Photo Credit: Mark Tovar

Who We Are

The Anza Trail Foundation (ATF) is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to supporting the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. This trail commemorates the 1,200-mile epic journey of more than 240 men, women, and children to establish the first non-native settlement at San Francisco Bay in 1776. The U.S. portion of the trail stretches from Nogales, AZ, to San Francisco, CA, and is administered by the National Park Service (NPS).

Desert photo credit: Bureau of Land Management - Bob Wick

Our Mission

The mission of the Anza Trail Foundation is to advocate, seek funds for, and work collaboratively to protect, enhance, develop, promote, interpret, disseminate information, and provide knowledge about the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail.

Photo Credit: National Park Service

Our History

The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail (Anza Trail) became part of the National Trail System Act in 1990.  Five years later, the Anza Trail Advisory Council formed to develop the Comprehensive Management and Use Plan for the trail, completed in 1996.  Council members included a diverse group of individuals from both California and Arizona, recommended by the governors of each state.

In 2009, several former advisory council members joined together to create the Anza Trail Foundation (ATF), establishing the organization as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.  As conceived, the ATF would serve as the fundraising arm for the Anza Trail, a role formally established through the creation of a fundraising agreement signed between the National Park Service and the ATF in 2010.  Today, the mission of the ATF has expanded beyond fundraising, though this remains one of the foundation’s most important tasks.

ATF Board Members

Lindy Hatcher

CHAIR

Lindy Hatcher has a Master’s Degree in Administration, with a focus in Nonprofit Management, and is a certified Grants Specialist with over 20 years of experience as ombudsman and mediator. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast, located in San Luis Obispo, CA, where she works to ease the housing and homelessness crisis and promotes responsible building and growth.

Hatcher previously served as a national trail executive director based in Montana, where she oversaw three grant programs and worked closely with multiple federal partners to manage five cooperative agreements. She was instrumental in getting national legislation sponsored, introduced, and signed into law. Additionally, Hatcher has served on a numbers of boards, including the Partnership for the National Trails System and both the Mid-State and Vermont Business and Professional Women organizations.

Tammy Snook

VICE CHAIR

Tammy Snook has over 20 years’ experience as a historian and educator in the museum world. She began her career with Arizona State Parks and currently works for the City of Yuma and the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area, serving as the City Historian and Park Manager of the Colorado River State Historic Park (CRSHP) in Yuma, AZ.

Snook is passionate about preserving the history of the Yuma Crossing and the larger Southwest, and in bringing that history to the public. The CRSHP is located near the historic Yuma Crossing, long considered the best place to cross the lower Colorado River and site of Anza’s crossing into California.

Beverly Lane

SECRETARY

A local history museum curator, author, and California historian, Lane has a special interest in California pre-Gold Rush history and Anza’s 1776 exploration of San Francisco’s East Bay. She is the author of several history books on Danville, Alamo, San Ramon, the San Ramon Valley, and Contra Costa County.

Lane is currently an elected Director of the East Bay Regional Park District which covers both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and includes 125,000 acres in 73 regional parks. Thirteen Anza Trail wayside panels (produced in cooperation with the NPS) are now in place in the East Bay and the Delta de Anza Regional Trail covers the 1776 expedition throughout the East Bay.

Carlos Herrera

Dr. Carlos R. Herrera is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at San Diego State University, Imperial Valley Campus. He holds the rank of Associate Professor of History, and is also the founder and director of the SDSU-IVC Borderlands Institute. Dr. Herrera received a B.A. and M.A in history from the University of San Diego, and he earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Herrera is the author of Juan Bautista de Anza: The King’s Governor in New Mexico.  Published by the University of Oklahoma Press, this book covers Anza’s life from his early days on the Sonora / Arizona frontier to his ten-year term as governor of New Mexico. The book emphasizes Anza’s efforts to create a lasting peace with Native American tribes of the far north, and to implement the Bourbon Reforms in the New Mexico Colony.

Mauro Trejo

Mauro Trejo is a 7th generation Tucsonan with family in Tucson going back to 1780. He currently serves as a board member of the Tucson Presidio Trust, Los Descendientes de Tucson. Through the trust, Trejo is involved with the operation and management of the Sosa Carrillo House and Mexican American History and Heritage Museum.

Trejo is an authority on Tucson history and is the owner of Trejo Walking Tours, where he works as a docent, tour guide, and speaker, offering themed walking tours and outreach presentations. Trejo has also worked in the hospitality industry for the last 34 years, overseeing properties in Tucson and Sonora, and was most recently the General Manager of the Tuxon Hotel.

Sam Herzberg

​Sam Herzberg has served with the San Mateo County Parks Department for 26 years. He developed the San Mateo County Regional Trail Master Plan in 2001; and has planned, designed, and overseen construction of segments of the San Francisco Bay Trail, Crystal Springs Trail, and the CA Coastal Trail. Of special note is Herzberg’s work with the Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, where he developed the feasibility study for a 90-mile trail to tell the story of the first interaction
between the indigenous Ohlone and the Spaniards of the Portolá Expedition.

​Herzberg has overseen and serves on the Technical Advisory Committees of multiple regional trail efforts, including the Bay Area Trail Collaborative and Santa Cruz Mountain Stewardship Network Peninsula Trail Team. He currently serves on the Anza Trail Foundation Board and is the board’s liaison to the Partnership for National Trails System. Additionally, he has facilitated NPS certification of Sawyer Camp and San Andreas Trail sections of the Anza Trail.

Verenice Velazquez

Verenice Monzerrat Velazquez is a cultural ambassador, storyteller, and artist, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She grew up rooted in the cultural traditions of la Sierra Gorda of Guanajuato, Mexico, where both her parents are from. Like so many others, Verenice had a second cultural home in Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy, a non-profit
organization in San Pablo, California, that has centered cross-cultural, working-class, first-voice storytelling since 1989. 

​Verenice Velazquez graduated from UC San Diego with a degree in Urban Studies and Planning and is passionate about social connection and how it is impacted by surrounding environments. 

©2024 Anza Trail Foundation