As a native San Franciscan, Abbi’s excitement for nature was fostered early on by exploring the limited green spaces throughout the city. From spunky California ground squirrels at Candlestick to Glen Canyon’s elusive Great Horned Owls to the diversity of plant communities of San Bruno Mountain; these experiences allowed her to develop a deep connection and appreciation for the intersection of humans and wildlife that she now strives to share with others.

Since then, she’s gone on to volunteer in habitat restoration and community advocacy with organizations around the Bay Area and the Central Valley such as the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Literacy for Environmental Justice, and California Waterfowl Association before earning a Bachelors of Science from the University of California, Davis in Wildlife Conservation Biology. Abbi began her professional career as an academic researcher for a UCD laboratory studying the population ecology of California threatened and federally endangered fish species of the San Francisco Bay Estuary. As a woman of color working in the outdoors, while exciting, left Abbi feeling isolated and marginalized due to the lack of representation of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BiPOC) communities. Returning to her Southeast San Franciscan roots in 2019, Abbi joined Literacy for Environmental Justice as an outdoor educator, native plant propagator specialist, and community programs coordinator promoting equitable access to open space and engaging communities of color in culturally relevant ways to nurture their connection with nature.

Abbi holds her identity as a woman of color, environmental justice, and community advocacy at the center of her work. She is excited to join Sutro Stewards as the Native Plant Nursery Manager and continue her work restoring native plant habitat and creating equitable access to Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve for people of all backgrounds.

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Ben Pease is a founding member of Sutro Stewards, specializing in trail projects. He grew up in Massachusetts with a swamp in his backyard, but his family moved to San Francisco when he was 12, so he began exploring odd corners of the City on his way to and from school. He earned a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley in 1986, and worked several years as an architect, but found his passion in mapmaking and trail advocacy. 

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Ben has worked as a cartographer since 1994. He creates maps for guidebook publishers, authors, and park agencies. His local work includes maps for UCSF's Mount Sutro trail system, the Bay Area Ridge Trail guidebook, and San Mateo County Parks. He and his partner, Shizue Seigel, collaborated on Rebecca Solnit’s book Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas. He publishes several detailed maps, including The Walker’s Map of San Francisco. (www.peasepress.com). 

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An avid hiker and backpacker, Ben learned trail building with The Trail Center (1989-1994) and worked with fellow volunteers and city agencies to plan the route of the Bay Area Ridge Trail through San Francisco. He planned and co-led Coastwalk’s San Francisco group hikes for two decades. As a member of Sutro Stewards, he has mapped the existing trails and helped survey and build many improvements, with a focus on the proper gradient, cross-slope, and materials, plus teaching trail skills to volunteers.

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Christian was born in the Philippines, where he, unfortunately, didn’t have access to the natural world as the province he lived in was in the process of industrializing. Christian’s only interaction with nature came in the form of when it wanted to express itself. Such as the typhoons that were a regular occurrence in Christian’s life. Their presence had skewed his view of nature for a long time.

It wasn’t until his time with Sutro Stewards as a volunteer and Habitat Conservation & Restoration Intern that he started to really appreciate what nature can offer him. The open space of Mt. Sutro has influenced Christian to hike other green spaces within the City with his friends, and take in all the benefits local nature offers. More importantly, learning about the various native plants within Mt. Sutro and the ecosystem services associated with them illuminated their importance to everyone's wellbeing, inspiring Christian to protect them to the best of his abilities. 

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Craig Dawson is a San Francisco native who was raised in Forest Knolls, on the south side of Mount Sutro. Growing up here offered opportunities to explore Mount Sutro, Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson, and Glen Canyon on foot and by bicycle. He graduated from City College of San Francisco Horticulture Dept. with an Associate of Science in Landscape Design & Construction. 

