Claire: U.S. Forest Service; Bachelors degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Masters degree and Ph.D in Ecology

How do you choose an educational path when you are interested in several subjects, and then one you choose first ends up not being the right path for you? You keep your options open, take classes in as many areas as you can within your degree, talk to a lot of people, ask a lot of questions, and try things out until you find your way.  That’s what Claire did, and it led her to some incredible opportunities that helped her build a meaningful career in a field she loves.  In this episode, you will hear about several opportunities for career paths within our federal government, and Claire will describe the fellowship she received, a Presidential Management Fellowship, and why she recommends applying for fellowships like this if you are interested in federal service. We talk about networking and how many of Claire’s opportunities resulted from conversations she had with people she didn’t initially know. If you have an interest in Ecology, mission driven work, and the preservation of our National Forests and resources, don’t miss this episode!

For information about the Presidential Management Fellowship, look here: https://www.pmf.gov/

To learn about the Resource Assistants Program, go here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/working-with-us/careers/resource-assistants-program

Transcript

0:01

Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening.

Carrie: 0:34

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Claire and Claire works for the U. S. Forest Service. She has a bachelor's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology. She has a master's degree in ecology and also a Ph. D. in ecology. Claire, thanks so much for joining us today.

Claire: 0:53

Thank you for having me, Carrie. I'm really excited to be here.

Carrie: 0:56

I'm so excited to have you here and hear about your career path and all of the exciting things you've been doing. And I want to start by asking you, since I just read off your degrees and they all involve ecology, can you tell people who are listening what that major is, and what you're actually studying when you get degrees in that area?

Claire: 1:18

Absolutely. Ecology is one of the sciences and it's the study of natural systems, natural ecosystems. So there are a lot of different ways in which you can focus. Some people kind of focus in on vegetation or hydrology, or wildlife, it's kind of all part of ecology. Just how our natural systems work and change over time.

Carrie: 1:41

Nice. Okay. Well, I look forward to hearing how you ended up deciding on that area, but let's go back to chatting about high school first. And how you approached your college search and what you were thinking back then in terms of what you thought you might want to study and if you had any kind of career aspirations for yourself in your mind at that time.

Claire: 2:05

Yeah. Well, I would say, I always loved being a student. And I loved studying everything. I really liked most subjects, if you could make a career out of just being a student, I would have done that. I guess that's shown by how many years of school I ended up going through. So I definitely did well in school because I really enjoyed all of the subject areas. I guess I knew that I, I probably had a proclivity towards science and math. For some reason when I was young I would go around saying I wanted to be an engineer slash scientist and write books in my spare time. You know, I didn't realize how little spare time one would have as an adult with responsibilities, so the writing books part never happened. So I knew, early on that, that I was really interested in science and math, although I had a love of many subjects and didn't really want to give those up. So when thinking about college, I was a good student. I had good grades. I was lucky in that sense that the college process was pretty easy. My sister actually went to Princeton and she was four years above me. And so when I was like a freshman or sophomore in high school, I had gone to visit her and. I loved it. I loved the campus feel. I loved the classes I got to sit on when I went to visit her. I loved, you know, having my older sister take me out in college, right? For a night out on the town. It just felt like a good fit. So when I was applying to college, I guess I didn't give it a lot of thought. I knew I loved Princeton and back then you could apply early. And if you applied early and got in, You were committed to going there. So I loved it enough that I was willing to do that. If I hadn't have gotten in early, then I would have had to scurry around and figure out where else I might wanted to go, but I did. I applied early. I got in and so that decision was made for me. I think looking back some of the things that I really loved about it and that I would suggest other people think about that I maybe thought about subconsciously, but not consciously, the feel of the campus. I think it would be also obviously great to be in a city as well, but it's a very different feel. So are you looking for being part of a city and having a lot at your fingertips? Are you looking for that more typical college experience? Princeton's also very focused on their undergraduates. There is no law school. There is no med school. So it's a very undergraduate, a smaller undergraduate focused university, and I don't know that I really knew that when I was applying, but, In retrospect, I think it's a useful thing to think about, you know what kind of feel and what opportunities are you looking for, as an undergraduate?

Carrie: 4:55

I would just want to add to, I think if anybody has any, whether it's your older sibling, an older cousin, a neighbor, a friend, like anytime that you have an in like that to visit a campus and get to walk around that campus with a student and, you know, maybe go to a class or, go eat in the dining hall with them, stay in a dorm, whatever you can do to get a feel for what the campus is like, like all those things you were saying. Even if that's not the school you're interested in, is that the type of campus you're interested in, whether it's an urban campus or you're in a small college town or somewhere in between, you know, it can really help you to get a feel for is this, you know, the type of place that I want to be.

Claire: 5:39

Exactly. You can learn so much from a place, even if it's not the place where you end up or not the place you want to go. But what are the things about any visit that appeal to you or that you will like, and you can apply that to other places as well.

Carrie: 5:51

Yeah, absolutely.

Claire: 5:53

I was very lucky in my college search. It was short and sweet and kind of move forward and didn't go back. But, I guess, then starting college, thinking about what I might want to major, and I guess I should say, stepping back, I knew I wanted to go to Princeton and I knew I liked science and math. I very consciously didn't apply to engineering school. Princeton has a great engineering department, I really loved math. But I wasn't ready to focus on one area. As I said before, I loved all subjects. I liked learning a diversity of things at one time. I didn't want to focus on one thing at the expense of other things. I mean, obviously you have to do that eventually in picking a major, but I wasn't ready to do that. And. the engineering school had far more requirements. So if you wanted to go the engineering path, you had to take so many engineering classes, right off the bat and that would leave less room for other classes and, the broad liberal arts focus. So I didn't apply to the engineering school. Yet I went into Princeton thinking at the time that I was going to major in math. I don't really know what I was thinking at that point. I'm not sure where a math major without an engineering degree. Like, I don't know. I still don't know what those career paths are, but I wasn't thinking about that. I was really just thinking what subject do I like the best?

