Engaging Hispanics and Latinos on Your River

Marta de la Garza Newkirk is a Community Planner in the Texas Field Office of the Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA) of the National Park Service (NPS). Marta joined RTCA while in graduate school.  Her first project was a binational heritage project, facilitated by the NPS, a partnership between the U.S. state of Texas and the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Coahuila. Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Marta is intimately familiar with the culture of the U. S. Mexican border. Prior to joining RTCA, Marta worked for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and taught English as a second language. Marta received her Bachelor of Finance and her Master of Science in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin.  She established the Texas office of the RTCA program in 1995 and has enjoyed managing diverse recreation, conservation, and quality-of-life projects all over the state. She has also enjoyed working collaboratively with her RTCA colleagues on projects in the Intermountain Region and throughout the U.S.

Ruby Gonzalez is a Public Affairs Specialist for the Angeles National Forest. Her public lands career started in the National Park Service where she served as an Interpretative Park Ranger for Point Reyes National Seashore, Muir Woods National Monument, and Yosemite National Park. She landed her first permanent federal service career as the River Manager for the Kern River on the Sequioa National Forest. During her work as the River Manager she worked with the public to provide bilingual information to the river’s diverse visitors and created bilingual educational material on Leave No Trace Principles and River Etiquette. Throughout her federal service career she has always been an avid advocate of Latino representation on public lands and encouraging the story-telling of underrepresented communities.

Gibrán Lule-Hurtado is a Community Planner with the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA) in Austin, Texas. As a former teacher, avid gardener, permaculturist, and Texas Master Naturalist, he strives to bring community engagement, conservation, and nature-based solutions into the planning processes he designs and manages.

Rolando Arrieta is the Director of Content Production & Operations for National Public Radio, as well as being a kayaker in his free time. He manages the team that handles the day-to-day content production and operations for the Newsroom and Programming. Arrieta started his career at NPR as a producer in Cultural Programs nearly three decades ago. He is a 3-time Peabody Award recipient as a member of the team that covered the Ebola coverage in West Africa, and the Cultural Programs series "Making The Music" with Wynton Marsalis and "Jazz Profiles" with Nancy Wilson. He is also a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee to cover the 2017 Cuban migration crisis in collaboration with Radio Ambulante, and is a Fulbright Distinguished chair, where he taught and studied sound design at the Catholic University in Porto, Portugal.