CSUMB alumna making an environmental impact

By Mark Muckenfuss

Jacqueline Brenton went straight from earning a master’s in environmental studies at Cal State Monterey Bay to managing resources for the Monterey Peninsula Regional Parks.

“I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect transition,” Brenton said of her position as resource specialist for the district. 

It wasn’t a logical path from her first career venture. Brenton, a Palo Alto native, earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from UC Santa Cruz in the mid-2010s. The jobs that she was able to get with that degree weren’t leading her to a satisfying career, she said. She took some botany courses at the University of Oregon before deciding to pursue her master’s at CSUMB.

“I really wanted something very practical that could provide me with real-world experience,” she said. “CSUMB is so practical-based – we learn so much more in-depth – I knew it was going to be the program for me.”

She also liked the idea of small classes and the personal contact that came with that. 

“I feel I had a lot more experience coming out of this program than my peers because I had access to my professors,” she said. “Having these connections is pretty profound. I also had access to learn from a lot of organizations and decision-makers, and that's been really powerful.”

Along with that practical experience, many of her classes involved field work. 

“For every class that I’ve been in, there has been some real-world application,” she said. 

Beyond the university, she got additional hands-on experience. For example, volunteering with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management led to an internship. 

“We were assessing the effect of goat grazing on grasslands to see if the goats were helping us manage invasive species and fuel loads while benefiting native grasses,” she said. “It's all about management.” 

Which is the work she is involved in now, doing such things as monitoring frog and salamander populations in the Carmel River and surveying plant species in coastal sand dunes.

“I’m four months into my job and I’ve gotten to develop our drone program, guide our conservation grazing program, participate in prescribed burns with local agencies and conduct surveys in the back country,” she said. “I’ve also participated in the creation of our habitat-conservation plans and implementation of our Safe Harbor Agreements, and work with a fantastic and supportive team.

“I am using the science and technology I learned at CSUMB to create better management programs,” she added. “I’m very excited. It’s going to be an incredible career.”