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Sonoma County from a chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, according to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Diverse County, with 1,010,000 acres of land on 1574 miles of scenic roadways, Sanoma County is rightfully famed for its agriculture. Did a culture,

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industry and recreation as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies way invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the eighties with your host

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Rich McGlinchy? Get everybody? Welcome to another edition of Sonoma County. In the eighties, we'll be talking to a couple of members of the cooperative Extension in the University of California in Sonoma County, and if that puzzles you a little bit that name, we'll learn more about

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that later from Stephanie Orson, one of our guests. Many people still refer to that office is a farm adviser's office. The guest on our program on the left Your screen is Jim Brenner, youth development adviser, and has many other titles. I think, over there, but that's

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one of them. And on the right of your screen is Stephanie Larson, Livestock farm advisor. We're going to talk about used the extension, and Stephanie. It's nice to have you here. Thank you. Rich wants to be a ruphylin to be here first. Your office is the

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University of California Cooperative Extension. Who do you actually work for? Well, that's That's a big title. Yes, we are Jim and are employees of the University of California. So therefore, that makes us state employees. But are full title is the University of California Cooperative Extension. And

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to better understand that title, we need to go back 75 years to, uh, where the government into introduced the Smith Lever Act. And what they did is it was a method of extending information that they had generated at the university and at the research facilities. And

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so they put into play 75 years ago what we call the farm advisors, the people in the field that take the information from the university and extend it to the farmers that would use it. So that's where we get the cooperative extension. While the cup, the

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cooperative part also comes into play where since were state employees? But we're also working in the county. We have a county support staff were also have funding from the county that pays for travel and the building and the phone services that we use. So it's kind

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of ah, trifled also because we get money from the federal government to so if that's not all confusing enough that we're also referred to as a zoo, said the farm and Home adviser's office. Because we are advisers and depending on the commodities that we serve, that

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would be what adviser we are. I work with the livestock people, so I'm the Livestock Farm Advisor. But we are available in the counties throughout the California and throughout the United States, and our services are free to those who wish to use us. Yeah, we should

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find a home advisor that wasn't identified, really. Two people perform many, many, many functions tonight. I've been encountered and and know of many of them were gonna learn a great deal more about it when this program. But it is a very, very important office. It's certainly

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important people. Sonoma County Jim, What's the mission and the vision of UCC in Sonoma County. What we have the mission statement over their rich, and I'll just read it. The University of California Cooperative Extension enhances the quality of life of Sonoma County residents, and we do

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this through practical university based education and research programs. We have, ah, energetic and dedicated team of advisers who are experts, really in their subject matter. Areas that help community members find solutions to selected local problems, for instance, are viticulture adviser Rhonda Smith works with about 1000

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different growers in the viticulture industry, and I don't know if you know. But this year, the wine industry of the great production industry it became the number one crop in terms of economic value in this county, and it's it's worth about $67.5 million. There's over 30,000

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acres in wine grapes, and that is the commodity that Rhonda works with. And she's kept very busy with calls from growers and processors who have problems with their plants. One of her major programs is an irrigation management trying to find better ways to manage water on

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wine grapes. Statement for me read It should really poorly. Uh, University of California Cooperative Extension enhances the quality of life of Sonoma County residents through practical, university based education and research. A dedicated team of experts help community members find solutions to selected local problems That really

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does that pretty much defines the office in the project. Exactly. All of even though we have different subject matters, we're all working within that realm and really division that we have is pretty much signed, summed up in a quote by Luther Burbank. Uh, and he wrote

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years ago. I firmly believe from what I've seen that this was talking about the Redwood Empire is the chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, and all of our staff really believe in that. And we're hoping to move the county and

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its residents in that direction, to to actually realize that quality of life that's here at the expense of being facetious right on Luther, a man of great vision. It's a trip he was Oh, yeah, I mean, you know that don't digress long because we're limited time

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with us here, but I've read through his accomplishments again just a few months ago. It's literally amazing. It is that was a brilliant person, right? Let's talk about the advisers in your office and the programs they're currently involved with. Who are the other advisers? And what

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are the programs they are involved with? Well, um, I'm going to start first with myself and then tell you a little bit while what I do. I'm the livestock and range farm adviser, and what I do is I work with the commercial and the backyard livestock

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producers in the county, those people raising sheep, beef and swine and I provide them with education. And we conduct research, applied research on the farm to help them to improve their production and management of their their animals. And we do this through different methods, through meetings,

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through direct contacts and again through doing research on the farm and then extending that information that we've gained now on the range side of it. I work with those landowners and also agencies and hoping to improve the land and to use the land wisely, since it

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is such a good commodity that we have when we have to take care of it. So I'm working with and I'm making anymore. No, no. It's a short supply of lands. We need Teoh utilize it the best that we can. So that's what I do is

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the Livestock and Range Farm Advisor. Well, I mentioned before Rhonda Smith, Who's there? Viticulture adviser. And she's She's another one of the dedicated staff members. It's involved in our program. Our fearless leader, the county director, actually takes a major responsibility and handling the three different budgets.

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As Stephanie said, we have a cooperative arrangement between the county U. S Department of Agriculture and the state through the university, and we have three different budgets to manage and try to make it all work out at the end of the year. So Dan Desmond, who's

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our county director, handles primarily that he also has a subject matter responsibility, and that's in youth development and education, especially educational curriculum. He's involved in developing new programs that serve youth. He also works without four H program um, most of his time that was spent in

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maintaining contacts in assuming some responsibility in the community. In different, for example, he was involved with the Leadership Santa Rosa program that sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, works with a lot of grassroots community organizations to, such as the South Park Area, Community Alliance on and

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developing both youth programs and solving some community problems. That air there. Um, so that pretty much sums up with what Dan is involved with. Okay, what about home economics? Well, our home economist is Linda Garcia, and Linda is very concerned with issue oriented problems that we're

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seeing in the county. Linda still does the traditional cooking, canning and and sewing questions and seminars, but also she is very concerned about about new issues that are coming up, especially in Sonoma County. And so she has been very active in working with the Safe House,

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which is the new house that just opened for the homeless. And she and her staff, which is the F NEP staff, which is the expanded food, nutrition and education program. Those people, yes, and those people on that staff are Wanda Marshall and Linda Forney, Sue Cochran

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and Brian Hatch. And they all work with Linda in obtaining food and developing menus. For this would be obtained and then providing nutritional education to those homeless so that they can have a good meal to get them back on their feet. And so That's some of

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the programs that Linda works with. What is? If NEP mean again, it means expanded food, nutrition, education program. It is a way to provide food and nutrition information to low income families. All right, well, why were you here? What about the Marine Division? Well, our Marine

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advisors, Bruce Wyatt and Bruce Why it works in both Sonoma and Marin County's. And he works on the coast with the commercial fishermen. And what Bruce does is he's very instrumental in developing new markets for products that the fishermen have found. And one of the new

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things that he's working on now is is with the increased demand for the sea urchins that have been coming in off the coast. He's developing a place for the sea urchin waste as, ah, method of using it for fertilizer. So he's finding new markets for his

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commodity, and currently he's on sabbatical, looking for new markets around the world for fish products in Cinema County. How about Gary and, uh, well, in public policy, we have ah, adviser Dr Rick Bennett, who's the dairy and public policy adviser. Rich and his dairy program is

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primarily focused on improving the milk quality, now in Sonoma County, also works of Marin County. And he's working with the California Cooperative Creamery in there, collecting data and information to then return to the dairymen to help improve the quality of their milk. And this is a

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sort of a continuing programme that he's had. He's also very active in public policy and primarily in the area of wastewater management right now there looking into ways to utilize wastewater that's been partially treated as in agricultural applications to grow food crops. And so there's a

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project that will start up, I believe next year that will take some of the water that's treated at this Santa Rosa Regional plant and actually use it irrigating some food crops. And as you might imagine, there are a lot of concerns and issues around the utilization

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of waste waters and concerns about the safety and Aziz well, as, uh, you know how to distribute it, things like that. Rick is right in there, working with a number of agencies, cities and the actual processors or treatment plant facilities and the agricultural community. This also

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brings to mind and partly what Stephanie was talking about with Bruce y. It's Program The Marine Advisors. We are moving Mawr and Mawr into working as teams as interdisciplinary teams working across subject matter areas such as in Bruce Program. Bruces program with the using sea urchin

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waste product is a fertilizer. He's been working very closely with our horticulture adviser and other plant science advisers so that we're going across subject matter lines and bringing together agencies and other institutions in the community to work on some of these problems, to get the best

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possible solution and not to stay focused in one area. This is a sort of a long term goal that we have in our program is to work effectively as a team and to model that for other organizations as well. Um, how about four H Club work?

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Who said Well, our forage cub work is is run by Shirley Temple and surely is very instrumental in working with the 1600 boys and girls that we have signed up in four h. There are currently 43 community clubs, and she's responsible for looking after 670 volunteer

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leaders that we have that work with all these individuals. But as they say that for ages and all cows and cooking like it used to be. Now it's expanded to include a wide range of projects that the kids can take those being like computer science and

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aerospace and graphic arts and all different ones. So it's very good for the kids. But in addition to the projects, for H is teaching the kids to improve their leadership ability to allow them to increase the public speaking skills and also for them to get involved

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in community activities and citizenship. And a couple of those projects that they do work with are like the guide dogs before each are very active in raising guide dogs, and also they work with the Sheriff's Department and provide fingerprinting skills. So surely he's coordinating all that.

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Another thing that forage. They just reinstated their government day recently. We help them do that. In addition to that, they assists when there people are naturalized citizens, a very important factor over there. How about the support staff? Well, this is This is the heart of our

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program. We really Azad visors, most of us, definitely myself. Andi Other advisers air often in the field, and we have a very dedicated support staff. It's with leadership provided by Deanna Mattis. It's the office manager. We have a crew Kathy Patton and Pamela Johnson and Claudia

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Brooks, who, along with Mukhtar Saltzman, who's a field assistant and we'll talk a little bit more about him later. But they keep it all rolling. Keep all the paper flowing, answered the phone calls, and we get literally hundreds of calls arranging it. Questions of How do

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I How long can I keep a canned ham in my freezer? My refrigerator. Teoh, What is this thing that's crawling up my rose Bush? And, uh, the support staff has to sort all that out and determine which advisor is responsible for that. And also, you know,

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do the typing, duplication mailing. And we all have newsletters that go out on a regular basis, and paper is is a tremendous resource for us. Maybe too much, sometimes infinite, maybe find a. But I don't think so. Uh, two more quick things here than we would

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have some, uh, filming horticulture Well. Horticulture Advisor is Paul Vossen, and Paul works with the horticulture growers in the county, and he's very instrumental in developing new products for those growers to grow, not the traditional apples. He's also working in a specialty demonstration plots where he's

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looking at bringing in Citrus into the county. He's looking at growing chestnuts and also exotic grapes, so he's very instrumental in planting new varieties in the county. But again, he still also works with the Apple Commodities, and he's very instrumental in providing marketing techniques for the

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Sebastopol apples. And he's been very involved in what we call a marketing task force. And what this has done, like Jim alluded to, is bring together all the disciplines of the office. Bring industry people from all different commodities, working together in the promotion of Sonoma County

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products. So this is a way to market snow McKenney products and along with Paul is a Mukhtar Saltzman and Mukhtar Field assistant. They have developed the Master Gardener program and what the Master Gardener program does. It takes 30 volunteers every year, and they provide them with

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60 hours of education. In return, they provide their expertise back to the community, and they answered all those calls like what's crawling up my Rose Bush and how do I plant this and how do I grow this and it. It helps the Tanzer a lot of

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those questions that Paul couldn't get to. So those are very helpful people in our office. The Master Gardener volunteers one thing about touching on challenging adventure, that group, and then we'll see some of that. Well, that's that's part of my program. Responsibility Rich. And I think

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the tape that we brought will best tell about the current program that were most active in, and that is the challenge. Cinema adventure, ropes course and challenge and adventure is part of our youth development programme, although we involve a number of youth in it. Adults in

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it, too. We serve in the neighborhood of 802,000 people a year on this adventure ropes course, and we also have, ah, volunteer leader training programs similar to the master gardeners, where our leaders commit to 40 plus hours of training. In exchange, they work on our ropes

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course a day a month, serving a variety of groups, youth at risk school groups, Onda variety of adult groups. Also, uh, I think we should take a look at that tape now and so that people will understand exactly what this program's about. All right, Let's do

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that now. No right, Right foot. Your right movie, right arm. Picture yourself leaving for a trap. Ease or standing on a 10 inch square platform, 30 feet off the ground, flying through the air, hanging from a tiny falling backwards off a four foot stump into the

