AAPIs on the river and their sense of place

Moses Chun works with the National Park Service in the Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program as an Outdoor Recreation Planner. Currently, Moses coordinates the Emerging Leaders Program in the Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Division. He has worked with the NPS since 2014 in various capacities in parks, regional offices, and now with the Washington Support Office. He is also a leadership team member of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Employee Research Group in the NPS, which was formed in 2020 to provide employee support and resources to AAPI staff.
Moses promotes collaborative leadership and community engagement in public land management and conservation. Moses believes that improving workplace culture and innovation is tied to collaboration and celebrating diversity. He hopes to see a shift in conservation culture towards more creative problem solving in modern land management challenges through leadership development.

Keiko Mertz was born and raised in California, just a stone’s throw from the great Sacramento River. Growing up, she was fascinated with the natural world, ultimately leading her to pursue degrees in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology (B.S.) and Environmental Policy (M.S.), both from the University of California, Davis. She now leverages this interdisciplinary knowledge in her work as Policy Director of Friends of the River, where she advocates for the rivers you love.

Theresa Lorejo-Simsiman is the California Stewardship Director for American Whitewater. Since she first started whitewater kayaking in 1999 she has made it a point to get involved at the community level to advocate for river sheds and lands in in her back-yard. She cut her teeth in the world of hydropower by actively informing and encouraging advocacy from local paddling groups for the relicensing of the FERC Upper American River Project (UARP) owned and operated by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). In 2008 she wrote and secured the first matching grant from AQMD totaling over 76K for the shuttle program. In time, Dave Steindorf recruited Theresa as a volunteer for American Whitewater asking her to be the Ecological Resource Committee representative for the FERC Mokelumne River Project owned by Pacific Gas & Electric. She later agreed to represent American Whitewater during the relicensing process for the Merced River Hydroelectric Project and help with efforts to stop the roll back of National Wild & Scenic protection on the Merced River. Having gained practical knowledge working with utilities, federal, state & local agencies as well as local partner organizations, Theresa was eventually brought on to the American Whitewater staff as the California Stewardship Assistant in 2013. In this position she protected recreational flows on the Mokelumne River during the drought, advocated for State Wild and Scenic River status for the Mokelumne, helped remove an illegal fence blocking access to the Cosumnes River, and helped implement the first license required recreational flow releases on the South Fork American River below Slab Creek Dam and on South Silver Creek below Ice House Reservoir.