When I was a child in Detroit Michigan, I wanted to be a farmer. My mother was horrified. She had left the farm and saw no reason to return. Thus she convinced me that farming from the sea was the wave of the future. Well my first degree was from University of Michigan in Meteorology and Oceanography. I then earned a second undergrad degree in Environmental Engineering and a Masters in Civil Engineering. My first job was in Oceanography but as my career proceeded I gravitated toward Hydrology, Limnology and Water Quality Issues. In the early part of my career I spent a majority of my time doing fieldwork and computer simulations. I could fill pages with great stories of all kinds of mishaps but I learned a great deal. To this day I believe you can learn anything by doing it right. Thus if you survive your first couple of years of fieldwork you gain the experience to become a valued scientist or engineer.

I am a Vice President of a mid-sized Environmental Consulting Firm. Zoomy titles aside, I spend most of my time analyzing environmental problems, identifying causes, and trying to figure out how to prevent them. If you like puzzles, it's a great job. If you dislike inexact answers the job could drive you nuts. You always hope for a few more pieces of data or a few more clues. In the end you give your best guess, work with your peers to strengthen your argument, and finally learn to live with imperfect information. I always remind myself that there are very few people who know more about a given subject than I do and a well supported "educated guess" allows us to move forward and a constant demand for more and more data usually means nothing will get done.

I still love fieldwork. I particularly like standing over a completed project knowing that I was integral in bringing the project to closure. Recently I was the project director of a lake remediation project where 500,000 tons of PCB contaminated sediments were removed, habitat was rebuilt, fish were restocked and recreation was returned to an urban lake. It was great!

Like most jobs there is still a lot of paperwork associated with running a business. Unless I have a rich uncle I am not aware of I guess I will just have to learn to live with it.

I feel careers are staying about constant so it is important that new employees bring more skills than have traditionally been required. Strong computer skills are a must. (statistics, computer aided design, Graphical Information Systems). I also encourage strong chemistry and/or engineering courses.

Recognize that much of science is drudgery. Tedious field work. Tough working conditions. Boring experiments. If that has not scared you away you could be the right kind of person for environmental analysis. It is a great way to make a living but it is still work. For those who enjoy the discovery aspects of this type of analysis, I suggest that you try to get some practical experience either through a co-op program or a voluntary program. There are plenty of watershed groups who can give you some experience at the same time you are beefing up your resume. In a very brief period you will know if you want to be a scientist. Once you're hooked there is no other way to earn a living.