Cari has ~30 years of experience in hydrology and natural resources conservation in the PNW. As a US Forest Service Hydrologist, she has a broad, interdisciplinary understanding of watershed management. As one of the early adopters of process-based valley reconnection, Cari has been on the front-end of the development and monitoring of this restoration technique. She has served as the co-technical lead on large-scale, process-based valley reconnection (Stage 0) projects. She was the co-team lead for project design, implementation, and monitoring design and played an integral role in planning, permitting, contracting, and wood sourcing for many of the Whychus Creek projects.

She was a member of the USFS Pacific Northwest Region’s Restoration Assistance Team, whose mission is to assist Forests in Oregon and Washington with design and implementation of watershed restoration projects. She was part of a cadre of restoration practitioners that taught a week-long stream restoration course for several years. Cari has successfully completed 4 valley-reset to Stage 0/8 projects, and provided design, implementation, or mentorship assistance on numerous others. She has presented her work in several stream restoration classes or Stage 0 workshops and at various conferences. Cari left the USFS in May 2022 to care for her children and is now continuing her river restoration career with Revive.