VOLUNTEER PROFILE — DON JACKSON

For those who have had the privilege of volunteering at OVLC, Don Jackson is a familiar and beloved figure. His involvement as a volunteer with the organization started circa 2008. Don most notably participated in nearly every outing during the construction of the Allan Jacobs Trail. At the age of 78, Don stands as a testament to the notion that age poses no obstacle when it comes to making a substantial impact through volunteering. We are proud to highlight Don’s contributions to the OVLC, in an interview he had with Preserve Manager, Linda Wilkin.

Hello, Don. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Could you please start by sharing a bit about yourself? When did you move to Ojai? What kind of work do you do, and what are your hobbies? 

I started volunteering with OVLC ten years ago, and I am a little slower than I used to be. Well gee, I guess my love of the outdoors started way back when I was a kid. I was a Boy Scout and that kind of opened the door. I was born and raised in the Lakewood Artesia area of Southern California. There were so many dairy farms there when I was a kid. A lot of Dutch immigrants had these dairies. It was an eye-opener to be around people with different ideas about things. I went to college in the 60s and the Vietnam War was going on. I studied political science and sociology. I wasn’t focused on the outdoors. If it hadn’t been the sixties, I probably would have studied biology or something of that nature. 

So even in college, you were involved in activism and local action? 

I was involved in anti-war protests. I went up to Berkley and was a part of the anti-war protests at Golden Gate Park and the Haight-Ashbury area. It was my hippie days, haha. My love of the outdoors really started more when I was out of college. I kind of dropped out and had an alternative lifestyle. I was living in Big Sur and fell in love with the landscapes in the region. The ocean, the rocks, mountains, conifers, and the redwoods as far south as you can see. I was the first person hired and the only person living on this old ranch right next to the Post Ranch. It was called the Ventana Ranch. Eventually it became a resort. I made some really amazing friends there. The place was magnetic. Artists and writers with a different outlook on life were all drawn to this area, and that was my first introduction to activism and local action. Then I went to Wisconsin to visit a friend, and that’s where I met my wife, Christy. I ended up teaching school in the rural northern part of Wisconsin for a couple of years, followed by working for the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I would help organize artistic shows, and because my sister and mother were serious artists, this world wasn’t foreign to me. 

While we were living in Minneapolis, Christy was becoming one of the first female computer programmers. We were taking off into the wilds there. She introduced me to the water and trees of the North Country. It was really her thing. So, we ended up spending a tremendous amount of time in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of northern Minnesota. When my parents were getting older, we came back to California. We started doing some really challenging things in the outdoors. We decided to start climbing the Fourteener Mountains in Colorado. We knocked out about fifteen of them! Then we hiked over a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to beyond Tahoe. Spending time in the great outdoors was an important part of our lives to say the least. 

In 1980, Don and his beloved wife, Christy, embarked on an awe-inspiring 1,000-mile trek along the breathtaking expanse of the Pacific Crest Trail.

We ended up moving to Simi Valley because my parents were there. I worked for a company owned by Boeing and Rockwell International Corporation, which made the main engines for the space shuttle and rocket engines. Every day I would have meetings with NASA and astronauts, asking how can we make these 13 

engines more efficient. I did that for over ten years. This was in the 80s and 90s. At the end of the space shuttle program, I transitioned to working with Thousand Oaks School District. We had two kids, a boy and a girl. My son ended up being a wildlife biologist. He went to UCLA on a scholarship, and now he has his own little company based out of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara. He works with Edison to ensure that any endangered plants or animals are not affected by telephone poles and power lines.

After the kids left, I started volunteering because we hiked so much. We hiked all the time in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, and the Santa Monica Mountains. The old Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains was one of our favorites. I started volunteering in the mountains there. The old Peter Strauss Ranch was kind of like my headquarters. Then the Woolsey Fire burned through the area, burning the buildings at Peter Strauss Ranch, and that program ended. From there, I had heard about volunteering with the Los Padres National Forest. I volunteered for a couple of projects and there was a ranger named Heidi Anderson. My wife and I worked with her a lot! So much so that I became a Backcountry Ranger with the Los Padres Forest Association out of the Goleta/Santa Barbara area. We worked on the Channel Islands doing restoration and a lot of invasive species removal. Santa Rosa Island was really an eye-opener for me. The vegetation and the backcountry is just splendid. We volunteered with North Campus Open Space (NCOS) at UC Santa Barbara, restoring a damaged wetland on the north side of the campus. My son was working there and introduced me to restoration work. We did this for about 2 years, while he was employed there. We also volunteered with the Ventura County Senior Nutrition Gardens, off of Vineyard, near El Rio, for a couple of years, providing food for Ventura County Senior Centers.

