Ken Mierzwa

Hine's emerald dragonfly || amphibian ecology || habitat restoration
about || blog || links || ferndale

about

My interest in ecology goes back to about age six, when I saw a larval tiger salamander not far from the house. By second grade, I'd read everything the school library had on amphibians, usually twice.

In 1984 I became a volunteer at Ryerson Conservation Area, north of Chicago, and spent five years studying salamander populations and various other natural things in Lake County and around the Chicago region. In 1987 I accepted a paid offer from Lake Forest Open Lands Association to conduct amphibian, reptile and small mammal inventories at several prairie and savanna preserves. This would be the first of several inventories performed under contract for NGOs and local or federal agencies. At the same time I was taking my research to more remote locations, spending several winters in old growth forest on the northern California coast and a spring at Highlands Biological Station in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 1990 I joined TAMS Consultants, a New York City based firm best known for international airport consulting, and immediately led field teams conducting biotic inventories of five alternative 10,000-acre sites in Illinois and Indiana, for the proposed South Suburban Airport. Other projects included design, permitting, and construction monitoring of a 200-acre floodplain forest mitigation site at Scott Air Force Base/Mid-America Airport near St. Louis, writing mitigation plans for two tidal marsh restorations near San Francisco, endangered species inventories in New York, New Jersey, and Massachussetts, and preparation of an environmental assessment for proposed airport upgrades in Thailand which included a month working in Bangkok. In 2001 TAMS was acquired by Earth Tech. At about this same time I relocated from Chicago to northern California, telecommuting or traveling as necessary to project sites all over the U.S.

In early 2007 I joined Winzler & Kelly, a Pacific Rim firm of about 300 people. Working from the Eureka California office, in a little over three years I've helped to build a habitat restoration and endangered species practice, and currently manage a new ecology department formed in the spring of 2010. Recent projects have included preparing mitigation plans and design drawings/specifications for oak woodland, serpentine grassland, and wetland sites in the Bay Area, including endangered California red-legged frog, San Francisco garter snake, and Mission blue butterfly habitat; preparation of Biological Assessments for sites in southern California, the Central Valley, and the Bay Area; and design and implementation of large-scale monitoring of endangered Hine's emerald dragonflies near Chicago, as part of bridge and high speed rail projects.

I'm also a published author and photographer, on a variety of subjects.

Additional information is available on my LinkedIn profile


	Updated: November 12, 2010 Contact ken mierzwa