Meet SNFC's New Director

It is with great sadness that I leave the Sierra Nevada Field Campus after 25 wonderful years. But I am very, very greatful to know that this place that we all love, will be left in great hands. J.R. Blair has been a personal friend and a friend of SNFC for over 15 years, and shares the same love as I for the Sierra Nevada Field Campus, SNFC's mission and SNFC's students. Please give him a very warm welcome and all your support. We will be working together as SNFC transitions between directors and for now I will continue to handle registrations and questions, until JR assume the full duties in June

Jim Steele

J.R. Bair's Biography and Greeting

J.R. Blair received his Master’s degree in Conservation Biology focusing on mushroom taxonomy in 1999. Since then he has been a full-time lecturer in the Department of Biology at San Francisco State University. Classes he has taught include World of Plants, Ornithology, Nature Study, Animal Diversity, and Human Biology. His first experience at the Sierra Nevada Field Campus was as a student of the Fungi of the Sierra Nevada class in June, 1995. Since then he has been coming to SNFC nearly every year in various capacities including a stint teaching various natural history classes to local children from 1997 to 2000. J.R. also has a background in facility management as the manager of Pigeon Point Lighthouse American Youth Hostel in the late 1980’s and as the operations manager for northern California hostels in the early 1990’s. He continues to be an avid naturalist through active involvement with the Mycological Society of San Francisco, annual participation in Christmas Bird Counts and other birding events, by offering regular workshops in mushroom identification and birdwatching, and by striving to increase his knowledge of all things living and quite a few things not.

“My vision for the Sierra Nevada Field Campus is simple. First of all, I intend to fill some very big shoes. I will make it a priority to maintain the atmosphere of accessible, quality education that is the legacy of my predecessor, Jim Steele. Secondly, I will work to further the goal of improving and expanding the educational and research potential of SNFC with additional classroom and laboratory facilities. Both of these objectives require the support of many and I greatly look forward to working with SNFC staff and instructors, the staff and faculty of the College of Science and Engineering and others at SFSU, local authorities and educators, and everyone else who has come to love the Sierra Nevada Field Campus enough to lend a hand.”