{"id":19476,"date":"2017-12-21T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=19476"},"modified":"2018-01-10T12:35:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T17:35:21","slug":"from-the-field-hernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2017\/12\/21\/from-the-field-hernandez\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Field: Kim Hernandez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Mallows Bay; by Kim Hernandez<\/p><\/div>\n

When Kim Hernandez moved to the East Coast after graduating from the University of Kansas, she became known among her Atlantic coast peers as \u201cthe girl from Kansas who\u2019s going to save the oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she grew up in the landlocked Midwest, Hernandez wasn\u2019t isolated from the water. She frequented the Gulf of Mexico while visiting family in Texas, where she developed a lifelong passion for preserving America\u2019s coastal waters and shorelines. <\/p>\n

\"Photo

Hernandez<\/p><\/div>\n

After graduation she earned her master\u2019s degree from Duke University. From there, Hernandez was introduced to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources when she was selected from a nationwide pool of applicants to serve as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coastal Management Fellow.<\/p>\n

At the department, Hernandez wears a lot of hats within the Chesapeake and Coastal Service<\/a>, where she is an ocean and coastal planner. When asked to be interviewed for this From the Field series, she replied that her \u201cfield\u201d is likely different from others profiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I do occasionally get to muck around in a river, a forest or wetlands, you can more often find me attending workshops and participating in all-day meetings across the region,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

For example, over the past three years, she has been helping guide efforts to designate the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary<\/a>. This historic site in Charles County may become the first national marine sanctuary in the state, joining a network of only 13 other around the country. The bulk of her work has been in meetings among federal, state and local partners to work through how the site will be managed.<\/p>\n

In addition to working through the federal designation process, Hernandez has participated in and led numerous kayak tours of the site as well as helped coordinate annual volunteer cleanups.<\/p>\n

Another bulk of her time is concentrated on regional ocean planning work with the intergovernmental Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Body and the multistate Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean<\/a>. She\u2019s part of a team supporting Maryland\u2019s role, along with other state, federal and tribal partners, to foster healthy ecosystems and promote sustainable uses of the ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lead the state\u2019s efforts to reduce marine debris, as well as help advance the work to identify ecologically rich areas,\u201d Hernandez said. She noted again that while this isn\u2019t field work in a traditional sense, her representation of Maryland stakeholder needs is an essential part of this effort\u2019s progress and success.<\/p>\n

Hernandez also helps gather data and information key to the state\u2019s decisions about offshore energy, ensuring the best available data is used, especially concerning marine mammals, birds and fish.<\/p>\n

With a focus on her ocean work, Hernandez has come full circle, now supervising the department\u2019s current coastal management fellow, who is working to find ways to beneficially use dredged material for shoreline restoration projects.
\nIf she came from Kansas to save the ocean, Kim Hernandez seems to have landed in just the right place.<\/p>\n

Article by\u00a0Gregg Bortz<\/b>\u2014chief public information officer.\u00a0<\/em>Appears in Vol. 21, No. 1 of the Maryland Natural Resource magazine, winter 2018.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Kim Hernandez moved to the East Coast after graduating from the University of Kansas, she became known among her Atlantic coast peers as \u201cthe girl from Kansas who\u2019s going to save the oceans.\u201d Although she grew up in the landlocked Midwest, Hernandez wasn\u2019t isolated from the water. She frequented the Gulf of Mexico while  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,33],"tags":[3833,3168],"class_list":["post-19476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-the-bay","tag-from-the-field","tag-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19503,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476\/revisions\/19503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}