CWC Staff
Greg Pepping
Greg Pepping oversees all operations as the Executive Director of the Coastal Watershed Council, bringing to the work of watershed protection his passion for all things related to water. He developed his passion for water quality and public health issues as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda, and carried that drive into his graduate research, developing novel water treatment technologies and earning an MS in Environmental Chemistry & Technology with a focus on water chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Greg’s leadership efforts at CWC are fueled by his desire to make a sustainable improvement in the overall health of watersheds along California’s Central Coast.
Armand Ruby
CWC’s operations are guided by Technical Director Armand Ruby, with over 30 years of experience as an environmental scientist specializing in water quality issues. Armand’s work has covered surface and ground waters, wastewater and stormwater, as well as atmospheric deposition of pollutants. He has worked extensively with municipal agencies throughout California, and facilitated stakeholder working group efforts in several California watersheds. His current and recent work involves source identification for bacteria and other stormwater pollutants, characterization and mitigation of pesticides contamination in urban waterways, toxicity reduction evaluations (TREs), bioassessment monitoring studies, TMDL analysis and implementation, stormwater runoff monitoring program planning and data analysis, and drinking water source assessment. As a consultant for the CA Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA), Armand has negotiated with state regulatory officials, and prepared comment letters for state and federal regulatory proposals, including the statewide Toxicity Policy, Ocean Plan Amendments, DPR’s Surface Water Quality Protection Regulations, and USEPA’s pesticide registration review process.
In addition to serving as Principal of Armand Ruby Consulting, Armand also is the chair of the CASQA Monitoring and Science Subcommittee, Monitoring Coordinator for the Regional Monitoring Coalition (RMC) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he represents municipal stormwater agencies as a formal member of the California Water Quality Monitoring Council.
Debie Chirco-Macdonald
Debie Chirco-Macdonald is the Program Coordinator for the Coastal Watershed Council (CWC). Debie holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) in Environmental Studies. She began as a volunteer in 2000 in the Watsonville Sloughs and has been employed with CWC since 2002. Debie has worked as the Program Coordinator for the Clean Streams Volunteer Program, managed water quality studies on Carneros Creek and a volunteer water quality monitoring program on Harkins Slough. She has also performed vegetation studies on Aptos Creek and pebble counts on Soquel Creek. She coordinates the NOAA-BWET Grant program which has provided hands on outdoor learning experiences at Valencia Elementary School in Aptos (2006-2008), Landmark Elementary School in Watsonville (2007-2009) and New Brighton Middle School in Capitola (2009-10). In addition, Debie is the volunteer and intern coordinator for CWC coordinating the annual Snapshot Day and First Flush events.
Stew Jenkins
CWC’s Education Coordinator is Stew Jenkins. Stew caught the “teaching bug” as an undergraduate at Stanford University while working with Latino elementary students from East Palo Alto and has continued to teach children and adults for over twenty years. He has a broad range of teaching experiences including teaching mathematics in a windowless classroom in Oakland, leading scientific forays with 5th-12th graders into a variety of Northern California’s habitats, teaching Kindergarten thru 12th grade students ways to “green” their schools, and teaching preschoolers and their parents about how bias hurts everyone and how to embrace diversity. Stew holds a single subject credential to teach mathematics as well as a Master’s degree in Multicultural Education. Stew’s passion for healthy watersheds is based on a lifetime of hiking and exploring the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Sierra Nevada, especially Yosemite.