Carrie: 7:21

Yeah. And that's a great place to start, right? If you don't really know what career path you're thinking about, just start with what feels good, what feels comfortable, what you enjoy spending your time doing, and you'll figure it out. A lot of students get the message today where they need to, like, label that career path so early and pick that major and, get started immediately. But if you're not sure, it's okay to kind of pull back and not commit to something that's very specific right off the bat. Take the time you need to try different things out and figure it out.

Claire: 7:56

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I would still say before you declare your major, you should explore what potential career paths are, where that could take you. But yeah, for me and for engineering, I was not ready to say I'm ready to commit to this at the expense of everything else. Another thing I really enjoyed about Princeton were the requirements. There are some schools where you kind of take whatever you want, you have certain requirements in your major, but not really outside of your major, but it's not a lot of requirements in different fields. If you weren't an engineer, they really forced you to get that broad liberal arts background and they would give you choices within each required area, but they forced you to branch out. And so my first year, I kind of continued on what one used to do in high school. I made sure I had my math class and my English class. I wasn't that big on history, so not that, I think I took economics, but I really tried to balance it out and have a set schedule. and chemistry. It felt comfortable for me to continue, to have my coursework set up in a similar way that it used to be in high school. And second semester. So I took math both semesters. Cause again, I thought at that point, I might want to be a math major. And my theory about math is in retrospect, I think everyone has a brick wall when it comes to math. And before you hit that brick wall, math is amazing. It's so easy. It's so clear. Everything makes sense. You know, it just kind of lays itself out in front of you and it's fun. And then when you hit that brick wall, suddenly, nothing makes sense anymore.

Carrie: 9:38

I would agree with that, although I had my brick wall way earlier than you did. Yeah, my brick wall, I was like 17.

Claire: 9:45

No, we all have one, we all have a brick wall. I mean, I think even the people who are the math geniuses, their brick wall is out there somewhere.

Carrie: 9:54

Yeah, that's true. And there's different kinds of math. Sometimes you're good at one kind of math and then you get in a very different kind and it's like, wait a second, this does not click like everything else did.

Claire: 10:03

That's true. Yeah. Well, I hit my brick wall my second semester of freshman year of college and, Suddenly, it was over. I didn't understand anything anymore. I didn't know which way was up and it was no longer fun, to say the least. So. Back to the drawing board for me, I realized instantly, I mean, I managed my way through, through that class when it was multivariate calculus and I managed my way through it, somehow, but I knew that was the end of the road for math and me. But I was well set up at this point. I mean, I said I, enjoyed STEM in general and I had taken chemistry and maybe physics so I had the necessary pre reqs already to go into the sciences. And so, For me at that point, then it was figuring out which path in the sciences I might want to go. I leaned toward biology. I can't really remember why. And then it was deciding ecology and evolutionary biology versus molecular biology. Those were really the two sciences that I was considering continuing on with. And we had a requirement it. Everyone except the engineers, or some certain types of engineers had to do a senior thesis. So you know this starting freshman year that by the end of your senior year, you will have some kind of project, final paper, something along those lines in your major. So for molecular biology, that would mean doing work in a lab and for ecology, that would mean you work with a professor and you go do fieldwork somewhere cool, and you do analyze it and turn it into a final paper. For me, that was a no brainer, the lab versus being out somewhere cool working with a professor.

Carrie: 11:52

Well, and that's kind of career path thinking too, right? Because that's what's kind of foreshadowing to what a career could be like.

Claire: 11:59

And I, I don't know that I thought about that at the time, but absolutely. Because when I was just thinking straight up about the subject, what subject do I like better? They were kind of tied. But when I thought about the experience and what that would mean, and that's what a job is. It's far more than just what subject you're studying, is what does your daily life look like and what are you doing? And so I don't know that I realized it at the time, but yeah, that was my draw to ecology is the realization that I could be Outside working and looking at things, in the natural world and doing something with that. And that was just really exciting to me.

Carrie: 12:38

Nice. So how did you decide when you got to your thesis? Did you go about it like thinking about your future career path? Or did you just land in a particular class you really enjoyed that inspired you? Or how did you make the decision about what you were going to write about?

Claire: 12:54

Well, they had it set up really well. As we were rising juniors, so I think you declare your major sophomore year and the rising juniors had to take certain classes. All of the ecology and evolutionary biology majors would take a certain class together where they exposed us to I think statistics was part of that for some reason that wasn't a separate class, but they had us do it all together so that we were all familiar with those statistical techniques. And then they had different professors come in to talk about their research because at that point, you're not going to be able to get a grant as an undergrad and do the preparation that's required there. But the professors have ongoing projects and grants and they find certain pieces of it that are appropriate for undergraduates. So they come in and present. You know, this is what I'm working on. I'm looking for this many students to do these types of things. And then the students would then go talk to the professors, and you just find the right fit of someone to work with on their project. So I was considering a couple. There was one I didn't go after out on the coast of Oregon. The what I did there was a professor who talked about his work on Martha's Vineyard, studying vegetation and the Northern Harrier and Influenced in part by my boyfriend, later my future husband. He had spent every summer growing up vacationing on Cape Cod. And so when I mentioned this Martha's Vineyard thing, he was like, you have to do that. It is the most wonderful place. You know, you get to spend a summer out there, like do it. You'll love it. And the project sounded cool too. So, so that convinced me. And so I got to spend the summer after my junior year living on Martha's Vineyard. The project was actually done in conjunction with the Nature Conservancy. Oh, cool. And there were three of us students. The other two were really looking at the behavior of the Northern Harrier, which is a bird. I was doing the vegetation work, so basically areas where the Northern Harrier either breeds or hunts. And I would go into those areas and survey the vegetation. Basically we were looking for patterns, habitat patterns to figure out what kind of areas the northern harrier preferred because this was a bird that the Nature Conservancy really cared about. And so they were looking to, you know, if they were going to purchase lands for conservation or figure out how they wanted to manage certain lands that they already owned in order to assist the Northern Harrier, we were looking for patterns that might help them make those decisions.

