I have been an amateur naturalist all my life. Some of my earliest memories are of walks in the country with my parents, my mother identifying all the plants. Since then, I have been lucky enough to combine my love of nature with my career, working in academia as an ecologist, for the last 14 years at a minority-serving university in southern California. There I had the privilege of introducing many urban students to the great outdoors. Now I am retired, I hope to be able to continue to add our knowledge of nature and encourage others to see the world through a naturalist's eyes.