Viola is a native of the Sacramento area, graduating from Folsom High School, Sierra College and Sacramento State University.   She was introduced to BLM while in the Young Adult Conservation Corps in the early 80s.  After the program was cancelled, she was kept on with BLM as a CO-OP student while attending Sierra College and Sac State.  After college graduation in 1990, Viola became a permanent, full-time employee in the public room, now called the Information Access Center.

Viola, and fellow customer service representatives Laurie Moore, Terry Elliott and supervisor Gary Catledge, receive 30 to 50 inquiries per day.  They assist the public with questions about purchasing maps; fire and camping permits; researching land records; finding books on nature, parks and public lands; processing mining claims; and a variety of other public land related requests.

September 1 is the deadline for filing mining claims, so July and August are the busiest times for the customer service team.  They process up to 30,000 mining claims on BLM and Forest Service public lands throughout the state.