Carrie: 15:32

Nice. So as you were going through your degree, and that research you got to do that summer, were you starting to formulate career aspirations in your mind with this field, or were you really focused more on going to grad school next, or what were you kind of thinking as you were going through that time?

Claire: 15:50

Yeah, I think at that time, I was split. I knew that I wanted to do sciences and I was happy to go in that direction, but I did still love all subjects. So I actually took as few courses as possible in my major as I could. I met the minimum requirements because I wanted to keep learning and doing other things. My dad is a law professor, so I always had an interest in law. The only two legal type classes that Princeton offered was Constitutional Interpretation and Civil Liberties. I took both of those to kind of get more exposure to law. And then I took classes like intro to Buddhism and I took a storytelling class and a class on the beat generation. So I definitely still cast a wide net. As I did my research and my senior thesis. I knew that I enjoyed that process. There was definitely something there. But I still had a part of me that was thinking long term about career path in law because I had grown up around the law, talking law at the dinner table. And so I thought going forward with this degree, I saw two paths. One in which I would go to grad school in science and kind of keep going in that direction. The other was to go to law school and potentially in the future do something like environmental law. So I could bring that piece in, but not still be doing the science. And so I'd say by the time I graduated, I was really split between those two paths as a possible career field.

Carrie: 17:23

Which I'm glad you brought that up because there are a lot of opportunities out there where you can take more than one interest and combine them. And sometimes, yeah, sometimes that can be really obvious. And sometimes it takes some time to figure out, you know, how we could make that possible. So students shouldn't. think, you know, it has to be A, B, or C. It may be able to be a combination of two or three of those things, and it may not be your very first job right out of school, but you may be able to formulate things together to make different things that you're interested in, all be part of your career path. And I don't think that that's talked about quite as much as, like, picking something and sticking to it.

Claire: 18:04

We are all multidimensional people have a lot of different interests. And if you have multiple things that you're passionate about or that interest you, yeah, keep looking for a way to exercise all of those things that you like, and to bring those into your future. You shouldn't have to give things up if you're passionate about them.

Carrie: 18:23

And they don't all have to be part of your career. Like a lot of the courses that you were mentioning, that you have an interest in, there's ways to incorporate those things into your life, just as a human, that don't necessarily have to be part of your career path. Like those law classes you mentioned, you know, learning all of that is part of just being a good citizen in general, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be in your career path and courses on religion or courses on anything about society. Learning a new language, like there's all of these types of things that you can do in college, to help not just forward your career path, but also just like grow as a person or enhance an interest that you have, whether it's taking a photography class or I mean, I don't know, there's so many different things out there. So I always encourage students, like after we look at degree plan and career path things like, is there a personal thing that you've always wanted to do? Do your grandparents speak Russian and you've always wanted to learn how to do that? Or, is there some part of history or society that interests you that you know you don't want to have a career in, but you just want to do a minor, just learn more about it. Take a couple of classes. Like that's a great time to do that. And you never know where those classes on the side or whatever you want to call them, you never know how that could later be incorporated into your life or where it could lead.

Claire: 19:46

Yes, absolutely. It could just be fun. It's your time to flex those muscles and learn different things. As you said, can be a good citizen and develop your critical thinking and other skills.

Carrie: 20:00

It's not just about checking all the boxes on the list of classes you have to take. Like, think about yourself as a human.

Claire: 20:06

Absolutely. I loved it. I think There's a line that you tread in terms of how much preparation you do that sets you up for a future career path, but also just being a young person that doesn't have a ton of responsibilities hanging over them, like this is your chance to learn and play. You can do this all throughout your life, certainly, but you have less responsibilities, you have more time, more flexibility, and you're in school to learn, so this is an opportunity to really see what's out there, and certainly you want to take the courses you need for your major, and you want to prepare for your future, but you also want to explore and understand, see what's out there and have fun with it, and I definitely did that. As an undergrad and I have no regrets. And a lot of them too were life skills. I mean, I took a storytelling class, which is kind of a ridiculous. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah, I can't believe it was even offered and people would make fun of it, but I would say I learned so much because any career field, you have to be a good communicator. Oh yeah. Learning how to communicate, well, even ecology is storytelling. What I do now, you have to communicate scientific results by telling people a story that they're interested in. So yeah, classes that are just fun also do teach you life skills, so.

Carrie: 21:19

Absolutely. And there's connections that you can draw between so many things that may not be obvious on the surface or may not come to you until later. But. They're so valuable. Yeah. So you mentioned you were kind of going back and forth between different options for after undergrad. What did you end up doing and how did you make that decision?

Claire: 21:39

So first of all, as I was a senior, there was a lot of on-campus recruiting. And at Princeton, a lot of that was investment banks and consulting firms. And I went through on campus recruiting, which I would recommend to anyone if any, if your university offers this, just because interviewing does not come naturally, and so it's incredibly good experience just to get the bad interviews out of the way with jobs you maybe aren't as interested in.

Carrie: 22:10

That's a good idea. Yeah, what a great practice.

Claire: 22:13

Oh, absolutely. I mean, some of those early interviews, you find yourself telling a story and you're like, why am I saying this out loud? This isn't going anywhere. Yeah.

Carrie: 22:22

And then it doesn't matter when you're done because you didn't want the job in the first place.