Why do you consider giving back to the community and the environment to be important?

As human beings living on this planet we have to respect everything around us. Our goal is to live in unison with all other creatures, humans, animals, and everything that exists. I can remember being on Isle Royale. It’s a giant island in Lake Superior and remember hearing the wolves howl at night and seeing the gigantic moose on the trails. Like, well uh-oh! You know that’s when I really started doing a lot of trimming, brushing, and browsing. Clearing trails on Isle Royale National Park. We were hiking all over that island. 

I had an old college mate. She was the head of her department at the University of Oregon. Then she lived in Castle Valley near Moab, Utah. Her name was Mary O’Brien. She was the head of the Grand Canyon Trust, and she was the head of southern Utah and northern Arizona. So, I worked on projects with her and we would go up creeks to find beaver ponds. Her thing was trying to help maintain the water runoff in that plateau, and the beavers were there, to help them so they could build damns. We were counting how many dams and how many beaver lodges there were on the streams that were flowing into the Colorado River. 

I’m interested to know how you first got involved with OVLC, and if you’ve noticed any changes since you began volunteering?

Well, it was mainly when I started volunteering with the Los Padres National Forest, and then I just somehow became aware of OVLC. I realized, “hey, there’s some good people here and they need some support.” I spent about seventy hours working on the Allan Jacobs Trail. We made a really interesting trail with great views. That was one of the biggest OVLC projects I’ve participated in. Then we made slight modifications to the trail where water was creating ruts, so we changed the trail a little bit; those kinds of things.

What do you find enriching about volunteering with OVLC? 

Well, it’s giving back. When I started volunteering after I retired, I wanted to be in the outdoors, but doing something more than just going off and exploring places. Exploration has been a big part of my life, and I want to make sure other people have that experience too. To work on the trails was a great way to do that. It was that whole thing of giving back, and making the trails more accessible to people. When you volunteer it attracts people with good hearts and a good vision of what the world should be like. 

Which hike on OVLC lands is your favorite?

I have so many that I hike often. A short one that I’m fond of is Luci’s trail. That’s a quickie!

We are going to be working on Luci’s Trail this fall and winter! Could you describe your experience doing stewardship volunteer work at the Ojai Meadows Preserve? Also, why do you think it is essential to restore preserved lands and remove invasive plants?

I live close to the Ojai Meadows Preserve. It is my backyard. I go there all the time and trim on my own (with OVLC’s permission) just to make sure it’s accessible. There are so many people that go there and I want visitors to have a positive experience. 

Restoration is essential to protect the natural ecosystem that exists in a region for the sake of the health of the environment and our community.

Lastly, I would love to hear any thoughts you have on climate resiliency and local environmental action or any stories you want to share about your time volunteering with OVLC.

It has turned out that, at my age of seventy-eight, this is my primary focus. It will often come up when talking to people out on the trail that I volunteer with at OVLC. I will say it’s a great thing to do when you’re retired. A lot of people have lost the sense of what they will be doing when they are retired. I always suggest volunteering as an activity and to give back. We take advantage of the environment around us and yet we need to keep it in good shape. We have to maintain it. We have to take care of it. 

If you volunteer, you will meet some truly amazing people—people who are genuinely good-hearted and have good intentions. This holds true for every organization, whether it’s the Forest Service, OVLC, or the Channel Islands National Park. You will encounter some truly great individuals.

Don, it has been a pleasure talking with you today. Since I have been with the conservancy, you have been a fixture and it’s always so wonderful to get to work with you. 

Yeah, it’s been over ten years that I’ve been volunteering with the conservancy. I think I started in 2008 or 2009. Somewhere in there!

We appreciate you, Don. Thank you for all you do.