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Chris Haynes
Contact Information:
Office: Founders Hall 129
Phone: (707) 826-3915
E-mail: csh2@humboldt.edu
Web Site: https://www.humboldt.edu/~csh2Personal Statement:
“A little further, just around this bend, could be exciting” is how my 96 year old great grandfather put it to a whining 10 year old on a blistering hot San Joaquin Valley day during one of his infamous fossil hunting expeditions. It was years later as a new Humboldt State College student and then a Klamath Mountains backpacking fanatic that his words became part of my life, and I realized the experience of searching for people, place, and the environment was degree program I could get excited about. With a break from school and three years in the U.S. Navy in the early 1970’s, I applied my searching to the beautiful lands and people on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and developed a passion for travel to cultures and environments that challenged my assumptions about how humans relate to their “place” and the greater world around them.
Returning to Humboldt State (and now University) in 1976 with a renewed sense of purpose, I completed my B.A. in Geography in 1978 and my M.A. in Social Science in 1986. Working in the commercial fishing industry, timber industry, and a variety of farms and ranches in Northern California and Southern Oregon while attending school, I renewed my identity with the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion while retaining my love of travel. In 1978, the Geography Department asked if I would fill in for a faculty member on leave and teach a course where I discovered a new passion; teaching and mentoring students in a discipline that I live every day – geography. I have remained on the faculty since then and added College of the Redwoods to my teaching load since the early 1990’s.
“A little further, just around the bend, could be exciting” still works for me. In 1959 with my great grandfather, it was a fossil sand dollar and shark tooth outcrop that was the reward. Today it is the dolphins jumping off an isolated beach in Baja California, a young school child practicing English with me in a Moroccan train platform, or a bald eagle roosting on a snag in the Marble Mountains. Geography is a continuous journey, just a little further …
Specialty Area:
Climatology and Meteorology
Historical Geography of Western North America
Pacific Basin Studies
Courses Taught:
Geography 1, Introduction to Physical Geography
Meteorology 1, Introduction to Meteorology
Geography 2, Introduction to Cultural Geography (both regional and systematic)
Geography 10a, Field Techniques
Geography 104, Introduction to Human Geography (both regional and systematic)
Geography 110, Introduction to Physical Geography
Geography 303, Conservation Ethic
Geography 304, Migrations and Mosaics
Geography 312, Field Methods
Geography 315, Introduction to Cartography (Lecture and labs)
Geography 321, Geography of American/Canadian West
Geography 322, California Geography
Geography 340, Geography of Pacific Basin
Geography 352, Regional Climatology
Geography 469, Geography Field Experience
Geography 470, Geography for Teachers
Geography 471, Agricultural Geography
Geography 473, Marine Geography
Geography 473, Advanced Climatology
Geography 473, Climate and Culture
Geography 473, Arid Lands
Geography 473, Global Water Resources
Geography 495, Directed Study (various)Education/degrees:
B.A. in Geography, Humboldt State University
M.A. in Social Science, Humboldt State University
Employment Experience:
United States Navy (1972-75), Honorable Discharge, December 3, 1975, Vietnam Era Veteran
Aircraft Maintenance (US Navy)
US Forest Service (various seasonal)
Commercial Fishing (salmon, albacore, dungeness crab, halibut)
Independent Contractor and crew foreman (manual conifer release, pre-commercial tree thinning, tree planting, recreational trail maintenance)
Ranch hand, Cedar Fork Ranch, Gold Beach Oregon
Consultant, Organic gardening/edible landscaping)
Geographical Research Associates, partner
Lecturer, Geography Department, Humboldt State University (Spring 1988-current)
Presenter, Redwood Region History/Social Science Project (various years)
Projects of Note:
Master’s Thesis, “The Arcata Bottoms: Flooding on a Changing Landscape” Humboldt State University, May 1986
Assistant Project Director, “Eel River Floodplain Survey”, prepared for the US Army Corps of Engineers, November, 1979
Participant, “Holistic Approach to Marine Science Education, A Bay Environment” April 1988
Contributor, Econews and Steelhead Special Journal (various)
Presenter, “Mad River Canal” Native Sons of the Golden West
Presenter, “Mad River Canal” Humboldt County Historical Society
Cable Access Programming, “El Nino and La Nina”
Paper Presentation, California Geographical Society, May 1998, “Evolution of the Trail System in the Klamath Mountains”
Participated in establishing Pacific Rim Studies minor at HSU.
Local media contact for weather and climate events, and local history
Travel Experiences:
Lived in and attended elementary school in Caborca, Sonora, Mexico
US Navy, Western Pacific Tour: Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong
Summer 1996: Japan, Korea, Hong Kong
Summer 1997: France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Andorra
Summer 2000: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
Summer 2004: Morocco
I also travel extensively in the western US and Hawaii, and Baja California