Claire: 22:26

Exactly. Exactly. And alternatively, if a story or an experience goes over well, you realize, oh, okay, a future interview, I should try and bring that in if I find an opening because I tell that story well, or it makes a good point. So I just, I think any interviewing experiences is valuable experience, even though at the time I was not interested in going in either of those routes. I did get a couple offers, and I must say it was hard to turn them down because they, you know, offered a lot of money, but at that point, I knew I had enjoyed my major, and I knew I was also interested in law, and I really wanted to explore that and find out, What is it that I'm most interested in? Right? I'm in this for the long term. What path am I most interested in following at this point? And so there was a thing called Tiger net that Princeton has is basically a list of alumni, what careers they're in or their career paths, you can kind of keep up your own profile. And so I just, you know, looked people up and started cold calling anyone in the kind of environmental field to ask. What is it that they do? What does that look like? Kind of like your podcast, Carrie, just, you know, trying to understand people who had this major, what did they end up doing with it? And what did that really look like? So I had a lot of great conversations with folks and a lot of people took my resume and passed it on. I eventually got an offer to do environmental consulting in DC. Pay was nowhere near as good as it was to some marketing job I was thinking about taking. But I knew this was actually a great intersection of science and law. What I was doing, we were consulting specifically for EPA Environmental Protection Agency on the Superfund program. So these are sites that are contaminated with hazardous waste. And there's legislation that guides how sites are evaluated and ultimately listed on this list and declared superfund sites. So it really was taking legislation with environmental issues and scientific considerations, but ultimately underneath the umbrella of this legislation to determine, if a site would be listed. It was a good first job. I wouldn't say I loved it, but, It's hard to make that transition out of school where you're just having fun and learning to being an entry level employee at the bottom of the ladder. But it was a valuable place to end up and it really was at that intersection of the two disciplines, that at that point I was really interested in.

Carrie: 25:05

Yeah, so when you had that job, so I always ask people who bring up consulting, because I think that's such a generic term that a lot of people are like, well, what is that? You know, they picture, oh, you're going to get on a plane and you're going to go somewhere and you're going to talk to some people and give them advice and go back to your office. But it means so many different things depending on what industry you're in and even down to what company or organization you work for. So can you give just kind of a general like week in the life of that type of job? Like, what were you actually doing?

Claire: 25:39

Right. Well, you're absolutely right that it means so many different things and it did to me as well. So when I was hired, it was really to work on what I just described the Superfund program and so basically we'd be given packages like here is a package about a specific site and then we would go through these packages all this information about soil samples and what kind of contamination was found on site and in what levels. What was the site used for? Where were people located? Did anyone use the site on a daily basis, or were they downstream of the site? And if so, was the water contaminated? You just get a big package of information, everything related to this location, and you would run through it, and basically score it, to see what criteria it met, and did it end up with this ultimate score. So, again, this was dictated by the legislation, and we were just it following through on the process. So it was very much a desk job. And there are also a lot of rules, especially when you're consulting for the federal government. So each packet would take a certain number of hours. It kind of had to take a certain number of hours. And so You know, even if you're a quick worker, you kind of have to keep working on it, which I didn't love. The other thing though, consulting companies bid on these contracts and so the work can ebb and flow. When I started there, I can't remember if we had lost a contractor, there just wasn't a lot of work going on. So even though I was hired to do this, there was not enough to do full time. And I was entry level, so they were basically just looking around for another project that the company had that I could help support and, totally outside of my field and experience, but it was really interesting. This was right after September 11th and D. C. Had gotten a bunch of money to spend on homeland security issues. And so our company was hired and me and a more senior person at the company, went downtown into D. C. deputy mayor for public safety and justice. We were in her office and helping her oversee how D. C. spent all of this money they got for emergency preparedness right after September 11th. And so we worked with all of the different D. C. agencies, there was, you know, schools and department of transportation and metro and police and fire. And we worked with all of them basically encouraging them to spend the money, vetting how they were planning to spend their money and that it was meeting the requirements and then also tracking to make sure that the deputy mayor knew that they were making progress spending these funds in a timely manner. So again, not at all my background, but really, really interesting. And I think that's one of the cool things about consulting is that There are a lot of different things on offer, and you probably could fill your day or your week with different types of projects, and that I really did. I enjoyed that diversity that was on offer there, even though the job itself wasn't the right fit for me long term. It was a cool way to spend a few years for me.

Carrie: 28:58

Yeah, and I think that's a great point to make, too, is I think sometimes students are so focused on looking for very specific criteria in a job that you don't want to decline a job or an opportunity because it doesn't fit it. What you have in your mind, right, is what your job should be at the beginning of your career, because really, no one knows what your job should be at the very beginning of your career path, right? Like right out of school, taking a different opportunity and getting out of your comfort zone or being a little bit outside of your skill set, or just being willing to learn something that can really inform you. If it doesn't inform you about what you want to do, it can definitely inform you about what you don't want to do, or it can Help you realize. Oh, I have this other skill set too that I didn't even think about or there's this other perspective in this industry that I could go in this direction and I didn't even know this existed or you know there's so many different things that you could learn in an unexpected opportunity and You know, I just hope students can think about You know, keeping your mind open, especially in the early years of your career, because you just, you never know what you could learn from that and take with you.

Claire: 30:14

Absolutely. I can imagine having this same conversation with you, but, I have a completely different career path where I focused on emergency preparedness and, you know, I do whatever, totally different path. And that's not the route I went, but how cool to have that opportunity. And test it out. And learning about myself and I think coming right out of college. Any first job you have, something you just said, Carrie, about learning what you don't want to do in addition to what you do, I think that's incredibly valuable. It's unlikely your first job out of school is going to be your forever job. You are testing things out, you're seeing what it's like, you're making a transition from learning into doing. Whether you're sitting in an office all day and making that adjustment, which I think is a very difficult adjustment or, you know, no matter what you're doing, it's a shift and you just want to pay attention. And, you've been so focused on what subject area do you like, but what is it about what fills your day that you like or don't like? Do you like working in teams or working by yourself? Do you like writing or do you like facilitating or coordinating? I mean, there's just so many things you haven't thought about yet and when you're suddenly spending your days doing them, you learn a lot about yourself.

