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Restore the Delta Steering Committee

Gary Adams

Gary Adams was raised primarily in West and Central Contra Costa County. He spent time as a youth exploring area creeks and hills, as well learning about area flora and fauna. His childhood vacations were spent visiting family in Oregon, Idaho, and Montana on farms and ranches and always partaking in fishing or hunting excursions. These early experiences shaped Mr. Adam's activities and interests for his adult life.

After 30 years of a successful career in heavy equipment manufacturing, and 17 years as a contract specialist and officer with the Department of Defense, Mr. Adams has been actively engaged in fishery and Delta issues on behalf of the West Delta Chapter of the California Striped Bass Association where he served as Chapter President from 2003 to 2005, and State Board Vice President from 2004 to 2005. Presently, Mr. Adams is serving as State Board President of the California Striped Bass Association. Mr. Adams has a dream for the Delta - a Delta that is drinkable, farmable, swimmable and fishable for his children, grandchildren, and future generations.

W. Mick Canevari

Mick Canevari is the Director of University California Cooperative Extension programs in San Joaquin County. He oversees UC programs in Agriculture and Natural Resources, 4-H youth development, Nutrition Family, and Consumer Sciences. He conducts research in Agronomy crops and Weed Science in San Joaquin County. He also develops publications on agricultural issues and conducts state, regional, and county meetings on various agricultural topics.

Steve Evans

Steve Evans manages Friends of the River's conservation staff and provides overall direction for its conservation programs. Mr. Evans was hired by Friends of the River in 1988 and has served as its Conservation Director since 1990. He has more than 30 years of conservation policy experience in public lands and resource issues. He successfully encouraged federal agencies to identify more than 3,000 miles potential Wild & Scenic Rivers and has played a key role in the legislative expansion of the federal and state Wild & Scenic Rivers Systems in California. In 1988, he coordinated the environmental coalition that successfully opposed the Bureau of Reclamation's proposal to sell additional Central Valley Project water and lobbied in 1994 for the passage of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. He served on the CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Committee and has also been the lead person in Friends of the River on California water policy issues. Mr. Evans co-founded and has served on the steering committees of many of the coalitions administered by Friends of the River, including the Environmental Water Caucus, California Wild Heritage Campaign, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, and the California Hydropower Reform Coalition. He previously was Executive Director of the Butte Environmental Council in Chico.

Robert K. Ferguson - (Vice President)

Robert Ferguson is President of Ferguson Farms Inc., a family owned and operated farming operation on Union Island in the South Delta. The Ferguson Family has farmed on Union Island for more than 102 years, growing asparagus, alfalfa, corn, tomatoes and wheat. As a trustee of the island's reclamation district, Mr. Ferguson is familiar with levee maintenance, restoration and flood watch. In addition, he is actively involved with the South Delta Water Agency and the Delta Protection Commission.

William Loyko - (President)

Stockton resident Bill Loyko works with several area organizations in the areas of water, governance, and environmental and social justice. Married with five children and two beautiful grandsons, Mr. Loyko is active in the Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton, a grassroots group focused on water privatization in Stockton and city governance, the Stockton Catholic Diocese Environmental Justice Committee, and the Presentation Church Environmental Justice and Social Justice Committees. Mr. Loyko is an outspoken opponent of the privatization of operations and maintenance of the Stockton Municipal Utilities, and is a regularly requested speaker at public forums discussing the pros and cons of privatization efforts. He is also the founding member of the Water Allies Network, a multi-cultural, multi-racial network of grassroots organizations committed to building a movement to ensure secure and equitable access to clean water as a human right. Mr. Loyko also serves as a member of the Executive Board of the Boys Scouts of America, Greater Yosemite Council.

Roger S. Mammon

Roger Mammon was born in San Francisco, grew up in the East Bay, and has now lived in Oakley for 24 years. A former police officer and manager in the automobile finance industry, Mr. Mammon has fished all his life and took up hunting as a young adult. Mr. Mammon loves both sports as they allow him to be outside and on the water. He is serving in his second term as President of the Lower Sherman Island Duck Hunters Association -- a group of local sportsmen and women who enjoy hunting in State Wildlife Management Areas. He is also a Board Member of the West Delta Chapter of the California Striped Bass Association, and is a member of the Committee to Save Our Shoreline in Oakley. He has seen a number of changes in the Delta over the past two decades that are disturbing, and he looks forward to helping restore the Delta.

