Remember Sandy DeSimone

The Nature Reserve at Rancho Mission Viejo has lost a good friend and colleague with the recent passing of Sandy DeSimone, Director of Research, Education and Land Management at Audubon’s Starr Ranch Sanctuary. Sandy was well known in Orange County conservation circles and beyond for her commitment to educating the next generation of biologists, advocating for restoration without the use of chemicals and thinking about land management holistically. In 2013, Sandy and Laura Coley Eisenberg formed the South County Fire Watch because they recognized that cooperative collaboration was essential to protect our conserved wildlands from fire. Sandy and Laura trained an average of 25 new volunteers per year to act as an extra set of eyes at key urban/wildland interface locations and help prevent large fires during extreme weather conditions. The South County Fire Watch volunteers and all of us at The Nature Reserve are grateful for Sandy’s generous sharing of her knowledge, experience and most of all, her time. We will miss her sunny smiles.