WTI is comprised of a very knowledgeable staff of various backgrounds and experiences.
Barry Martin – founder and lead instructor
Barry Martin, retired American Airlines pilot, has been tracking since the late ’80s. He founded the first tracking team – Friends of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve in 1993 and San Diego Tracking Team (www.sdtt.org) in 2000 and now works full time running WTI, conducting monitoring projects, and teaching wildlife tracking. He has attained the highest level of track and sign certification, Track and Sign Specialist and Tracker III under Cybertracker Conservation (www.cybertracker.org). Barry has logged nearly 20,000 hours of total flight time. This unique combination of skills makes him very valuable in the world of aerial telemetry. Learn more about Barry here.
Connor O’Malley – lead survival instructor
Connor has attained Track and Sign III, he is a certified Wilderness First Responder, holds a B.S. from Colorado State University and has extensive experience in survival skills and in running children’s programs. He is also a Kamana graduate (www.kamana.org), a Hawk Circle Earth Skills Semester graduate (www.hawkcircle.com) and a graduate of White Pine’s Tracking Apprenticeship (www.whitepineprograms.org). Learn more about Connor here: www.naturalskills.wordpress.com
Dale Ritenour
Dale is a field biologist with a passion for plants. He has 12 years of professional experience, and enjoys sharing his knowledge through our plant workshops. His work focuses on habitat restoration, and botanical and wildlife surveys, with specialties in vernal pools and rare plants. He has also guided over 50 kayaking, backpacking and canoeing trips as an outdoor adventure trip leader with SDSU and obtained an outdoor leader certification with Wilderness Education Associates. He is a WTI student and has attained Track and Sign II.
Erik LaCoste
Erik is a field biologist in the San Diego area who has been a dedicated WTI student and now holds a Cybertracker Tracker 3 certification. Erik assists with tracking instruction programs, as well as WTI research and monitoring projects. He has over 14 years experience as a biologist, 10 as an environmental consultant and 4 as a research ecologist at San Diego State University. He holds a Federal Endangered Species Act 10 (a)1(A) permit authorizing him to perform focused, protocol- level Surveys for a wide variety of sensitive species.
Lee Kirchhevel
Lee is one of the original tracking team members, a level 3 in track and sign, a graduate of San Diego State, one of the SDTT Tracker/Naturalist course lead instructors and is the originator of the Jr. Naturalist Children’s Outdoor Education Program. He is also an accomplished outdoor photographer and teaches our Photography for Trackers class. Lee works at the Wild Animal Park in Escondido.
