer that? No,

Amanda Dwyer 
I think that was great. Yeah, we work with kind of everyone that's having an impact, you know, whether it's infrastructure, residential development. Yeah.

Laura 
So once you do the initial transaction with them, it's kind of on you to do the continued maintenance. Do they have any reporting requirements or need to check back in to make sure that you know what they've handed off to you is still working or functional?

Amanda Dwyer 
Not when they're purchasing mitigation bank credit, they usually have to supply the bill of sale and payment receipt to the regulatory agencies to prove that they've actually purchased these credits, but the long term management and monitoring falls on us. Creech

Laura 
Alright, thank you for answering that question in detail, and let's talk about the actual projects then. What are been some of your favorites?

Amanda Dwyer 
Dana, you can start.

Dayna Winchell 
I mean, there's a variety of really good ones, one that both Amanda and Sara know which one I'm gonna probably go with. It was a conservation bank. It was the first project that was given to me when I started at West road almost five years ago. It's over 2400 acres of land that has five endangered, you know, are listed species living, breathing, and everything on it. It's a large piece of land, which is great. A lot of our properties are smaller. I mean, 2400 Acres is hard to come by a lot of times, you know, it's a big, big property, but then also to have that many species on it. I remember going out and doing surveys with some of our sub consultants, and again, coming from consulting and coming out here with like, really well known consultants we work with some great consultants to do species surveys and one of the species they found wetness leopard lizard is found to be on the site when it's not expected to be in that range and that area anymore is very exciting. But just to see all these different boat aquatic and upland species living on this property together, it's just it's great and you can go out there you can wander for a long time, you know, Golden Eagles fly by as you're out there. And even some species that we are not using as mitigation credits, like tricolour Blackbird. I was out there two months ago and saw them all. It looks like they were building nests and getting ready for the nesting season. So it was a very cool project to start with. And it was also one that really kind of taught me obviously the most about what we do and really what you need to go through to get these projects approved. So it took a little bit longer than we wanted, but I feel like it's kind of become like, I don't know, my favorite one being the first one. And I think just the coolest. It was my first intro and into conservation, you know,

Unknown Speaker 
so it was very cool.

Laura 
I mean, what did that feel like? I know, for a lot of people, they start their first job and the first thing you're given can be very daunting, but a 2400 acre site and you're like, okay, cool. Get right on that like, what was your thought process? How did you run into any troubles?

Dayna Winchell 
Yes. There's a variety of issues and it comes to show that No project is the same here. Like you go to think that, you know, we're conserving land, it's easy sign on a dotted line and it's conserved but because of the requirements here, particularly with the California Environmental Quality Act, and the standards that were held to, because we're offsetting habitat for projects that we don't know what those projects are yet, so we have to offset with the highest quality habitat for the species. We can't have low quality habitat that offsets for higher quality. And so it takes more time and you have to, you know, prove a couple of years of breeding for some of the species and you'll have to work through changes in you know, regulatory people that you're working with. You can be a little you know, a year or two into a project and you get a new project manager at the agency and you almost start brand new. So um we thought we were gonna get this project approved in a year or two, and it ended up taking close to four. So there was a lot of learning and during that time, but when it got approved, we all celebrated.

Laura  
Awesome, awesome. Amanda, anything you want to chime in on that?

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah. I agree with Dana, that the property that she was talking with our Pedro's little conservation bank, is this really magical property? That's been a huge help for folks in the area largely infrastructure driven that need to figure out what they're doing these infrastructure projects. Some of them were emergency projects, some of them are helping with meeting water resource and making it more reliable and needed projects that had to go forward and we're having these impacts that we were able to help out with

Dayna Winchell 
and on that note, I mean, water you know, in California, I don't know if everyone knows has been such a hot topic here with droughts and, and everything. So these water infrastructure projects were huge. And this was necessary to keep the projects moving forward. So we enjoy that.

[Ecological Work]

Laura 
Yeah, I think that's that is really great is to talk a little bit about the California nests of some of your projects. Some of the species that you're talking about. I would love to know what they look like. They sound really cool. And Amanda, it sounds like you have some favorites. What are some of your favorite species you get to work with or see.

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah, I think one of my favorites I don't get to see too often anymore. Is Sacramento with my background from department a lot of resources being the difference in the restoration science I was doing there compared to the restoration sites that less than that DWR we were largely limited by the infrastructure in place that was needed to protect communities and as well as water deliveries and that sort of stuff. So making sure species can still access our natural habitat, but limited by human development versus less. We're turning it back into a natural system and we've got our custom nest floodplain mitigation bank, which was the first property I went to when I started with West. It's just really cool to see this large open space I think because some this is 200 300 acres somewhere around there. This giant floodplain that could provide a great connectivity. And Sacramento County for listed fish species as well as providing connectivity to other conserved areas and kind of making that map bigger. But I think some other fun theses to get to work with California tiger salamanders. Those are really fun. We've got some stickers or that we'll have to send you because oh, this we've got a graphic designer who makes super cute. I'm not a huge fan of snakes, but our giant garter snakes I've been told our puppy dogs, makes them they're they're really cool. Their heart. They're facing a lot of impacts to their habitat. So for Wes to be able to provide some of the last areas and places that GGS can take refuge and it's really cool.

