Tara is a senior biologist with nearly 15 years of field and project management experience. She has collaborated with clients, teaming partners, contractors, and regulatory agencies in managing a variety of projects, including large-scale efforts for transmission line and native habitat restoration projects, to smaller projects such as community park construction and enhancement projects. Tara’s field work specializes in birds and wildlife, where she holds a USFWS 10(a)(1)(A) permit for coastal California gnatcatcher and Quino checkerspot butterfly (#TE-87004B-0) and is near completion on obtaining her permit credentials for southwestern willow flycatcher. Additionally, she has experience conducting presence/absence surveys for species such as least Bell’s vireo, burrowing owl, brown-headed cowbird and she is experienced in conducting general nesting bird surveys, raptor migration surveys, avian point count surveys, and she also has experience in bird banding where she has taken bird banding workshops and volunteered at various banding stations. Tara is a CDFW-permitted flat-tailed horned lizard biologist and has also attended the Desert Tortoise Council’s Introduction to Desert Tortoise Surveying and Monitoring Techniques workshop, both of which have informed her experience in handling and transporting species requiring relocation during construction, where she has experience working on large-scale transmission, wind, and solar projects throughout Southern California. Tara’s environmental compliance repertoire also includes environmental trainings she has developed and conducted for project personnel and crew, monitoring and recommendations for installation of Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) Best Management Practices (BMPs), and she has prepared numerous environmental compliance reports. Other project experience includes floral surveys, native habitat restoration and mitigation monitoring, both second and third-party construction compliance monitoring, and environmental document preparation.Tara obtained a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with an emphasis in population dynamics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is a member of the San Diego Management & Monitoring Program, The Riparian Bird Working Group, The San Diego Audubon Society, Western Field Ornithologists, The Wildlife Society, and The Desert Tortoise Council.