In 2022, we celebrate 25 successful years of a partnership with the Florida Conservation Corps. Part of that celebration includes highlighting members who continued their careers by joining the Florida State Parks team.
Tess served two terms in the Florida Conservation Corps before joining the parks team. Today, she serves as the assistant park manager at Sebastian Inlet State Park.
In 2015 and 2016, Tess Busch served two terms as a Florida Conservation Corps Project ANT member: one term at Little Manatee River State Park and one term at Big Lagoon State Park. During that time, she assisted in treating 150 acres of non-native plants, burned 715 acres on 17 prescribed burns, recruited 102 volunteers by coordinating workdays, developed and presented two interpretive programs, and attended eight outreach events.
Her favorite part of being an AmeriCorps member was the opportunity to attend non-native plant removal projects all over the state. Tess teamed up with other Florida Conservation Corps members working at different parks to remove plant infestations and restore native habitat. She loved meeting other people passionate about land restoration and exploring more state parks.
One of Tess’ projects as an FLCC member was setting up an outreach booth at the Lionfish Awareness Festival in Pensacola to educate the public about non-native plants and to recruit volunteers. Thirty volunteers who were recruited from the festival were invited to Big Lagoon State Park to remove non-native Chinese tallow from 1.5 acres of parkland.
As an FLCC member at Big Lagoon, Tess had the opportunity to monitor nesting sea turtles at Perdido Key. She was trained to conduct daily surveys of the beach and record species nesting data from the night before.
Today, Tess is an assistant park manger at Sebastian Inlet State Park. She works with the management team to maintain and improve park operations at a busy 24-hour-a-day beach park. The park is located within some of the densest loggerhead sea turtle nesting habitat in the world, and Tess continues to be involved with monitoring sea turtles at Sebastian Inlet. She also leads guided educational sea turtle walks that allow participants to witness a loggerhead sea turtle lay her eggs on the beach at night.
Before Tess moved to Sebastian Inlet, she spent four years at Wekiwa Springs State Park as the park programs development specialist for state parks' district 3 and supported 33 state parks in developing their education and volunteer programs. In this role, she supervised FLCC Project ROAR members who assisted with park outreach and volunteer recruitment. Tess found this new supervisory role fulfilling and enjoyed seeing the next generation of AmeriCorps members grow professionally. She is proud that former Project ROAR member Marrietta Partrick was promoted to be her successor when she moved to Sebastian Inlet.
“My passions and expertise are in volunteer management, interpretation and resource management,” said Tess. “Being an AmeriCorps member allowed me to explore and gain experience in these areas. My current role allows me to inspire and guide others.”