Dayna Winchell 
And they're really hard to serve a foreign detect as well. And one thing that right now is the time of year we do a lot of our species surveys on our properties. And I think twice in the last two weeks we've had a subconsultant go out and find a couple of giant garter snakes on our properties. So it's it's nice when you can do that and see they are using the land they are using the habitat. We restore it for them. And so we always get excited when we hear about that.

Laura 
Okay, we have garter snakes here and I love them. But I wouldn't call them giants. How big is a giant one?

Dayna Winchell 
They're not as they're not very giant.

Amanda Dwyer 
Like six feet like

Dayna Winchell 
me. I don't think that pretty

Amanda Dwyer 
rare. I think the fine now. Yeah,

Dayna Winchell 
I mean, I don't Yeah, they're the ones I've seen. I definitely wouldn't refer to this giant. I see. I've heard that historically there were a lot bigger, but over time they have gotten smaller but yeah, I wouldn't call them giant
___________________________

[Field Notes]

Laura 
In 2008 That is a perfect segue into our field notes segment where we ask our guests to talk about their experiences in the fields we can share stories because that is one thing environmental professionals all have in common or mostly have in common is experiences in time out in the field and faux pas and scary days and funny days and all kinds of stuff. So how about so I know you guys must have them.

And he's particularly scary or fun stories you want to share?

Dayna Winchell 
In our habitats, definitely look out for rattlesnakes. I barely see snakes when I'm out doing field work. So I tend to not really look for them. And a couple years I almost stepped on a burrow. That one was right there. Luckily a co worker kind of pushed me out of the way and the lookout. I mean, fun shield work. I went out at one of our properties and two years ago it's a property for California red legged frog. And it's a different kind of property than most for others. It's kind of up in the foothills a bit and we went out and did night surveys, looking to see how many adult frogs had holes you know, juveniles we saw and, you know, you go out after dark with a little flashlights and walk around and look for him and you're looking for the eyeshine looking to see if you can see adults on the side of the ponds and you're just standing there and we were able to kind of just count like, multiple like so we're just walking around for a few hours going for pond upon and just seeing how great this population is doing on the site. We came across some bear tracks to which was it makes me excited I would have loved to see you there. Maybe maybe not at night in the dark. And that's just it's fun. It's very rare to see that many of the frogs just right there in that in that area. So I try and get up to that property as much as we can.

Laura 
It's fun. How about you, Amanda?

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah, I don't get to go out in the field very often anymore. But when I was at DWR, we were doing a training with strength or the snake. We actually came to one of the West about properties that's got GPS on it and we were doing surveys to be able to do it. We'll find any like Dana said they're really elusive and hard to find. And that was June or July day kind of. You're not in California, but it's been really cold for June and July out here and probably in the 70s though we're probably not confined and enslaved. And for whatever reason I volunteered to go kayaking first because the way you catch them is in the water where they primarily are during their active season when they're hunting. And there's these traps that they swim into and you pull and I pulled the first trap and there's a giant garter snake. I mentioned not a huge fan of snakes. That was kind of scary, but really cool. And he was a small giant garter snake he was, I don't know, foot long, maybe younger one. But that was terrifying for me. But really cool that this property was so abundant with snakes that you can even find it on a 70 degree day.

[Company Culture]

Laura 
Oh, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing and I want to circle back to the leadership at West. What about your leadership do you think makes it special and what kind of leadership habits or team culture things like could you share that you think would be beneficial for others to either take into their organizations or just know about going into their jobs? Yeah, I

Amanda Dwyer 
think what's really cool about our leadership is they try to set a precedent of really connecting with staff and making them feel seen and valued. We do a lot of team building activities. And I've been at other companies that we do team building activities, it feels kind of forced and you're just there but at least when I doing the last team building activities they're really fun and we all actually enjoy hanging out with each other. cool to see everyone be light hearted and feeling like a team.

Laura 
That's interesting. What do you think is feeling like it's not forced or what's different of this compared to the last ones?

Amanda Dwyer 
I think a lot of it is we tried to not be in silos and only working on your little piece of the puzzle. I know I talk with kind of everyone here from our ecologists torn away and steward the conservation planner. It's like Dana, getting a sense of what the property is how we manage it, how I can communicate that to clients and regulatory agencies. So making sure people are branching out and not just focusing on their little piece.

Dayna Winchell 
Yeah, I think that I mean, I think we're all very like minded, which is one thing I like like we all get excited about. A property we all get excited about survey results, you know, versus other fields. You might get into someone who may be just kind of, you know, who wasn't an environmental degree, but when happened to plug into being a planner or something. We all have that same excitement, which is part of why you know, we're all in the office. As much as possible. We coordinate and collaborate a lot. But I think what's also great is, as you mentioned, our senior leadership is we have these guys who have been doing this for years and we just hired a few new staff here who just recently started and our head ecologist who he's been doing this forever and we told me can't retire. He's got all the knowledge, you know, we want to have, he takes his time when a new person starts and takes them out to some of our older properties at one or two, you know, depending on how much time they have and gives them the background and the history and you know, this is how we found the property this is these are the hiccups we found you know during an entitlement this is what we found during monitoring and just really shows you kind of it's a lot of brainstorming no properties the same and they take the time to do that. One of the guys we just hired came back and was like other companies might just show you a video or something and love the the fact that you know they take the time to do it. And Amanda says yeah, we all enjoy being being around each other. You know, the site visits we do as a office. Everyone just has a good time and we do every other month as a different property of ours and learn the background and we just have fun with it.