In 1981 he opened a small business offering graphic design services, print production and sign, and display services in the Inner Sunset neighborhood, whereas a member of the Inner Sunset Merchants Association, he served six terms as President over a 25-year span. In 1991 he was asked to represent the Inner Sunset on the UCSF Community Advisory Group (CAG) where he initiated the development of the UCSF Open Space Reserve Management Plan (1998-2001). Craig worked with the CAG and UCSF to secure a $100,000 grant from the San Francisco Rotary Club in 2004 to restore a 2-acre former NIKE missile guidance site to a native plant meadow on the summit of Mount Sutro (Rotary Meadow). This was the beginning of his work on Mount Sutro which was followed by a trail improvement project led by The Trail Center that created new trail access to Rotary Meadow. 

In 2006 Craig worked with a small group of trail enthusiasts to uncover an undocumented, century old trail that was hidden for decades in the thick underbrush and running across the North and West sides of the mountain. In 2006 Craig co-founded the Sutro Stewards program and received permission from UCSF to restore the century-old trail, now called the Historic Trail. From 2006 to 2016 Craig served as Executive Director for the Sutro Stewards and used his training and trails knowledge to form a network of multi-use trails on Mount Sutro. 

Craig's formal training for trail work began in 2004 when he participated in Leadership and Trail Design and Construction training from the Trail Center. His training continued with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association (TRTA) for two annual sessions, 2008-2009, where he received a certificate for Advanced Trail Construction. Craig has contributed his knowledge and sweat to other organizations including VOCAL serving as a crew leader in San Francisco, Sonoma, and the East Bay. He worked with San Francisco's Rec and Park to open the Interior Greenbelt and rebuild the Lower Historic Trail on Mount Sutro, in conjunction with the development of the Philosophers Walk trail in McLaren Park, to name a few. As the Senior Program Advisor to the Sutro Stewards, Craig remains an avid runner and cyclist and is committed to advancing environmental education and building trails that link communities to nature.

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Dan has worked with the Sutro Stewards as a volunteer since 2011 and as the Trails Program Manager since 2015. Dan received his hands-on trails skills and Crew Leader training through the Sutro Stewards program. In addition to coordinating crew leaders and volunteers on conventional trail repairs, he has facilitated a variety of trail improvements, realignments, and constructions, most notably the design and construction of the Clarendon Trail. Dan is an avid cyclist and trail user, and he has also been active with other local trail maintenance and construction efforts in San Francisco led by the San Francisco Parks & Recreation and San Francisco Urban Riders.

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Ildiko grew up in apartment buildings in Oakland and did not have much access to nature as a child. Until discovering California native plants and habitat restoration, she focused her life on climate change activism and the pursuit of modern dance. 10 years ago, while a student at UC Berkeley, she planted a vegetable garden for the first time, and was overcome with how much life existed in her tiny San Francisco backyard. She asked herself what would happen if we tried to help this nature and how do you do it? This resulted in the epiphany that in order to foster local wildlife you must plant the plants that the wildlife evolved with, in other words, the plants native to your area. She became enamored with the flora of California. 

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With this new found passion, she redirected her studies and received a Bachelor's of Science in Conservation and Resources Studies from UC Berkeley. Since then, she has worked at Larner Seeds as a seed amplifier, collector, and gardener, at Mission Blue Nursery as a Nursery Manager, at Literacy for Environmental Justice as a Nursery Manager, and now at Sutro Stewards as the Executive Director.

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She is passionate about bringing the healing joy and satisfaction of participating in nature through habitat restoration to as many people as possible. Starting in our own backyards and moving outward to the greater community, she cherishes the opportunity to offer Mount Sutro as a place of engagement, healing, and community building through improving and maintaining access to the Mountain and working to enhance its biodiversity.

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Natti is a born and raised Californian native who originally grew up in the Los Angeles area but has been living in San Francisco for almost 10 years. Growing up, Natti would visit his aunt and uncle’s ranch in San Luis Obispo County and at the time realized that not many people looked like him that were involved in outdoor activities, whether it was camping, conservation, hiking or farming. He began to feel alienated in an environment he always found comfort in.

