Sam Padilla
Customer Service Representative
Sam Padilla serves as a customer service representative at The Water Conservation Garden. She is responsible for welcoming and assisting visitors at admissions and the gift shop. Sam currently attends San Diego State University where she majors in Biology with an emphasis in Ecology and minors in Anthropology. While at SDSU, Sam works in an ecology research lab where she studies ecosystem interactions in restored tallgrass prairies. Sam is a passionate conservationist and worked to protect an endangered California butterfly while completing a fellowship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where she will become a Wildlife Biologist after graduating. Sam also currently volunteers with the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program where she assists in habitat conservation for San Diego pollinators.
Prior to joining The Garden as an employee, Sam interned with the garden’s education department where she helped teach children about environmental conservation during field trips and during the summer in the garden’s Butterfly Pavilion. Before becoming an intern at The Garden, Sam helped start the volunteer program when she was a freshman in high school as the first student volunteer. After almost 10 years of service to The Garden, it was the perfect place to work while in college. Sam looks for every opportunity to connect communities with nature and inspire conservationism in others, and the garden is an amazing place where she gets to put that to practice.
