Year Two: Episode Twelve - Armando Quintero, Director of California State Parks & Recreation Artwork

Place and Purpose

Greg Sarris and Obi Kaufmann are storytellers for whom the chaos of the modern world is tempered by a deep connection to land, home and community. In this ground-breaking, 12-part, video-podcast, these two esteemed chroniclers of California’s ancient wonder, explore the deepest questions of hope, culture, beauty, justice, time, and ecology. Recorded and broadcast live once per month, themes of the series revolve around the passing seasons and reflect on whether or not so many patterns of the past are unraveling in wake of a fast-approaching future. Recognizing that we live in a society that seems as challenged to remember the things it should as it is to let go of the things that no longer serve, Place & Purpose considers the greatest challenges and opportunities of our day. You are invited to join the discussion with Greg and Obi as they engage this search for meaning from the premise that the remedy to these conundrums exists inside the wisdom of the ancestors, that our collective recovery is written across the land, and lives inside the stories that are still to be told.

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Place and Purpose

Year Two: Episode Twelve - Armando Quintero, Director of California State Parks & Recreation

July 10, 2024 • Greg Sarris and Obi Kaufmann • Season 2 • Episode 12

Greg and Obi invite Director of California Department of Parks and Recreation, Armando Quintero, onto the program. An experienced parks professional with expertise in park operations, outdoor education, equity and access, and diversity and inclusion in hiring and retention, Armando Quintero has a degree in environmental science and biology. He was executive director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the University of California (UC), Merced, from 2014 to 2020, and served as director of development at UC Merced from 2008 to 2014. He was an elected member of the Marin Municipal Water District from 2008 to 2020. In 2014 he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as a member of the California Water Commission and served as chair of that Commission from 2015 to 2020.

Quintero held multiple positions at the National Park Service (NPS) from 1976 to 1998, including chief of the Special Park Uses Group and district ranger at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, personnel staffing specialist for NPS, park ranger and supervisory park ranger at the Point Reyes National Seashore, and park ranger at the Sequoia National Park and at the John Muir National Historic Site.

This episode originally streamed live on YouTube July 3 at 10am PT.