Now a graduate from San Francisco State University, Natti started to think of ways to interact with the community he lives in and try to get people excited and involved with the nature that surrounds them. As the new Programs and Outreach Coordinator for Sutro Stewards, Natti's objective is to not only be a part of this organization but to get others to be a part of this too, especially people of the BIPOC community. Let’s show that Mt. Sutro is for everyone and to not be afraid to explore your own backyard!

Rachel is an aspiring ecologist from the Los Angeles suburbs but began her relationship with land and plants in Sonoma, Lake, and Marin county. She graduated from UCLA in 2021, majoring in environmental science with a conservation biology minor. Since then, her work in forestry, outdoor education, and horticulture has led her to pursue habitat restoration and wildlife ecology.

At Sutro Stewards, she’s excited to deepen her understanding of San Franciscan native plants and learn all about seed saving, plant care, Mount Sutro ecology, habitat restoration methods, and local wildlife. As someone who did not grow up immersed in nature, she now enjoys connecting people to the outdoors through nature art and exploration. She’s also excited to learn more about herbalism and traditional ecological knowledge.

Sam is originally from Philadelphia, PA but has been living in the Bay Area for the last 4 years. They worked in San Jose with Our City Forest, an urban forestry non-profit that grows and plants drought-tolerant and native trees and shrubs, as well as educates the public about environmental stewardship and plant maintenance.

At Our City Forest’s Community Nursery and Training Center, Sam trained AmeriCorps members, interns, docents, and volunteers on native plant propagation and cultivation, structural tree pruning and transplanting, plant pathology prevention, and urban beekeeping. They especially appreciated the opportunity to create relationships between San Jose residents and new plants, as well as cultivate native plants to benefit communities of people and pollinators alike. 

Sam lives in Cole Valley and is excited to build community with neighbors on Mt Sutro! Before working with Sutro Stewards, Sam had visited Mt Sutro regularly for trail runs, hikes, and plant identification. He is looking forward to contributing to restoration efforts in the Mt Sutro urban ecosystem. 

Sophie (M.Ed) is a learning experience designer who weaves programming from many threads: honoring ancestral relationships to place, listening and tending to the present, and co-crafting an equitable vision for all future kin and the planet.

She is the co-founder and director of Wild Awake, a nonprofit offering eco-relational experiences at the intersection of ancestry, mindfulness, and craft. From multicultural fermentation to botanical dye workshops and night walks, Sophie is excited to bring her experience and relationships with craftsfolk, healers, and adventurers to create a culture of care and well-being at Mt. Sutro as the Health in Nature Program Manager. 

Across her career, Sophie has leveraged her learning science background to support a diversity of audiences in educational spaces, including innovative school leaders in transforming high school with the XQ Institute, neurodiverse youth in 1:1 and classroom settings with Lotus Learning and Avenues: The World School, as well as university researchers studying civic engagement with Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

In her free time, Sophie dreams up optimistic climate fiction, stargazes, teaches yoga at her local neighborhood studio (200RYT), finds her way to the front of concerts, and travels around the world for backpacking adventures, hot springs culture, and big awe. She is currently training to become an eco-chaplain with a Shinto-Buddhist spiritual lens to support folks who are experiencing the impacts of environmental disasters and inequality. 

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Here on earth, they are fond of ferns, indigo, and のり(nori); up in the cosmos, the many moons of Jupiter. 

​Big welcome to Venus who joined the team as an urban ecology intern in September 2024 and is excited to learn about Mt Sutros history, native species, and community! Venus is currently working on a Parks & Recreation degree from San Francisco State University with a minor in queer ethnic studies. For two years, he worked alongside Elliot and 2 scrubjays at SFSU greenhouse, cultivating a stronger relationship with plants and learning about native species. He is interested in learning more about indigenous land stewardship and how communities can live off of natural landscapes.