Carrie: 31:26

Yeah. A lot of young people have dreams of graduating and going to a specific place to work, you know, for a lot of people that's New York City or for some people that's L. A. or it's London or I think Washington, D. C. is a place for a lot of young people. Right? Where they would like to end up in and at least start their career there. So did you have any specific experiences or maybe advice to give for people who are thinking about like taking an internship in D. C. or their first job in D. C.? It seems like there's a very unique energy to being a young professional in Washington, D. C.

Claire: 32:04

There definitely is. DC was not really on my radar. Actually, part of the reason I went to college on the east coast is that I was certain I was going to end up on the west coast. And so I wanted to spend a few years out east before moving west. But then I met my husband and, he was from Connecticut and, you know, wanted to stay on the east coast. And so life just kind of happens and takes you in a different direction. When we were looking for places to go together, that's kind of. how DC popped up on our radar. It's a great place to be a young professional. So much of DC is free, all of the museums and the culture, so many happy hours and young professionals working on the Hill. There's definitely a certain kind of energy to it. But it's a fun place to be at DC. At that age, and there's a lot to take advantage of kind of for people of that age. So I definitely recommend People keep it in consideration, but I really ended up, in D. C. kind of on accident.

Carrie: 33:02

One thing that's really hard for people is once you're in the workforce after college, Having that pull of graduate school, it's really hard for people sometimes to negotiate, like, do I leave my job to go to grad school? Do I keep working and do like grad school at night? It's a big decision to make, because it's a huge commitment, obviously, with your time and finances, and you've kind of settled into whatever your life is at that point. So what brought that up for you? And how did you navigate that decision?

Claire: 33:34

I guess I knew going into this job that it was an entry level job to help make this decision between grad school and law school. I think that was always My plan going into it. Again, I said, I loved being a student. So I knew I was going to go back. It was just what kind of school, I wanted to go back for. My husband also, I'm still just dating at the time, but he wanted to go back to law school. So we both knew we wanted to get out of school for awhile, test out the working world, figure out what you know what we liked and didn't like and be sure before we committed to grad school, so I liked doing it that way. I think going straight to grad school for me would have been difficult. I would have been up even as much as I love school would have been a bit burnout. And I wanted to come fresh and excited to be there and knowing, grad school is a big commitment and knowing that I was focusing in grad school on the right thing. Because it is an expense. It is time. So I wanted to test out, the real world a little bit before I committed to that. Working in environmental consulting was a great way for me to figure out, the kind of the legal versus the science aspect of things And I realized then that law school was not going to be a right fit. I realized that what drove me more was the science part of it, the search for truth aspect of science. And I felt like in the legal realm, at least just what I was working with, but we were really confined. A law was written by someone and we were implementing it. And even if it didn't seem like the best scientific outcome or the best thing to do, we still had to do it because that's how the law was written. And I found that. Very frustrating. Yeah. Now, if I had gone to law school and had done environmental law, maybe I could have been writing legislation that was better, and that could have been a path. I didn't really think of that at the time, but I just found that the legal framework constraining in that situation for me. So that's when I realized that It was the science and research side, that search for truth that investigation aspect that I really liked. So I decided at that point that I definitely wanted to go become a scientist, become an ecologist. When you apply for a PhD program, very different than applying for undergrad, you're really looking not just for a school, but for a specific professor to work with. And most PhD programs will pay you some kind of stipend. So it's not really, at least in ecology, it's not really something that you would do part time. You would go to work on your PhD, although you would, you could do a research fellowship or a teaching fellowship while you're getting your PhD. That's to get your stipend. But your PhD program is a full time commitment.

Carrie: 36:38

So were you doing like a master's to PhD program?

Claire: 36:41

Well, I actually applied just to do the PhD. You don't actually need your master's on the way to the PhD. But then at some point during the PhD process, I started having second thoughts about seeing it through to completion. And so I decided that I would just leave with my master's. And by the time I did all the work to leave with my master's, I was already set up to do the PhD and realize it's too late. No, I did want to continue on. So the reason I got my master's, was just kind of as a, off ramp, I guess, if I changed my mind, not a bad way to go because if I had left with my masters, it still would have been free. I mean, you still stay, take some time to do it, but you don't get charged Tuition or anything like that, whereas a lot of master's programs might actually charge for that. A little tip, if you're at all considering a PhD, you might just want to go straight for it and then just kind of see how that works out.

Carrie: 37:37

Can you talk a little bit more about that, when you were kind of starting to doubt whether you wanted to complete the PhD, was it, More about the field and the subject, or was it more just about the actual like school and taking the time for the study and the writing and the research and everything?

Claire: 37:53

A PhD program is not for the faint of heart. It's a process, and the process is really interesting, but there's so much self motivation, and there's so much that you're doing on your own. Right? Research is a pretty solitary field. You can have collaborators, but at the end of the day, it's your project, it's your analysis, it's your manuscripts and publications. I don't think I realized until I was partway through that process how much I feed on the energy of other people and like to collaborate. Right? And I wasn't getting that outlet. It's also such a number of years, that at some point in that process, I just missed other people. I also, my husband and I got married and he ended up going to law school, at a different school. And so we were long distance. And then as soon as I could, I moved to be with him. And so I was finishing up my PhD remotely. So it was even more isolating. So trying to do all of this solitary work literally by myself without sitting in a community of other students, it was challenging. And so that's when I started to have doubts, You know about seeing the process through. But I think once I hit a certain point in that process, once I had enough under my belt, in terms of knowing what my project was and having collected all of my field data and be getting some results, I got energized once I hit that part. But it was that space in the middle, that was more difficult and until I started seeing results and feeling like I was accomplishing something, I struggled until I hit that point.

Carrie: 39:41

Which we should mention is very normal. I don't want to ask this question of you, like, what was wrong with you, Claire, that made you not want to do this? I mean, there's statistics out there, people will have to Google it, I don't know them off the top of my head, but there are a lot of people that get to a point and question whether it's worth it to them to finish, right?

