Staff Members

Greg Dills joined the organization in 1998, back when both the East and Lake RCDs were in operation and before the creation of the Lake County RCD. He has served as the District Manager, Watershed Coordinator, Project Manager, Grant Writer, and GIS Technician for the East Lake, West Lake, and Lake County RCDs. He graduated with an A.A. in Business Administration from Pasadena City College and has completed numerous environmental science and land resource courses at the U.C. Davis Extension.

Larry Ray joined as a Project Manager/Coordinator in 2013. He continues to manage many aspects of projects for the Lake County RCD including required activities such as environmental compliance, grant writing, habitat assessment, mitigation design and monitoring. Larry has developed budgets, supervised contractors for compliance with project tasks and environmental compliance. He has also performed field assessments such as rare/endangered species, wildlife surveys, botanical surveys, tracked project progress and written various reports.

Tom Bendure has been the Senior Forester for the Lake County RCD since joining in 2016. He works closely with the Natural Resources Conservation District, a partner agency to the U.S. Forest Service. Tom’s responsibilities include providing technical assistance to forest landowners under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. He has over 25 years of forestry- and fire-related experience, having worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a Crew Foreman and also on wildfire crews across Southern California, and as a Feller for several timber companies. The Senior Forester earned a B.S. in Forestry from Cal Poly Humboldt and has lived in Lake County since 1988.   

Scott McLean is the Project and Site Maintenance Coordinator for the Lake County RCD since joining in 2019. Aside from his duties overseeing the long-term success of our projects, Scott also assists Larry with project installation and maintenance.  

Wren Ward joined the Lake County RCD in early 2023 as the Forestry Technician. Currently, they are working to obtain their A.S. in Natural Resource Management from Santa Rosa Junior College. Wren is an alumni of the SRJC Wildfire Resilience Program, where they learned hands on skills for land stewardship, focusing on fuels reduction and bringing Good Fire into Shone Forest. Wren is passionate about using Good Fire to steward the landscape to be more beneficial to all its inhabitants, human and non-human. 

Kevin Soland is the newest Lake County RCD staff member, having joined as the Forester in spring 2023. His responsibilities include managing projects related to forestry and fire resiliency, grant writing, and GIS mapping. In addition to working for the Lake County RCD, he works with Tribes in San Diego County to write for and manage grants related to forest health. Kevin graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt with a B.S. in Forestry and later an M.S. in Forestry, Watershed and Wildland Science. He is a wildland firefighter (FFT2), licensed FAA Part 107 pilot, and is the owner/operator of a mapping drone used to track project progress and monitor tree chlorophyll fluctuations in response to forest health treatments.