I managed the Nature Guide Training Program, one of RARE Center’s most well known capacity-building programs. It trains under-educated local people to become bilingual, nature guides. The program lasts one year and the training course is three continuous months. I managed a training coordinator, naturalist, and four teachers. I then advised a second program and co-wrote the five-volume methodological manual to run this course. Later I developed and managed a guide training program for Fermata Inc./World Birding Center.

Similarly I created and developed the Public Use Planning Program, originally a capacity building program for World Heritage Site management. See below.

The National Zoo of Costa Rica solicited a Peace Corps Volunteer to develop and manage the primary school program. I managed that program as well as a major program on solid waste. See below.

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Program Developer

I d eveloped over four years the Public Use Planning Program. This program aims to develop capacity among both individuals and organizations. Its components include a complex, two-volume training manual, web site, three-segmented course taking place over 8 months, and long-term technical assistance to help parks develop the capacity to facilitate their own strategic public use plans in parks and then implement those places without the need to hire outside consultants. I founded this program at RARE Center (now just Rare). The manual placed second in the 2003 National Association for Interpretation Media Awards, training category.

The program is now sponsored by UNESCO's World Heritage Centre and The Nature Conservancy. In February 08, I offered a five-day workshop introduction to PUP to organizations that manage Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico and the Belize Barrier Reef System.

Here I illustrate that participants must make a choice about which world they want to live and plan in. Photo by Guadalupe Salomon

I also developed Rare's pre-existing Nature Guide Training Program, co-writing the five-volume methodological manual.

I developed the primary school program at the Costa Rican National Zoo as a Peace Corps Volunteer. See below.

See training manuals I have written.

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Promoter of Systems Thinking in Training & Learning

At RARE Center I also specialized in learning methods and mechanisms for projects. I was trained in the Foundations of Success methodology. I used a variety of media to help the Public Use Planning Program learn. See more under evaluation on this and my evaluation of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Strengthening Manpower Program. Request the recommendation by my supervisor, Maureen Cunningham.

I am also writing extensively about learning and the application of systems thinking to learning and capacity building. See my articles on this topic, especially a chapter on the application of systems thinking to training ecotour guides for Quality Assurance and Certification in Ecotourism published by CAB Internation in August 2007. See abstract.

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Peace Corps Zoo Educator, Naturalist & Thesis Advisor

Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary

I was a naturalist and day camp instructor for kindergarten children at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the Massachusetts Audubon Society sanctuary system. 1992. See my article on the sanctuary in The Boston Globe.

Duke University Masters Student

I recruited and co-supervisored (with her professor) a Master’s student from Duke University in her research in the barriers to implementing strategic plans in Honduran protected areas (designed to promote the Public Use Planning Program). I helped her to fund raise, set up, research, and edit her thesis. See recommendation from her.

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Smithsonian Institution

I was a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution Office of Environmental Awareness, 1992-3. I researched the PharmaSea section of the Sea Store of the Ocean Planet exhibition. I worked under curator Judith Gradwohl. I researched various communication strategies to improve the image and educational outreach capabilities of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, including national TV commercials, a national information hotline, an educational computer and on-line material, a marketing effort, and a major corporate grant proposal. Worked under the guidance of Marsha Sitnik at the Office of Biodiversity Programs. 1993.

Wisconsin Public Schools

I researched and wrote a grantseekers directory (.doc) for the Stevens Point Area Public School District. The directory outlined the major sources of grantseeking information, both online and at the Foundation Center, for staff of the District. The directory also listed nearly 200 potential charitable organizations.