Laura 
Yeah, that's really great. It's nice to hear that from an organization. It probably doesn't hurt that the work that you do is just super cool.

Dayna Winchell 
Yeah, definitely doesn't hurt.

Laura 
So do you guys have any other side projects or things that you do with the property?

Dayna Winchell 
I was just gonna say, I mean, we do have programs that and I'm on the periphery this manner you actually probably are more involved. Sarah definitely is but we do. You know, right now we have like a kids summer camp that goes out to one of our properties. They're out there today to learn, you know about what we do and nature. Amanda, I think you've been out there when we do it. But I'm a big fan of starting, you know, stem and kids in particular with environmental things, get them started young. I don't know how I was introduced to it as a kid, but I think that's the best way you get them in there. And we do these camps for however many weeks every single year. And I think that's great to have the kids out on our properties learning about what we do. Yeah, I

Amanda Dwyer 
think that's a great one. The only other one I was gonna mention is our partnership with the Association of Women and water, energy and the environment. All we are sponsoring them this year and looking into more partnership opportunities with them.

Dayna Winchell 
Yeah, that's a good point. Sarah, actually, a few years ago, coordinated a kayaking trip with them, where we kayaked from one preserve down to one of the darkest on this property. And so you just I said was that maybe 25 women out there and one man who didn't realize it was old associate 35. He didn't realize what he was signing up for so it 35 Women staff and non West staff out there but all got in kayaks and kayak down and we had Fox lunch at our property in the shade and and stuff and yeah, and Amanda and I did a wine tasting event with them at this great winery nearby a few weeks ago and you get everyone from consultants to agencies that are out there. Yeah, so it's a great one association.

Laura 
Oh, that's great.

Dayna Winchell 
We have one property that UC Davis comes out and does research and surveys on for fish species. We like to work with any sort of like research in the field that we can do and provide for the species. Because that helps us manage it. Long term.

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah. And there's the training. They do like what I did when I was at DWR that we welcome people onto our site so that they can get the experience with the bases because you know, they're gonna be there.

Dayna Winchell 
Yeah, yeah, that was my first time seeing Dan gartersnake before I came here, it was one of those trainings that are property.

Amanda Dwyer  
Same. Yeah.

Laura 
That's really neat. So I guess what I'm hearing is if you live somewhere near a mitigation banking property or something conservation bank, maybe if you have a project you want to do on a cool property, you can reach out to them Yeah, we

Amanda Dwyer 
really don't offer sight.

Laura 
Very cool. All right. We're running out of time. So you have any upcoming projects that you want to give a shout out to.

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah, we're working on a lot. Right now. We've got several projects in Sacramento County working on floodplain restoration, wetland restoration. Dana's working on a couple of cool projects up in the Calusa area for Valley elderberry Longhorn beetle, as well as a floodplain restoration site. We've got a conservation property down in Kern County. That's the magical unicorn property that's got five different endangered species on it and two of them rarely occur and the same area and we found, like one piece of property that they do all occur on. So we've got a lot happening right now. Yeah,

Laura  
very cool projects. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Do you want to add to that?

Dayna Winchell 
Oh, no, I was just gonna say I mean, we have this right. We do have a lot of things going on right now. So it's very busy, but it's exciting. Every time we start brand new projects is, you know, it's a whole new what are we going to see what's going to come up but it's just all new excitement knowing there's going to be another project that gets conserved.

Laura 
All right, final question. This has been a lot of fun. Where can people get in touch with you?

Amanda Dwyer  
I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me Amanda Dwyer there. You can also reach out at a DW y er@westervelt.com. If you have any questions from us.

Dayna Winchell 
I'm also on LinkedIn. Dana Winchell, it's Dana on da y Na, spelled a little differently. But you can also email me at Westervelt at de winchell@westervelt.com.

Amanda Dwyer 
Yeah, and if you don't want to reach out directly to us, feel free to check out our website West mitigation.com was recently revamped and we've got stuff on there about all of our properties across the country.

Dayna Winchell 
And we're also on Tik Tok, Instagram, everything. We have a great new intern who is you know, upping the ante with our social media. So it's it's fun. No staff is safe. They tend to make fun of staff members.

Laura 
Awesome. I think I've seen some of their work is pretty good, probably. Right. Thanks, Amanda. Dana, for being here. This is a lot of fun. And I'm just gonna call her out. Thanks, Sarah, for stalking and peeping in on us while we have this conversation and we will catch you next time. Thank you.

[Outro]

Laura
And that's our show. Thank you, Dana and Amanda, for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye.

Nic
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai