Congratulations to Janice for this well-deserved recognition of her hard work on the ranch. The Forest Service nomination letter detailed some of her – and the school’s – achievements:
This is a combined nomination for Janice and Deep Springs College. Janice Hunter is just finishing her first year as the new ranch manager for Deep Springs College. Deep Springs College is the permittee for the Crooked Creek and Deep Springs Cattle & Horse Grazing Allotments on the Inyo National Forest. Not only is Janice responsible for managing the cattle operation for Deep Springs College, which includes privately owned, BLM, and Forest Service land, but she also leads the Deep Springs Resource Management Team, the entity that makes recommendations on the management of the Deep Springs College cattle operation. Janice mentors four student cowboys who work diligently throughout the grazing season to manage the cattle on the BLM and FS allotments. The resource management team includes a variety of professionals from universities and public agencies, and Janice has done an outstanding job of leading this diverse group of individuals forward to address the needs of the cattle operation (a significant portion of which takes place on Forest Service land). Deep Springs students, faculty, and staff have provided invaluable support to gathering data for the Resource Management Team and the Inyo National Forest. Through the leadership of Amity Wilczek (the Deep Springs Chair of Natural Sciences) and Janice, a water quality study was conducted on the Crooked Creek Allotment in 2012. This venture that was supported at both the regional and district levels and by UC-Davis would not have been possible without the hard work of Amity, Janice, and the Deep Springs students that helped collect the data and write the final report. (Crooked Creek is a priority area on the Forest for obtaining water quality data.)