Volunteer of the month: Patricia Jones

Catching up with the Jones

She has a custom-made soymilk smoothie, carefully poured into her own large mug, every workday for lunch.

It's just enough to help Bay Chapter Wilderness Committee chair Patricia Jones get through a hectic afternoon of product-marketing research and prepare for what she calls her second full-time job - the one that doesn't contribute to the mortgage payments on her Berkeley home but has become increasingly important to her.

But where does she find the time for the Sierra Club? A social dancer (she and her longtime boyfriend Jaime even perform at times) and an avid traveler (ask her about her recent Mount Everest trip or her favorite hike along Kauai's Na Pali Coast), Patricia, 50, keeps an active schedule outside work before BARTing home to her three furry and exotically named "kiddies". She also hits a nearby gym for regular yoga and Pilates classes.

She joined the Club during Ronald Reagan's presidency but became active just two years ago.

"I would imagine that Sierra Club membership jumped quite a bit during his administration," Patricia quips, relaying her frustration with then-Secretary of the Interior James Watts' ideas about how to deal with ozone depletion. His suggestion at the time: wear sunscreen and a hat. "I thought to myself, `Well, yeah, I'm just going to put sunscreen on all the little animals in the forest,'" she cracks with sarcasm, still angry. "They had such blatantly bad ideas about what to do that I joined [the Sierra Club]. I paid my dues every year, but I never did anything."

Eventually events in Washington hit a nerve again. In 2002, when the Senate killed an amendment designed to increase cars' fuel economy, Patricia decided to get active.

"I had already been on a rampage against stupid [sports utility vehicles] and the loopholes," she remembers vividly. "I remember saying to myself, `Even if I have to quit my job, I've got to do something about this to help our environment.'" Thinking better of it she kept her job - but found herself taking on a new one.

Initially responding to a Yodeler ad, Patricia started attending Loma Prieta Chapter Forest Protection Committee meetings (in Palo Alto), and Bay Chapter Wilderness Committee meetings (much closer to her Berkeley home).

Alan Carlton, a former Wilderness Committee chair and now chair of Sierra Club California, met Patricia in those days. "She's totally on the ball," Alan says, admiring her ever-present organization and responsiveness. "She rapidly grasped issues and how to deal with them effectively."

So when the Wilderness Committee needed a new chair, Patricia was a good candidate. She soon overhauled the committee's structure, bringing her own personal (and professional) touch.

"Everyone knows that Patricia's in the room when she comes into a meeting and spreads the little silver foil packets of nutrition bars on the table," says committee member Sophika Kostyniuk, referring to the variably tasty client samples Patricia regularly brings to committee gatherings. "She must have boxes of these snacks in her basement."

With ideas that Alan describes as "fun and new", and energy and enthusiasm that Sophika calls "infectious", she's now focused on the coming celebration for the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act (see articles). Even higher on her list of committee priorities is getting support to pass the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Act (see article).

Late last year she took on the added role of representing the Bay Chapter on the California/Nevada Regional Conservation Committee. That soon evolved into her being chosen as the committee's Northern California vice president, a rare honor for someone who hasn't been part of the committee for many years.

A wandering course

If Patricia seems to have a strong grasp of her goals, that hasn't always been the case. After graduating from the University of Virginia in Russian history, Patricia tried the gamut. This professional adventure started with a three-and-a-half-month journey west.

Although her childhood wish to become a photojournalist didn't quite pan out, her Katherine Hepburn character ideal - to be "attractive (classic, not in a froufrou way), smart, witty, and very independent", as she puts it - did.

At 21 she began a job at a non-profit in Virginia, where she helped winterize homes for low-income families and train the unemployed. She followed that up with jobs at Lake Tahoe at ski resorts and as a taxi driver (a "colorful experience"), then waited tables in Yellowstone National Park, where she had the "best time of my life" - and a first taste of backpacking.

The same love of animals that made her angry at Watt's environmental policy led Patricia to veterinary nursing. She joined a training program in Los Altos Hills and worked in two pet hospitals, hoping to one day start her own home pet-care practice - until, that is, she realized that such a venture didn't exactly make financial sense.

"I didn't really research it properly," she says, laughing at the novice move. "I decided that I really just needed to know the business side."

So Patricia got a job at the San Francisco Bay Guardian in sales, and enrolled part-time in San Francisco State's business program. "My friends at home were shocked. They exclaimed, `What, you?'"

After a "very corporate" post-MBA stint at Clorox, Patricia worked at various research companies and then at the Federal Reserve Bank, "supposedly in the marketing-research department", which eventually led to her current San Francisco job at Cooper Roberts Research.

It'd be hard to pinpoint what made Patricia the person she is today. Her astute and energetic demeanor speaks well for varying one's life experiences.

"She's very persistent, pervasive, and encouraging," Alan says enthusiastically.

"And she won't let me slack." That goes, of course, for herself as well. If Patricia could do it all, she'd live in the mountains of Montana or Wyoming during spring and summer, and in the Bay Area, taking occasional trips to the tropics, during fall and winter.

And maybe she can.

"As far as folks who are always whining about what they see on TV or wherever," Patricia writes with what I picture as a wise smirk, "I always say, `Well, don't look; turn it off and do something useful with your life.'"

Zoë Barton