Jefferson Land Trust is pleased to introduce the winner of the 2025 Fairbank Award for Youth Environmental Action: Lorenzo Roel Flores McCleese!
2025 Fairbank Award winner Lorenzo Roel Flores McCleese. Photo courtesy of Lorenzo.
The Land Trust established the Fairbank Award for Youth Environmental Action in 2023 in honor of longtime Land Trust volunteers Owen and Sarah Fairbank. The award and accompanying $1000 prize, provided by an anonymous community member, is given to a young person (age 12-19) from Jefferson County who has, in the last year, shown leadership, commitment, and innovation to build a community that’s healthy, happy, sustainable, and deeply connected to nature for generations to come.
Lorenzo, 19, was born and raised in Port Townsend. His childhood was spent exploring our region’s forests, beaches, and mountains with family and friends, and he volunteered with numerous local conservation organizations from an early age.
He’s currently in his second year at the University of Washington (UW), where he’s studying environmental science and data science with a minor in diversity, in pursuit of a career in environmental research. He’s also a passionate leader in various community-building and diversity-based organizations on campus.
Lorenzo is particularly interested in how research can help mitigate climate change’s effects on ecosystems and on society — especially in marginalized communities, which are often disproportionately affected by climate change and environmental injustice.
“My specific passion for researching about, and helping, marginalized communities stems from wanting to give back to the communities that raised me,” he says. “As a man of color in this field, which is quite monocultural, it’s important for me to stick to my roots in as many ways as I can and give back to those who helped me get where I am today.”
Lorenzo joined us at our virtual Conservation Breakfast on March 6 to accept the 2025 Fairbank Award. Speaking eloquently, he thanked his family; his UW environmental community; his mentor, Paul Metellus; and the Brotherhood Initiative, a cohort-based group that focuses on empowering and supporting men of color at UW.
The beach at Fort Worden, where Lorenzo spent much of his childhood.
“Conservation and environmentalism have always been a passion for me,” Lorenzo shared as he accepted the award. “I want to implement these values into a future career, studying climate change as a researcher. This award will help me fund my education and allow me to continue the work I’ve been doing.”
Lorenzo says he spent most of his childhood in Port Townsend outside with his parents and his friends: “It was hard to keep me inside for a good portion of my childhood — I’d come back in with sticks and leaves in my hair.” He says he “basically grew up” at Fort Worden State Park, where his dad, a former park ranger, taught him to identify native plants, and where Lorenzo began to learn “how everything is connected in an ecosystem.”
“The access to nature in Port Townsend and everywhere around it definitely sparked my interest in the environment — and gave me a sense of duty to protect it,” he says. “I knew from pretty early on that we’re lucky to have what we have here.”
Tamanowas Rock. Photo by TB Capen.
In addition to the time he spent playing outside, Lorenzo was also able to access many structured outdoor experiences offered through local conservation nonprofits. Throughout his childhood, Lorenzo’s parents took him to volunteer at conservation events run by Jefferson Land Trust, the North Olympic Salmon Coalition, and other local organizations, where he was able to learn from “active conservationists” and explore protected wilderness lands in his own backyard. (Tamanowas Rock, protected around 2010, is one of his favorites.)
His childhood trips to the Port Townsend Marine Science Center (PTMSC) fascinated him so much that Lorenzo became a volunteer docent there starting at the young age of eight. Later, as a teenager, he assisted with PTMSC research projects as a PTMSC aquarium aid and through a Peninsula College marine biology class. Lorenzo greatly enjoyed the Northwest Watershed Institute’s annual Youth Environmental Stewards (YES!) Program, where he got to do field work and hands-on environmental science.
“Doing all this really sparked an interest in scientific research,” he says.
Recently, Lorenzo worked as an undergraduate research assistant for the UW Duwamish Valley Research Coordination Network. This project studies human-made pollutants in and around the Duwamish River Superfund site in South Seattle to assess the risks faced by nearby marginalized communities. The research focuses on known health impacts of contamination, including cancer.
Lorenzo hiking the Chelan Butte in Chelan, Washington. “On this hike, I got to explore the native flora of high-elevation central Washington and soak in the breathtaking views,” he says. Photo courtesy of Lorenzo.
Following the Duwamish project, Lorenzo began a research position for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, studying data to understand the effects of climate change on Alaskan groundfish and coastal populations near the North and South Bering Sea. Specifically, he analyzes oral histories quantitatively, developing analytical tools through coding and producing spatial results using GIS.
Lorenzo is also a leader on campus in diversity work and community strengthening. Through the Brotherhood Initiative cohort, he’s a peer mentor to four first-year students who are young men of color. He serves as an officer for the Program on Climate Change Undergraduate Cohort, a community of climate-focused faculty and students at UW. As an Undergraduate Research Leader for the UW Office of Undergraduate Research, he develops resources, outreach, and engagement opportunities for fellow undergraduates pursuing research.
Lorenzo also enjoys connecting with the great community he’s found at UW and exploring Seattle’s many neighborhoods and parks.
Please join us in congratulating Lorenzo and his family on this well-deserved award!