Mindy McIntyre - Water Policy Manager at the Planning and Conservation League

Bio coming soon

Susan Moro Loyko - Stockton environmental activist extraordinaire.

Bio coming soon

David (Chicken) Nesmith

David (Chicken) Nesmith was born in Chicago, and grew up in Santa Maria, California. He studied Agriculture at Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo. After two years of service in Vietnam, Mr. Nesmith came home to a life of political activity and advocacy. He was a local Sierra Club conservation staff person for 17 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has also been a water person, leading ocean kayak trips for people challenging cancer, and he has been a white water rafting guide for 20 years, and leads rafting trips for inner city outings. He currently facilitates communications for almost 30 environmental and fishing groups, and a native American tribe, all of which advocate for California water policies that lead to sustainable water use and ecosystem restoration.

Kristina Ortez - (Treasurer)

Kristina Ortez is the Delta and Conservation advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council working to build a coalition of diverse stakeholders to protect Delta water quality and habitat, and promote conservation efforts with state and regional water agencies. For the last several years Ms. Ortez has worked on campaigns to protect public lands and rivers, including the successful effort to pass Proposition 84, the Safe Drinking Water bond, with a particular focus on engaging the Latino and rural communities of California. She grew up in the Madera, California, and has served on the Board of the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust since 2005. Prior to coming to NRDC, she was a legislative advocate with Campaign for America's Wilderness and the California Wild Heritage Campaign. She graduated cum laude from Harvard College. She enjoys whitewater rafting, hiking and camping.

Betsy Reifsnider - (Fundraising Officer)

Betsy Reifsnider is the Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Stockton. The Diocese extends from the rich farmlands of the Central Valley, through the river canyons of Yosemite National Park, and into the stark beauty of Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra. Despite containing some of the nation's most productive farmlands and stunning landscapes, the Diocese shares some of its most intractable environmental problems and some of the highest poverty rates.

Betsy has spent more than 25 years working in the environmental advocacy field, including the Sierra Club, Mono Lake Committee, and Friends of the River, California's statewide river conservation organization. She has also worked as a legislative deputy for the Los Angeles City Council and as a water conservation manager for the Federal Bureau of Reclamation. She serves on the Sierra Nevada Alliance Board of Directors and an alternate on the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee to the California Air Resources Board.

Mike Robinson

Mike Robinson is the President of Robinson Feed in the Delta. Biography coming soon.

Sophat Sorn

Pastor Sophat Sorn is with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Stockton. Founder of United Cambodian Families in Stockton, Pastor Sorn is a Khmer speaker for the Voice of Love, a program featured on Adventist World Radio. Pastor Sorn also serves on the board of the Stockton Sister Cities Association, as a member of the Cambodian-Thai Cultural Commission Project, and as Director for the Healthy Fish Education Project - a program funded by the Department of Health Services focused on fish consumption and mercury contamination.

Pastor Sorn says that the word Delta encompasses a great deal: the people, the land, the water, the landscape, economic livelihood, and all that live within the area. Pastor Sorn also believes that by preserving the environment, we protect the health of others and ourselves.

Jane Wagner-Tyack (Secretary)

Jane Wagner-Tyack is a freelance writer, writing consultant, and former college instructor and trainer. She writes and blogs on higher education, and she studies land use and water policy. In addition to serving RTD as Board Secretary, she serves on the board of directors of the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County. Jane grew up in the Sacramento area surrounded by the rivers, dams, reservoirs, and northern Delta levees that shape our lives and that, like most Californians, she took for granted. She now lives in Lodi and has been discovering the central and southern portions of the Delta. "The situation in the Delta brings us up against two of the most damaging assumptions of our time: that nature can be manipulated infinitely for human purposes, without regard for the future; and that wise decisions about the use of natural resources can be made on paper and at a distance by politicians, bureaucrats, and large corporations. At this moment in time, in this remarkable place, we have an opportunity to be a model for saner water policy in the future."