Meet JANE BOGNER

Jane Bogner grew up on a wheat farm near Dodge City, Kansas. She unknowingly got her start as an environmentalist there.

Jane spent her summers helping with the organic garden, then canning and freezing fruit and vegetables. Growing up on a farm taught her the value of reuse and repair. Wherever she hung her hat, she sought out places to return soda bottles and recycle newspaper and other materials.

Jane attended Dodge City Junior College. At Wichita State University, she earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree with a Major in Piano and minor in Music Education. Her first job was teaching Special Music Education at the Georgia Retardation Center in Atlanta. After teaching for two years in Georgia, Jane returned to Wichita State to attain her Master’s Degree in Special Music Education. During that time she taught K-8 vocal music at South Hutchinson Elementary School.

Jane moved to Vallejo, California in 1976 where her future husband Gary Goldstein worked as a Workers Compensation Attorney. Jane’s first job in California was as a special education teacher for developmentally disabled adults at Napa State Hospital.

In 1984, Gary retired and they left their home and basset hounds to friends and hit the road for two years covering much of the United States and Canada with side trips to the Yucatan, Costa Rica and China.

Settling back in Vallejo, Jane joined the local Sierra Club and began her involvement at VALCORE Recycling. Jane is the Recycling Chair for the Solano Group of the Sierra Club which has been a member of VALCORE since 1986. VALCORE turned out to be a great place to volunteer. VALCORE was established in 1981 by the City of Vallejo's Beautification Advisory Commission. It is a coalition of nonprofit organizations working together to providing a fund-raising opportunity for local nonprofit groups through a full service recycling center.

Jane became a VALCORE board member and officer in 1988. Over the years, she has worn many different recycling hats. She worked as manager of the recycling center for two years and recently finished a four-year term as President of VALCORE’s Board of Directors.

VALCORE may be one of the last nonprofit, community run recycling centers in California. Its workforce includes volunteers from their member groups, developmentally disabled adults, and a handful of dedicated employees.

Jane helps organize VALCORE’s annual projects such as Earth Day and Coastal Cleanup. She designs the recycling and composting exhibits at the Solano County Fair. The backyard composting exhibit and classes were featured on PBS’s California Heartland in 2001. Jane teaches composting classes and was the instructor of Solano County Backyard Composting teachers.

In August of 1992, Jane started writing “A Sorted Affair”, a bi-weekly recycling and environmental column published by the Vallejo Times-Herald. The column is now on their website - www.VALCORErecycling.org. Jane also serves on the Executive Committee of the Sierra Club/Solano group and is a member of the Solano County Bay Area Ridge Trail committee.

She volunteers on the Healthy Vallejo Mare Island to Medusa 10K/5K Race committee which raises funds that are given through mini-grants to local groups who work with children. Jane has also worked with the V-Clean committee of the Vallejo Chamber of Commerce and the Solano County Local Task Force for Waste Management.

In her spare time, she enjoys her husband and their two geriatric basset hounds. Jane is a calligrapher, watercolorist and handmade papermaker. She has made recycled paper (of course) and new paper from wheat, rice, tule and cattail.

Jane can be found hiking with the GVRD Adventure Hikers or backpacking in the Sierra. She recently spent a week working on the Pacific Crest Trail in the high Sierra. Their trail project included building, without power tools, a 36-foot two-log bridge at the base of Minaret Falls.

Jane believes that each of us can make a difference...
We can be a part of a local solution to a global movement !!!

You can Email her at janebogner@valcorerecycling.org