MEDIA RELEASE

7/8/2024

–For Immediate Release—

Contact: Louis Medina, Outreach Director, Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, [email protected], Cell 323.788.7447

Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association Announces New Outreach Director

The Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association (ESIA), which works to educate and inspire people about the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin, encouraging them to explore and protect our majestic public lands, announces the hiring of a new Outreach Director.

Louis Medina, a resident of Bishop who has worked in the nonprofit sector for close to two decades in Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Bishop, started this new endeavor Monday, July 8. He is ESIA’s first ever English-Spanish bilingual Outreach Director, as the organization seeks to engage more of the community in ongoing education about Eastern Sierra public lands at a time when the use of public lands is increasing. According to the Sierra Nevada Alliance, 50 million people visit the Sierra each year.  

Medina comes to ESIA with extensive experience and insights regarding cross-cultural communications, media relations, website management, grant writing and online fundraising. He has worked in areas as diverse as homelessness and poverty prevention for United Way of Kern County and Community Action Partnership of Kern, grant making and philanthropy for Kern Community Foundation, and conservation for Friends of the Inyo. An award-winning writer, Medina also worked as a full-time reporter and weekend editor for Bakersfield daily newspaper The Bakersfield Californian between 2006 and 2009; he has regularly contributed stories to local Eastern Sierra publications in both English and Spanish since moving to Bishop in late 2021.  

ESIA’s Executive Director Jeff Gabriel said, “We are very excited that Louis will be joining our team. ESIA has a long history in the Eastern Sierra and Louis will help us continue our mission of education and interpretation well into the future through community outreach.”  

“I have been impressed with ESIA’s work since I attended my first Eastern Sierra History Conference in the fall of 2022,” Medina said. “What I learned from ESIA at that conference motivated me to go on discovering more of the Eastern Sierra, enroll in evening courses in geology and earth science at Cerro Coso Community College, and become a volunteer for Laws Railroad Museum & Historical Site beginning in early 2023. If through my work at ESIA I can help inspire others as much as I have been inspired to care even more for the beautiful lands and cultural richness of the Eastern Sierra, I will be very happy, indeed.”

About the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association

Founded in 1970, ESIA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that partners with local, tribal, and federal governments and fellow nonprofits to provide interpretive education about the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin landscapes, in the hope of inspiring members of the public to develop a deeper appreciation for public lands, and thereby become better stewards. ESIA operates bookstores in visitor centers in collaboration with agency partners that include the Inyo, Humboldt-Toiyabe, Tahoe, and Klamath National Forests, Death Valley National Park, Devils Postpile National Monument, Manzanar National Historic Site, and the Bureau of Land Management’s Bishop Field Office.  For more information, please visit ESIA’s website, sierraforever.org.

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