Claire: 40:01

Absolutely. And I had so many conversations with my friends from grad school through it and everyone had a different set of challenges. But I think few people would say that process comes naturally or is easy. And I think making sure you have Community and a support network is key to getting through that. But, I think any field has its own challenges, but I still was in that place of learning about myself and what I liked and what energized me. And so I had thought, you know, that the PhD and I thought I would end up being a professor. That was my plan when I started. And my dad, I had said, is a law professor, so even though I didn't go the law route, I thought, oh, I'll go the professor route. It certainly led to a very nice lifestyle. My dad always said that the three best things about being a professor are June, July, and August. And, uh, nice. Yes. And so, you know, I thought that would be a great lifestyle, but through the PhD process, and I'm so glad I got my PhD and I learned so much and I use so much of that in my job today, but through that process, I realized that the straight up research route was not for me. There were too many aspects of my personality that weren't being fed on a daily basis.

Carrie: 41:22

Yeah, which is a really important thing to consider, right? I think a lot of times students aren't necessarily guided to consider your personality, to consider your work style, to consider even just personal preferences for your life in conjunction with the subjects you're interested in, you know, the type of work that you could see yourself enjoying. It's hard to negotiate all of those things, especially when you're in school.

Claire: 41:49

Right. Yeah, it's a constant path of learning. I think all through your life about yourself and you change and evolve, throughout the process as well. And so just always listening to yourself and, knowing are you getting satisfaction from what you're doing and are you able to express yourself in the way you need to? Is your job energizing you or is it draining you? And I think that that's important and to constantly re evaluate that and make sure you're getting to express the parts of yourself you need to express. I'm so glad I did it. I had the most amazing professor, my dissertation advisor. There's no way I would have gotten through it without someone who was so supportive of my personal needs in addition to my professional ones, letting me move to be with my husband. Working with me, so thoughtfully as I developed my own dissertation project. A lot of people come in to work on projects for their professors, so they're given a project when they start and I really crafted something from scratch on my own, which had its fair share of difficulties. I'd certainly say anyone going to do a PhD, think long and hard about who your, advisor is going to be because they have such an influence on your life. And, I'm incredibly grateful for the support I had in that process.

Carrie: 43:06

So as you were going through your PhD, you mentioned that you were thinking about becoming a professor. Was that still what you were thinking as you were nearing the end of completing that degree, or were you starting to have other ideas about what you would like to do? Because you know, everybody gets to the point where they're nearing the completion of a degree, whatever level of degree that is, and you start to feel the itch, like, okay, I got to start figuring out what I'm gonna do when I'm done with this thing. So when did that start for you? And what did you start thinking about?

Claire: 43:36

Yeah. Well, I knew that the professor route, was out for me. When I was rethinking, continuing and completing the PhD is when I realized that the just straight research, did not fit my personality and my personal needs. So I knew that was not going to be my route anymore. What I had always enjoyed. So I mentioned my undergraduate thesis working with the nature conservancy. I actually, when I developed my dissertation, went back to the nature conservancy and developed my dissertation with them, because I wanted my dissertation, I wanted my research to be useful and to be applied. And that was a big driver for me as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. And so, as I was starting to near completion, I realized I wanted to be at that point of application. I liked the research and the science, though I didn't want to do only that. I wanted to be at the line where you're applying the science for use in management and really having an impact in that way. So I had, I realized through the PhD process that I trended a little more on the application side, than the straight up research side. So I started investigating what was out there, in that realm. And working for a nonprofit like the Nature Conservancy was certainly something I was considering. But I also I just met someone at a party and they told me about this fellowship called a Presidential Management Fellowship, and it's a fellowship within the federal government. There's a whole application process, but if you become a finalist, in this fellowship, you can apply for jobs in the federal government, and it's a two year fellowship in the federal government, that then can be converted into a permanent federal position. So, I think I had to apply six months or a year before I finished my PhD, start the application process. So I thought, well, You know, might as well throw this out there and see what happens as I'm continuing to finish my PhD. And I ended up becoming a finalist and, that was my entry point into the federal government. I mean, I knew it was a great opportunity. It can be really hard to apply to federal positions from the outside. So I thought, well, this is my two years. I can test out working for the federal government and you know, see how that meshes and see what I think of that experience. So, that's how I got into the federal government and that was kind of set up or at least knowing that I had this fellowship, as I was completing my PhD. So then it was just a matter of finding a position, and finding someone who wanted to hire me as a presidential management fellow.

Carrie: 46:23

So how did you go about that and where did you end up?

Claire: 46:26

Before I knew I had gotten the fellowship. I went to a career fair, was talking to folks at different booths, knew that I was interested in possibly trying out federal service. And there was a U. S. Forest Service booth. So I went to talk to the guy in the booth and we talked for a long time, just about all the different career tracks within the Forest Service. I mentioned that I had applied for the Presidential Management Fellowship, but didn't know yet. And you know, that I was finishing my PhD. A lot of people at this career fair were master's students. And he, had a contact, in the Washington office of the Forest Service in the research and development branch of the Forest Service, who had come into the Forest Service through the same fellowship. So he connected me with her and I spoke with her separately and she told me all about the fellowship and how wonderful the Forest Service's PMF program is. So really talked it up, spoke very highly of it, and said she actually knew someone who was hoping to hire a PMF, in that cohort that year. So if I got the fellowship to let her know, and she would connect me with him. So as soon as I got the fellowship, I reached out to her. We had had such a great conversation. She'd spoken so highly of the Forest Service. She instantly connected me with this person. And, I interviewed with him and, it actually was the perfect position. It was, not really a permanent position. They had created it specifically for this fellowship and it was a position that was split between the research and development branch of the forest service and the national forest system, which is the management branch of the forest service. So they actually created this position that reported to both sides of the agency, specifically in the air program, looking to bring the cutting edge science that was being conducted to application in management. And so as I already said, like, this is exactly what I wanted to do to be at this place where I'm bringing science to management. So I think my enthusiasm really came through in the interview, and I got the position. So that was just a two year position. I could convert and stay in the federal government. I couldn't stay in that position after two years. But I came in knowing that that this would be my job for two years as a fellow. And I highly recommend this fellowship is open to anyone coming out of graduate school, so it doesn't have to be a PhD, it can be a master's, it can be a law degree or a business degree, any type of graduate school. I highly recommend people look into it. Not only is it a good way to get your foot in the door, in the federal government, but there are also training requirements. You have to take a certain amount of training each year, so it's wonderful to have that level of support. I took facilitation training, which I really loved. I took firefighter training. I got my red card, so I was a certified firefighter for the Forest Service. Oh, no way. Yeah, and if you work for the Forest Service and you want to do anything related to fire, it doesn't matter what your permanent day job is, you can always do it. Go and work on a fire. There's so many needs in that area that our agency totally supports that. So that was really fun to do that as a training. And then the other requirements in the fellowship are that you do detail. So you have this position for two years, but you're actually told that for four months of that time you have to do something else to get more exposure. And that could be within your agency or even at another agency. So I spent some time on both sides, I said I worked for both the research and the management branch, so I spent some time seeing what it was like to actually be an air quality specialist on a national forest, and I spent some time seeing what it was like being a researcher on our R& D branch. So throughout those two years, you know, I had this dream position. I had the two best supervisors anyone could ask for. And then I got these experiences trying out positions on both sides of the agency.

