Group Leaders - China 2003

The Gary and Sandy Show.
Gary Griggs and Sandy Lydon first met twenty years ago following the January 1982 floods in the Monterey Bay Region. They were co-presenters on a program discussing the effects of the flood in the Aptos Creek canyon. One might say that their first meeting was a (about?) disaster. Since then they have worked together on numerous projects, traveled together down the Colorado River, and led special tours in both Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. They are both award-winning teachers, and they bring the excitement of discovery to everything they do. As Gary Griggs often points out, he has the greater burden in the partnership, having to cover the first gazillion years of a place's history, while Sandy only has to deal with a matter of centuries. Each admires the other's work, and they are constantly teaching each other new things.

This adventure in May of 2003 with Sandy and Gary represents an unusual alignment of two very complicated calendars and will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch these two interact and work.

They are currently collaborating on a book about the history of natural calamities in the Monterey Bay Region. The working title of the book is Perils in Paradise: Natural Disasters and Human Response in Central California. God willing and the creeks don't rise, the book will be published in late 2003.

Trained at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Lydon has taught Chinese history for over forty years. He joined the history faculty at Cabrillo College in 1968 where, over the years, he was a Division Chair, Faculty Senate President and Dean of Instructional Development. He is the co-author of the recently published and acclaimed book, Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History, published by Cachuma Press. His contributions to the book include a photograph of the Dawn Redwood that the group will be visiting in Hubei Province. He has received numerous awards for his teaching, including most recently the Teacher of the Year award given by the students and staff of Cabrillo College (2000) and Best College Teacher by the readers of Good Times newspaper. He has taken over 1,000 people across the Pacific taking his first group to Asia in 1974, and has traveled extensively in the People's Republic of China for over twenty years.

Gary Griggs - Professor of Earth Sciences and Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Gary Griggs received his PhD in Oceanography in 1968, the year he began his distinguished teaching career at UCSC. He served as Chairman of the Department of Earth Science and was Associate Dean of Natural Sciences before becoming the Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences. His research and teaching have been focused on geologic hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and shoreline erosion, and he is the author of hundreds of articles and four books on the subject, including the milestone work on California's coastal erosion titled Living with the California Coast. He has taught all over the world, in classrooms, in the field, and aboard ship. In 1998 he was selected as the Outstanding Faculty member in the Division of Natural Science at UCSC. His travels and teaching have taken him throughout the Pacific Basin--everywhere except the People's Republic of China. He is eager to visit these new sites and help us understand the Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976 and the mountains and gorges through which pass the Yangzi River.

Ann Lydon - Though she refuses to let us put her name on the masthead, Ann Lydon has always been an integral part of Sandy Lydon's tours. (They were married in Hong Kong in 1977.) She is a steadying influence on her sometimes excitable husband, and she played that role when she rode down the Colorado with Gary and Sandy, attempting (and sometimes successfully!) to maintain some decorum in the proceedings. She has accompanied them on a number of their co-led tours throughout the Monterey Bay Region, and when she learned that Gary would be able to join us in May 2003, she abandoned her own decorum and shouted, "Great! This trip is going to be fun!"