California Stewardship Network’s Becky Morgan Fellow: Alicia Hamann
May 2016—August 2016

Redwood Coast Rural Action (RCRA) is pleased to host, Alicia Hamman, as a CSN Becky Morgan Fellow from May 2016 to October 2016. Alicia will be working with us in the designing of the first CSN Next Generation gathering to be held in July preceding our annual summer exchange. Alicia is a young, emerging leader in the region. She currently works with Friends of the Eel River, a non-profit focused on restoring water flows in the Eel River which are impaired part by two dams built in between 1908 and 1920. In that capacity she has become very familiar with the tensions that can arise between economy, equity and the environment. The dams, a hydropower facility now owned by PG&E, devastated a key salmon river, but created a water supply for the community of Potter Valley. As with much of our triple bottom line work, the solutions are not simple.

Alicia brings to that work a unique perspective. She was raised in suburban Vancouver WA, and ended up at Humboldt State University studying business. While she began her studies in the “economy” sphere, it wasn’t long before she realized that she was more interested in why things happened and moved to “people or equity” sphere with the study of anthropology. A pivotal experience abroad studying community culture in Peru, clarified Alicia’s desire to find a career. After a couple years working with the local Chamber of Commerce meeting people, become familiar with how systems work, and mapping out the local “power grid”, Alicia took her current position with the Friends of the Eel River.

She will be spending her time with Redwood Coast Rural Action contributing to the design of the Next Gen gathering in San Jose, helping with the regional input work leading up to the Economic Summit and assisting with the North Coast Regional Manufacturing Network project that is a key RCRA focus for the year.