Carrie: 50:29

Wow. And I just want to back up a little bit and point out, like, it sounds like this All started with conversations with people you didn't know. Yes, right. And I love that because there's so many stories that I've heard where things happen because somebody just met someone or I've had more than one people say it started with a career fair, or it started with some kind of other event where they met someone and then that person was like, Oh, let me introduce you to this person. And. Yeah. And it's just amazing how you really never know how a conversation with a stranger can lead to an incredible opportunity. And so it's so important for people to not that you have to go to an event every day of your life, you know, when you're in college, because that gets really taxing, especially for people who aren't extroverted. But there are a lot of opportunities where, you know, It's important to go to things where you are going to be talking to people or that you have the confidence to just go up and introduce yourself or give them your resume or whatever it is. There's different environments, but it's it's really incredible to hear different stories about what has happened with conversations with people they didn't know. And it just led to these amazing opportunities.

Claire: 51:44

Right. The opportunities are out there. And yeah, I am not an extrovert. I'm definitely an introvert, but you have to put yourself out there when you're talking to people, listen for opportunities. So yeah, I heard about the PMF program through someone I didn't know. I went up to the forest service booth at a career fair and I was willing every time someone said, well, you can talk to this other person. I always said yes. And yeah, that's what it is. It's so many random things lead to your future path. So, if something sounds like an opportunity that you're interested in, you know, you should always, always pursue it and see where it takes you.

Carrie: 52:17

Yeah, because I mean, the worst that can happen is nothing, which is what is going to happen if you didn't do anything.

Claire: 52:25

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Right. And as I said earlier, when I was talking about interviews, Experience is useful. So if these conversations don't go anywhere, it's still getting experience, talking to people you don't know, asking people about their life paths or what job availability, you know, might be out there. So, yeah, no harm.

Carrie: 52:45

Absolutely, absolutely. And a lot of the times, professionals in any field are eager to help young people trying to get into their industry or their field. I mean, that's a lot of what People are doing. They want great people to be coming in behind them, right? And carrying on the work that they've been doing. So I would say most people are motivated in that way.

Claire: 53:06

Yes. And after my fellowship, the PMF fellowship was so great for me. I've stayed on as a mentor within the Forest Service in that program. So every year. I don't always get a new fellow because there's so many of us that have gone through the program that all want to help out incoming fellows, but I always want to give back because I realized that that's how I got my start. So I'm always, always talking to people about fellowship about the Forest Service. I love to serve that role for other people because, I know what a change it made in my own life.

Carrie: 53:37

Yeah. So can you talk to us about what your career path has been since that fellowship and just well, first of all, let's talk about like the actual positions you've had and what you've been doing. And then also when you have had a change of some kind, you know, how that came about and how you navigated those decisions?

Claire: 53:56

Well, I was lucky to start out in this dream position, as I said, where I was really split between research and management. And as the fellowship was coming to an end, I was trying to convince people to make it permanent in some form because it was just such a dream position for me. But as much as I love working for the federal government, it moves slowly. So, there was no way to create boxes in an org chart that didn't exist before. So I knew I'd be able to convert and stay in the federal government. The PMF program basically lets you convert non competitively. So rather than a normal competitive process. If you find someone who's interested in hiring you, it's much easier for them to hire you than to do a typical government hiring process. So that's kind of an advantage. And that's why it's easier to stay in the government through this fellowship than to apply from outside. So, it was a matter of talking to people and find out what positions were open or coming open. And I was talking to folks on both sides, like folks in research and development and also folks in the national forest system. But I knew that I needed to stay in DC. My husband is an antitrust attorney. And most of What happens in antitrust is really DC based. So, I knew that like, I was located here and there are a lot of job options, within the federal government and within the forest service in DC, but within the forest service, so much of our workforce, is out in the field is what it's called. And, if you've only ever been in DC, there are some limitations for that because When you're in D. C., you're in our headquarters, and you're setting policy or, setting operations for the whole agency, and you have less credibility, in a sense, if you've never experienced what it's like to work at a national forest or to work at a research station. So, I was lucky in my fellowship That I did those details, but still people were definitely encouraging me to take a position outside of DC, but I was not interested in being long distance from my husband. We were married at that point. And we had done long distance for a few years when we were in grad school and that was not fun. So I was not eager to do that again. So I ended up finding a position. There was an open position. As an air quality specialist. My fellowship was in the air quality world, as I mentioned. So I was taking the science and applying it to management. Our air quality specialists work in zones, so they all work for multiple national forests. So there was an open position in our Eastern region, working as an air quality specialist for six different national forests. And since you're working for so many different national forests, normally the air quality specialist would be based at one of those national forests. But I talked them into basically letting me work from DC because ultimately I was going to have to travel to all of them anyhow. Yeah. And in some sense, wherever you're based. If you're based on one of those forests, it's almost unfair. They end up getting more of your time and work. And so by saying, well, I'm not going to be based on any of them. So it's a little more fair to be working for six, and kind of distribute my work evenly across them. So that's kind of how I pitched it. So that was the job I ended up converting into. I did talk with folks on the research and development side. There was a position. It's a funny story. There was a position that they were interested in bringing me in on, which ended up higher level leadership said they didn't want to hire any PMFs because of the non competitive process, and they Didn't think it was a good look in that type of position to bring someone in non competitively, but flash forward that job is the job I ended up applying for and getting three years later, so The person who hired me into it was like oh man if leadership didn't stop you we could have maybe had you three years earlier. The position had been vacant that entire time. And so she was, she was frustrated. Oh, wow. Yes. But it was wonderful for me that the three years I spent as an air quality specialist, it was great to be on the management side fully and see what that involved. Our forest service air program is a really special place with incredible people who I still keep in touch with and love. I really enjoyed my time there. I got to consistently visit six different national forests and see the different issues that they were facing, at each of these forests. So I really enjoyed my time, but ultimately the travel took its toll. I mean, that was a lot to try and have enough face time at all six forests every year. I don't think I necessarily even got to all of them every year. And then, you know, the regional office, I was technically a regional office employee, regional office wanted us to visit every year. And so it just, it became a lot. And that was kind of the point at which I decided that I might be ready for a headquarters based job so that my travel would not be so extensive.

