Anne Thomas started with Shasta Land Trust in February 2015. She and her husband Jefferson may be familiar to you, they first became members in 2007 and have been active participants and contributors to Wildways events ever since.
Anne was raised in Palo Cedro where she developed a deep appreciation for wild places, local agriculture, and the beauty of the north state. She spent as much time as possible outside, exploring on foot and on horseback, always looking to discover new places, wildflowers, and hidden creeks.
As a sixth grader Anne won the poster contest to promote a community effort to build a trail along Deschutes Road to help kids like herself who were walking to school. Despite support from across the community – the trail is still not built. Today traffic is more dangerous than ever and kids cannot safely walk or bicycle to school.
As a teen, Anne was a student at Enterprise High, and lived in Brazil for a year as an exchange student. Anne has a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in Political Economy of Industrial Societies, where she studied methods for addressing complex interdisciplinary challenges. After graduating, Anne spent time in Paris and then pursued her interest in urban design by studying Landscape Architecture and working for a top landscape design firm, Hargreaves and Associates, and then a design-build private development firm in San Francisco.
After spending 15 years as a Program Manager and Knowledge Manager to develop teams and collaborations that led to breakthrough results - at The Nature Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Program, The Stupski Foundation and Autodesk - Anne returned to her childhood home built by her father and mother.
When she is not working on behalf of the Shasta Land Trust, Anne is the Founder and Director of Shasta Living Streets a non-profit membership organization that works to build better bikeways, trails and walkable cities by inspiring a vision for livable communities, sharing information about safety, providing services like valet bicycle parking, producing events like Family Bicycling Day, and engaging with the community and local agencies in collaborative efforts to make quality of life improvements in our cities and towns. Started by started by a handful of enthusiasts in 2010, the group now includes 250 members and alliances with many organizations. Living Streets add value to adjacent land and neighborhoods and are designed to support local business and vital neighborhoods and family life. They allow people ages 8-80 to lead an active lifestyle and bicycle and walk for everyday transportation, health and joy.
Anne met her husband, Jefferson Thomas, an animator and illustrator, in San Francisco and over the past 20 years they have lived in Los Angeles, Seattle and Marin County, before returning to this area.
Anne still enjoys being outside – her favorite getaways are true adventures exploring places on foot or by bicycle with her husband and friends – in big metropolitan areas at events like CicLAvia and in quieter towns and wild places here in the North State.
Please join us in welcoming Anne to the staff!
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