Tyler York     phone 707-363-8926

Political Committee: Chair
Executive Committee: Vice-chair

BACKGROUND: I was born in San Francisco, in 1947. My father was an Army officer, and we lived several places in the US, and Germany, and then he was assigned to the Presidio of San Francisco in 1960. I completed high school at the San Rafael Military Academy in 1965, served in the US Army in Vietnam from 1967 until 1969.

Subsequent to my military service, I learned the construction business, which has been my principal employment, and attended college at the College of Marin, Sonoma State, UC Davis, and San Joaquin Delta College. I have studied, and continue to read extensively in Physical Science, Construction Technology, Business Administration, Engineering, Real Estate, and Agriculture. I continue to educate myself by attending seminars and workshops in environmental restoration, restoration science, historical ecology, and other arcane subjects relative to Ecology.

In 1993 I became interested in aerobic microbial agriculture technology, and have advanced a small sidelight career in providing consulting services for a company that produces sustainable enzyme/micronutrient based fertilizers. Their primary market is in Asia, where I traveled to Vietnam (2000) to assist in a product launch for their Vietnamese distributor.

REMARKS: My environmental epiphany occurred when I studied Biology with Dr. Russell Ridge at the College of Marin in 1970. He taught "memorize the Latin Biology", but he did it in the context of Ecology. It certainly affected the way that I interacted with the environment, both in my personal life and professional life in Construction Management.

In 1986, I became active in the California Democratic Party (CDP) and their Environmental Caucus. After two years of intense education and lobbying, we were able to persuade the CDP to include a basic plank in their platform: All Democrats are Environmentalists. It's a no-brainer today, but it was a big mountain to climb in 1990.

Interestingly, ninety per cent of Democrats, and seventy-five per cent of Republicans claim to be Environmentalists. Clearly, there is quite a disconnect between people's perception of themselves, and the actions in their lives that continue to degrade their surrounding environment. We have a long way to go in educating both ourselves, and our fellows, before that tide turns.

ISSUES: In our rural, agricultural setting, land use is my paramount issue. Clearly, past land uses have left our river impaired, and the natural resources depleted. While there are many beautiful, unspoiled places in Napa, we continue to squander our physical and intellectual primacy to our own detriment. That's the bad news.

The good news is that there are a lot of people who understand that we have exceeded our carrying capacity, in government, agriculture, and academia that are working on ways of providing for a Sustainable Napa County.

My other concern is political effectiveness. While the voices of government, agriculture, and academia call for dialogue and inclusion, we have been too silent. Those interests look to us for guidance— we need a more active membership of environmental ambassadors to provide that guidance.