Toni Westland spent a lot of time outdoors growing up in Northern Wisconsin. She knew early on that she didn’t want to have a desk job so after graduating from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point she joined the federal workforce as a ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers giving lock and dam tours on the Mississippi River. She then had a stint in north Georgia at Lake Lanier, then moved on to Lake Okeechobee and then Manatee Park in East Fort Myers, all with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
At some point she had vacationed on Sanibel Island so knew she loved the J.N. “Ding” Darling Wildlife Refuge there, so when the opportunity arose in 2002 for her to join their team as an education specialist, she jumped on it and has been at Ding Darling ever since.
During her 23 years at the refuge Ranger Toni created countless new programs at the local, regional, and national level and received awards and tokens of appreciation from around the world.
She led the charge to spread the “Ding” Darling mission and message to the greater Lee County community with initiatives ranging from building pollinator gardens in Title-1 schools to visiting schools too far from the refuge and with too few resources to come visit the refuge itself via the WoW (Wildlife on Wheels) mobile classroom that she helped design. She also recently led the design and creation of the Roving Ranger mobile visitor center. She has interacted with hundreds of thousands of people during her time at Ding Darling and out in the community.
Ranger Toni became a Supervisory Ranger at the refuge in 2009. She is actually the only full-time ranger there these days. But, at the end of this month, she’ll be stepping down after 27 years of federal service after receiving one of the so-called ‘fork in the road’ email offers sent out to federal employees by the DOGE team. So, we brought her by the studio to talk about the refuge and her time there, and about her decision to take an early retirement.
Guest:
Toni Westland is a Supervisory Refuge Ranger at J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island
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