Our Mission
Pacifica's Environmental Family promotes the discovery of, and caring for, our wealth of natural resources.
We do this by:
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Helping to protect, preserve, restore, and beautify the environment.
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Raising awareness of environmental issues.
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Offering education on natural history.
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Inspiring stewardship and community.
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Providing non-profit fiscal sponsorship to local projects that align with our mission
Our History
A group of environmentally-aware Pacificans founded Pacifica's Environmental Family (PEF) in the late 1980s. The organization was formally incorporated as a 501(c)(3) volunteer-run nonprofit organization in 1998.
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Meet Our Board
Cindy Abbott, President
Cindy is passionate about the environment and believes the health of our planet is tied to the oceans. She has been privileged to be a citizen scientist with Earthwatch, collecting data in Fiji relative to the rebuilding of a coral reef following a natural disaster. Through another Earthwatch project (in Kenya) Cindy heightened her awareness and appreciation of the impact of local community engagement to protect habitat and species.
Engaging with stakeholders and collaboratively developing solutions that address needs has been the cornerstone of Cindy's career. With thirty years of experience, Cindy enjoys developing programs, facilitating engaging meetings, and creating strategies that result in plans that support people and organizations. Cindy is currently the executive director of the Sanchez Art Center, a local nonprofit with a mission to create community through art. She also serves as Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commissioner in the City of Pacifica, acted as facilitator for the Pacifica Surf Camp/School Policy Advisory Task Force, Chair of the Library Advisory Committee, served on the City Sea Level Rise Community Stakeholder Working Group, and takes part in other local volunteer actions.
Holding a BA in psychology, Cindy has also completed Certificates in Sustainability Leadership from UC Irvine and Nonprofit Management from the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Margaret Goodale, Vice-President
Margaret is the 2016 recipient of the Pacifica City Council's annual Open Space and Parkland Preservation Award! Read more here.
Margaret is an unreformed environmental educator (retired). She followed a checkered career estimating nuclear power plants at Bechtel, running a nursery school, coordinating school volunteers, writing a recycling center newsletter, being a mom to Steven and Sara, park ranger at San Pedro Valley County Park, and Sanchez Adobe manager designing the first Rancho Day.
Margaret designed and coordinated school science classes and trained volunteers at the Randall Museum in San Francisco where she also coordinated many years of Bug Day and Sun, Wind and Water Day events, organized exhibits of student art work for Native in San Francisco exhibits, initiated monthly habitat restoration and bird watching and coordinated the San Francisco Natural History Series. Margaret has played in astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, ethnobotany, physics, and zoology.
Locally, Margaret coordinated volunteers to fight for a real library in Linda Mar after the storefront at the shopping center closed, managed a San Pedro Creek cleanup for the steelhead, and has sat on a number of local committees and boards. The most fun she had was teaching aboard the Inland Seas out of Redwood City - hydrology, history, plankton, benthic invertebrates, ichthyology - boat rocking with the waves, kids throwing up, the excitement of netting and releasing baby sharks, bat rays, pipefish, and live-birthing surfperch!
She is currently teaching children to value the natural world of the wintering Snowy Plovers and beaches, and monitoring Mission Blue Butterflies at Milagra.
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Roy Earnest, Treasurer
Roy’s environmental awakening occurred in August, 1976 in his home state of New Jersey when a naturally occurring algae bloom spiraled out of control when it encountered an unnatural surplus of nutrients in the ocean. These “nutrients” were from sewage sludge, which was commonly dumped back then just a few miles offshore from Jersey’s beautiful beaches. The algae robbed the water of oxygen, killing millions of fish and creating an eco-nightmare. Roy joined forces with a broad coalition of environmental groups, fishermen, beach goers and businesses to advocate for the end of sewage sludge dumping, which finally happened in the early 80’s. It was from this experience that he realized how important it was to keep local ecosystems as healthy as possible.
Roy has enjoyed a long career since 1978 as a gerontological social worker and senior services program manager. After working as a program grant officer for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal government agency that funds national service volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps, VISTA, and Senior Corps, Roy now works for the Center for Age- Friendly Excellence supporting local jurisdictions and municipalities raise awareness and provide support for community members of all ages..
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A life long surfer and documentary film buff, he co-produced with filmmaker David L. Brown “Surfing for Life” in 2000, an award winning documentary about the human potential of later life through the unique perspectives of 10 senior surfers (age 60 to 90) who surf, volunteer and are vitally connected to the world around them.
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Roy received his BA in Psychology with a minor in gerontology in 1977 from Richard Stockton State College in Pomona, New Jersey. He received his Masters in Social Welfare with a special focus on aging services at UC Berkeley in 1980. Roy has been a resident of Pacifica since 1982, where he continues to surf as well as volunteer as a Board member of Pacifica’s Environmental Family.
Jim Kremer, Member-at-Large
Jim retired to Pacifica in 2008, with his wife Pat. Their first project was remodeling Pat’s family home in Sharp Park, which had not been substantially improved since it was built by her parents, Grace and Carl McCarthy in the 1940s. Among their goals were energy and water efficiency. They have photo-voltaic electricity, solar hot water and hydronic heating, and a 5000 gallon rainwater catchment system. Their home received the Sustainable San Mateo County Green Building Award for a residential remodel in 2011.
Jim received a bachelor of arts in Chemistry/Biochemistry from Princeton, and a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. As a university professor, his research specialty was coastal ecosystems ecology and numerical modeling, and his studies ranged from kelp forests to coastal upwelling zones to estuaries, and most recently the impacts of human development in watersheds on the nutrient budget and ecological condition of shallow coastal waters. He taught at the graduate and undergraduate level, 19 years at U.S.C. (where he was academic coordinator of the Catalina Island Science Semester), followed by 15 years at the Avery Point Campus of UCONN on Long Island Sound (where he oversaw the creation and spin-up of a novel major in coastal environmental science).
Jim was roused from “complete retirement” and activated by the fight to reject the Keystone XL pipeline (visit kxlreverberations.wordpress.com). He has been a volunteer in Pedro Point Headlands workdays, a subscriber to San Pedro Valley Park events, and a volunteer with Pacifica Historical Society Earth Day and Fog Fest promotions. Jim and Pat oversee a small Nature Center, promoting awareness of nature and conservation at a family-oriented summer community on Fire Island, on the south shore of Long Island, NY. Jim enjoys swimming, surfing, hiking, SCUBA diving and fly fishing, and being with his two grandsons who live next door.
