Hawks
Aloft, Inc.
Conservation, Avian Research,
and Education
PO Box 10028 - Albuquerque, NM 87184 -
(505) 828-9455
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The staff and volunteers at Hawks Aloft come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Each member of the Hawks Aloft team bring valuable knowledge, insight, and vision to the organization. Volunteer of the Year!
Jerry Hobart
My background for this position is non-traditional. I am an artist and a writer, and have written two books in another field and published numerous articles, including peer-reviewed manuscripts. Back in 1988, I met and fell in love with an educational Red-tailed Hawk. I began working as a volunteer for a local conservation organization, and it wasn’t long before I became a staff member writing training manuals, grants, editing their newsletter, etc. However, it was education that was my first love, followed by field research. I thoroughly enjoy all aspects of Hawks Aloft, from working in the field studying nesting raptors along the Rio Grande bosque and songbird surveys to education programs to working with our large cadre of non-releasable education birds. In my other life, I am a professional quilt maker and often travel to teach and lecture methods that I have developed in this media. My leisure time is often spent outdoors, searching for birds and more birds, but I also enjoy the peace and quiet of at my mountain home (and the birds).
Theresa James, Bookkeeper/Office Manager In 1997 I received an Associates Degree in Accounting and an Associates Degree in Business Administration. I worked five years in the accounting department of a local health club until 2002. In February of 2003, I joined the Hawks Aloft team. In addition to my financial/office duties, I occasionally help with educational booths, mitigations, and survey data entry. When I am not at Hawks Aloft, I am busy being a mother to Jay, Mariah, Johnny and James- my four beautiful children. I enjoy running, biking and walking.
Rebecca Jaramillo, Education Program Coordinator
Ron Kellermueller, Raptor Projects Coordinator Born in Queens, New York, and graduated from Colorado State University with a B.S. in Zoology. I left for Seattle, Washington to pursue a Masters degree in Marine Biology but became a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska instead, along with doing seasonal work as a biologist for the Washington State Department of Fisheries on various salmon enhancement projects. I decided that the soggy, overcast winters of the Pacific northwest, was not for me so my wife Sarah and I fled for New Mexico with no jobs and little money. I continued commuting to Alaska for the salmon season and eventually stumbled onto Hawks Aloft quite by accident. It did not take long before I became enraptured by the raptors and had the pleasure of working in areas that would make old whisky sodden Edward Abbey jealous. I currently lives in the East Mountains with Sarah and our one-year-old son, Malcolm.
Sarah Young, Biologist/Technical Editor
Lorraine McInnes, Biologist/GIS Specialist I graduated in 2000 from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with a B.S. in Wildlife and French. Since graduating, I have been working in the field of biology for various agencies including state, university and private corporations throughout the U.S. My work has ranged from mollusks to vegetation and from amphibian and reptiles to birds. I was born and raised in Canada, but moved to Wisconsin with my family about twelve years ago. I have most recently been living out west, slowly making my way to New Mexico. Bag piping keeps me occupied during my free time as well as mountain biking, hiking and backpacking trips.
Seamus Breslin, Senior Field Technician Originally from N. Ireland, I am a former commercial fisherman and Merchant Marine. I arrived in New Mexico in 1996, and got involved with Hawks Aloft in 1997. I particularly enjoy my work monitoring Golden Eagles and falcons, and hiking in the backcountry of NM - the more of it the better! When not working in the field, I spend most of my time being a father to my daughter Fiona, age 7.
John Stanek, Biologist I’ve ventured south from chilly Gunnison, Colorado where I worked on Gunnison sage grouse habitat research. Mornings, I conduct songbird surveys and, in the afternoons, check active raptor nests within the Bosque. The songbird surveys counted primarily by ear are fun, but made much more difficult by the enthusiastic Yellow-breasted Chats and the ubiquitous Black-headed Grosbeaks. These vociferous birds! Their morning affirmations often overwhelm the dawn chorus and obscure the quieter birds. The recent addition of nestlings’ begging cries adds even more confusion to the chorus. So far, the morning surveys have revealed a rich diversity of birds including Indigo Buntings and a Mississippi Kite. My afternoons are filled with Cooper’s Hawk nest checks in the cleared Albuquerque Bosque
Trevor Fetz, Biologist
Mike Stake, Biologist As part of a campaign to lure his students away from the television, my sixth grade teacher led a field trip to a local California creek to identify birds. My first scribbled bird list included unheard of species like "Buffalohead" and "Gazebo" along with more correctly recorded "Great Blue Herons" and "Belted Kingfishers". Despite learning that the gazebo was where we ate lunch and not a bird, I was hooked. My interest in birds later took me to exotic places like Australia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. I also lived in St. Petersburg, Russia for two years and developed an interest in Russian literature and history. Less exotic but perhaps no less foreign, I settled down in Texas from 1997-2001 and worked for The Nature Conservancy monitoring endangered Black-capped Vireos and Golden-cheeked Warblers. I moved to the University of Missouri in 2001 to pursue a Master’s Degree, using time-lapse video cameras to study nest predators. Two years and hundreds of videotapes later, I am excited to be in Albuquerque to contribute to Hawks Aloft.
Will Keeley, Biologist I was born and raised in Chicago, Il. and attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where I double majored in Biology and Environmental Studies. The 2003 breeding season is my second season working for Hawks Aloft as a field biologist in Socorro and Catron counties. In these counties, we monitor breeding success of the Ferruginous Hawk and Golden Eagle for the Bureau of Land Management, Socorro field office. I am attending Boise State University in the fall of 2003 to work towards obtaining a MS in raptor biology where I plan to use this current Hawks Aloft project as my thesis topic. I enjoy backpacking, photography, music and ice hockey. |
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I earned my Masters Degree at UNM in
Recreation/Outdoor Environmental Education in 2004, and absolutely love teaching
about this amazing world in which we live. Prior to working at Hawks Aloft, I
received a BA in Marine Science from the University of San Diego. In
California, I specialized in cartilaginous fish and sharks. What am I doing in
the desert you might ask? I returned to NM after graduating from USD in order
to pursue my masters degree and fell into a job working with raptors. I love
the work and the chance to educate kids. I still have much to learn, especially
about those little brown birds and little black birds that dart around the
bosque, but I am sure by the end of the field season I will have learned to
identify many of them. Until then I will think of them fondly as Cooper’s Hawk
food!
I am
originally from England, and came to Albuquerque in October 2004. I have a
degree in Biological Sciences and a PhD in biochemistry. I have long been
interested in birds and have been to far flung places including Borneo, India
and Sri Lanka to see exotic species! For Hawks Aloft, I have combined my
biological research background with a range of other skills including project
management, business development and marketing (I worked on UK Government
Programs for the last 4 years). Currently, I edit Hawks Aloft publications,
such as the Aloft newsletter, and our technical reports. I am a member of the
I grew up in
northeastern Oregon and received a B.A. in English from Whitman College. Upon
realizing that my baseball career was not going to advance beyond college, and
that I didn’t want to teach English, I decided to pursue my interest in nature.
I received an M.S. in Environmental Studies from Southern Oregon University, and
it was during that time I discovered my obsession with birds. After completing
my M.S., I spent several years working for the Oregon Cooperative Wildlife
Research Unit studying Spotted Owls in southwestern Oregon and two years as the
project coordinator of a MAPS station for the Medford, Oregon, district of the
Bureau of Land Management. For the past 5 years I have been working on a Ph.D.
in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at New Mexico State University. If all goes
well, I will complete my Ph.D. in the spring of 2006. I now live in Albuquerque
and was fortunate enough to catch on with Hawks Aloft in February of this year.