Welcoming Melissa Roberts to our team!

We are so excited to welcome out newest staff member, Melissa Roberts, to our team! Melissa is now one of two Stewardship Coordinators at Capitol Land Trust (CLT).

Melissa comes to CLT with a love of wilderness, years of fieldwork and volunteer coordination, and a passion for environmental restoration. She truly enjoys leading volunteers to engage in satisfying ‘hands-on’ outdoor work. Melissa returned to Olympia in 2020 after leading volunteer crews in northern California (Sonoma and Marin counties) and lived in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. On staff with Sonoma Ecology Center, she monitored streamflow and collected and mapped data.

Her background includes a Coho monitoring internship, trail erosion-control projects, and mapping invasive plants. Melissa enjoys teamwork, loves the natural world, and has a long history of coordinating volunteers both inside and out. She has hiked half the Pacific Crest Trail and taken several long-distance bicycle adventures. She is an avid backpacker.

Melissa’s breadth of experience and skills, not to mention her positive energy, make her a great addition to the CLT team.

As Stewardship Coordinator, Melissa will help oversee the ongoing stewardship and maintenance of CLT’s conserved lands, with a focus on our public-access preserves.

In the past few years, CLT opened four preserves for recreation. These nature preserves are complete with parking areas, trails, benches, and interpretive signage. They offer a variety of experiences in nature and are critical for strengthening our sense of curiosity and community for all ages. Not to mention the quality habitat they provide to our winged, gilled, and furry friends!

We are so grateful to the people who have already invested in the stewardship of these areas. Hundreds of volunteer hours, donor dollars, and partners like Washington Trails Association, Northwest Youth Corps, and Native Plant Salvage have supported the ongoing conservation of our public-access preserves.

One area of focus for Melissa will be developing robust volunteer programs to assist in the maintenance and stewardship of Capitol Land Trust conservation properties, including the oversight of our Trail Steward Volunteer Program. Melissa looks forward to exploring how we can further utilize these preserves for the fullest community benefit and care for them while getting the community involved.

“I am thrilled to play a vital role in engaging volunteers with hands-on work, outdoors. I’ve found that people of all ages enjoy giving back to nature in meaningful ways, and I am very grateful for my role in the process.” Melissa

If find yourself out enjoying quality nature time at a CLT preserve and happen to come across anything we need to address, or even something interesting that caught your eye, contact Melissa at [email protected] or (360) 943-3012.