Mojave Rangers

"I'm the volunteer manager for Mojave National Preserve, a national park site in southern California, but my primary job is serving as the district interpreter/naturalist. I've been here for 14 years, although I've been with the National Park Service for 29 years - it is awesome and rewarding career! Mojave relies heavily on long term volunteers who live in their RVs or park dormitories for three or more months from fall through spring, doing much the same things as park staff. We are a remote park, 60 - 90 miles one-way to the nearest grocery stores and services, with few social amenities. The volunteers get free housing and a whopping $5 per work day for their assistance, plus things like water bottles, domino sets, belt buckles, and coffee mugs based on the number of hours that they donate. I provide uniform shirts, ball caps, and winter coats, but the coats are too heavy to wear when working inside the visitor centers or when the sun is out. I wanted another uniform item that was lightweight and unisex, so I was looking for a vest of some sort. I planned to give the volunteer the vest if he/she stayed for his/her whole volunteer term, so they needed to be reasonably priced. I wanted a distinctive design for the vest, but don't know how to draw logos or artwork and didn't know how expensive it was to have something designed for me. I found your website and loved the "design your own feature" - even I could figure out how to work it, and you had lots of design items for me to choose from. The desert tortoise is threatened in our area, and is the most commonly asked about animal in the park, so that seemed a logical choice for the design. Only volunteers have the vests, and I make sure that they know that and wear it with pride." - Mojave Rangers (Aug 14, 2014)