The People of the Land Trust: Thanks and Best Wishes to Sam Zabell

Sam Zabell started helping out around the Land Trust at a young age, and returned to us each summer between school years at Middlebury, tackling a variety of jobs and tasks with a smile and a can-do attitude we all aspire to.

After five seasons of the Land Trust and an internship with the Truckee River Watershed Council, Sam’s moving on to work in GIS for Tuolumne County out of Sonora, and we wish him all the best in his new venture.

Each summer Sam rolled up his sleeves to work on our trail crew, perform important environmental monitoring on our properties, handled complex operations and management projects at Royal Gorge and at Webber Lake, helped care for Independence Lake, led docent hikes to introduce the public to our trails and properties, and over this last summer, lived full time as our caretaker in Lower Carpenter Valley.

“Whatever task we gave him, Sam would dive in head first and make sure it was done right,” said John Svahn, Co-Executive Director for the Land Trust. “I just want to say thanks, and best of luck in the future.”