John Pepper

John Pepper is the Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pala Band of Mission Indians and began with the Pala Environmental Department as the Tribal Cultural Monitor in 2020. 

Along with supervising Pala’s crew of monitors, John continues to go to the field himself, while also handling cultural consultation duties. Those duties include reviewing requests for consultation; attending meetings with agencies to advocate for the protection of Pala’s cultural areas; working cooperatively with other tribes on issues and areas of shared concern; and visiting museum and university collections to catalog and document items that are eligible for cultural repatriation to Pala. 

John’s position is funded by both the tribe and the annual Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) grant from the National Park Service’s Tribal Historic Preservation Program.