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arms of strangers. Is it just Can you imagine yourself doing this thistles? The adventure ropes course and what we do out here is adventure. It's adventure, a chance to take some physical, mental and emotional risks in

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a safe setting and have a lot of fun doing it. Here. We experience challenge, but not competition. Each person is supported and realizing his of her maximum effort. There's no failure on Lee success. All this adventure takes place right in the heart of San Francisco on

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Golden Gate National Recreation Area land at Fort Miley. People of all ages, sizes, shapes and talents use the ropes course. Every group is different thing. This creates an interesting challenge for the staff as they develop a plan to suit each group because there are more elements

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than can be done in one day. Each leader chooses which ones to use every day is different. What can you expect on a ropes? Course day? A typical day begins with playful stretching and warm up exercises. We play here, act silly, have fun, use our imaginations.

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Shared laughter and adventure quickly bring people together because, you know, although people often arrive at the course of strangers, a carefully planned Siris of activities build trust your right foot, your right for people movie, right arm and trying. You know, together we expand our limits, discover

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all the things we can do in the safety of group support. Participants share the responsibility for each other safety through spotting leaders carefully teach this important skill early in the day. Okay, now I'm going to give you attention and attention will hold you a bit up.

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And if you want a boy after awake and aware becomes the motto. As our sense of teamwork grows, the fall off clear signals and communication or stress, you harness your squad a bit. You confuse yourself, saying, I don't know that during the morning, the low elements

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those close to the ground provide the testing ground for the trust and support needed to face the high elements. Our imagination gets exercise to as we try to figure out how many different ways there are to tackle an event. There are no right ways, anything that

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works. Dr Miss Bill. Moments of doubt, frustration and fear are experienced. It's like looking into a mirror and seeing yourself clearly for the first time, face yourself. Gradually we learned to listen to that. I can voice inside like time flies by as we concentrate, focusing on

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the challenge of the moment for that brief time. Nothing else matters. The cares of our everyday lives air for gotten as we strain every muscle, heart beating and then collapse in relief, there is no greater exhilaration. Challenge face. We score a personal victory and the group

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shares our happiness. Other elements challenge the group. At first, tasks look impossible, but gradually we discover the strength and cleverness of our united talents. Group pride grows Throughout the day, eyes turned upward towards the high elements cables, nets and ropes 30 feet above the ground, anticipation

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and excitement mounted. Wait! Our turn moment comes to go up. Fears of falling of heights of failure. I met face to face. You hesitate que that I can voice and miraculously, your body moves just accomplished something that you never thought you

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could do. It feels great. Each person is in charge out here. No one forces you to try things you call your own shots in the group, leaders included, are there to support you and share in your success. As the day progresses, people get closer. Begin really

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caring about one another way. All experience, satisfaction, pride and joy. The day ends with quiet sharing. Ropes Course is a metaphor for the adventures and challenges we face in everyday life. It offers risks, tension and excitement. It also provides a consistent safety net by maintaining strict

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safety rules. Best safety equipment on carefully trained stare. So what's it all about its people? It's learning to take pride in your improvement, no matter how small its sense of wonder is, understanding dawns. It's exposing feelings, and with that, our true Selves, it's reaching out. To

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others, it's excitement and enjoyment. Ropes, courses of people. Course. It's not a place but a process of personal growth and exploration on, and it exists through the efforts of dedicated volunteers of all ages and from all walks of life who share a belief in the value

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of adventure. Now give yourself a chance and go for it. Hey, that was really interesting, I think, unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, it pretty much used up our time on. We had a lot of other things I wanted to ask you. Would you

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and Stephanie come back and visited another time with a share? I think a lot of people out there would like a lot more about the home advisers. Oh, are the University of California Extension Service? No, mechanic. Maybe we could bring back another adviser. Thank you. You're

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wonderful. You're wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. You didn't get a chance to talk about your New Zealand trip Will do that. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry that we have so little time, but you have to hurry along. Our guests on this edition of smoke out in the

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eighties left your screen. Jim Brenner, development adviser on the right of the screen. Stephenie Larsen, Livestock Farmer Dreiser, both with a cooperative extension University, California. My name is Richard Carucci. Program is set over. Carry the eighties. We'll be back with you next week. Whether remember the

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county government family are important related agencies such as UC Extension Service until end tonight. Good luck. Good help to each and every one of you.