Carrie: 59:23

You say you went to each forest, like, so you get there. How long are you there and what exactly are you doing?

Claire: 59:31

Yeah, so as an air quality specialist, we're focused on really any air quality issues related to the forest. So that could be, activities occurring on the national forest that are affecting air quality in the surrounding areas, or it could be air quality in the surrounding areas affecting the vegetation on the national forest. So we're really looking at it from both sides. Now, air quality specialist is a unique role. Most of the other roles on a national forest, they're based on the national forest, and there's one or more than one per national forest. I think that the air program might be one of the few programs where you're really split amongst National Forest. So most roles, if you're a forest hydrologist or botanist, I mean, you are living on your National Forest and doing that work there every day. But as an air quality specialist, I have six different forests. So doing that work remotely and then coming in for face time. And so when I would actually go visit and have that face time, there would be a lot of meetings. Having some face time with the forest supervisor to talk about air quality on their forest and what the most pressing issues were maybe with the whole leadership team working with other specialists on areas where we overlapped. The air quality affects water quality and it affects soil quality. And so you know, you're working with those specialists and making sure that you have relationships with them and you're working together. Sometimes when I went out, I could help them and, you know, go out and collect water samples when I was on site. And then the other big part of air quality is fire and smoke. And so, we would help with, prescribed burning. Basically, there are different smoke models available that look at meteorology on a given day. And if the fire staff is going to do a prescribed burn, you find out what their plans are for that burn. And then you look at the meteorology and you can model smoke impacts and help them decide is today a good day to burn or should they wait. And so you can do that remotely and I would do that. But whenever I came on site, I would want people to understand what I was doing. And so I would often lead trainings about smoke modeling to show them what I was doing and show them how to do some of the basic stuff themselves and also smoke monitoring. So you could go in, And work if they were doing a prescribed burn, you set up these monitors in a certain place where you're worried about smoke impacts, and monitor the site and kind of give them feedback so they can adjust their burning on the fly, if the smoke is exceeding certain levels. And so I would also lead trainings on that when I would go visit so that they also had a cadre of local folks who could set up the smoke monitor. So they wouldn't always need me to come in.

Carrie: 1:02:22

Yeah, wow.

Claire: 1:02:23

But day to day from afar, I could do the smoke modeling, but also a lot of research. There's some amount of permitting that's done. If there's a large facility that could put out a certain level of pollution near a national forest, then the national forests are allowed to evaluate and comment on, you know, a new facility or in addition to a facility, if we're worried about the impacts of that facility on the national forest, and generally looking At some of the research, there are these things, critical loads of air pollution where, above a certain level pollutants like sulfur and nitrogen can have an impact on the vegetation. So, looking at that research, monitoring evaluations, and things like that. So again, for six different national forests. And also, NEPA, the, National Environmental Policy Act. Basically, NEPA. When national forest are doing projects, they need to do a certain amount of planning before they do that. And so any projects that they're planning that we're going to have an impact on air quality, they would look to me to write air quality reports. How many people are nearby that might be affected by smoke or some kind of activity like that.

Carrie: 1:03:40

Yeah. So you mentioned that you moved out of that position. The travel was a big part of that. So how did you navigate that and how did you go about trying to find something that better fit what you needed at that time? Cause I think that's a big piece we don't necessarily talk about when we talk about. Career trajectory with students either is, you know, it's really focused on like moving up and gaining skills or gaining education and, you know, moving into something you enjoy more or has more, whatever it is you're looking for your career path that we don't often talk about, but you may enter a season of life where there's parts of your job that just don't fit your life right then that you need to change. You know, it doesn't have necessarily have to do with the actual work that you're doing, but there's other things and travel's a huge one for a lot of people, right? Like, that can impact your life in a way where at some point you need to make a change.

Claire: 1:04:40

And I, I am not someone who likes change. I have always been resistant to change. My husband laughs at the story that when I got my braces taken off, I cried. It's like, yeah, I really, really don't like change. Travel was taking its toll, but I also loved my colleagues so much. There was so much I loved about my job, that I wasn't looking. I was happy where I was, although I had, my difficulties. But I got recruited, this position that I mentioned, and the person who was, I guess not the supervisor, but kind of the lead of this other position who had tried to bring me on three years prior, finally got permission to fill this position that had been sitting vacant, and she had been interested in hiring me, three years before, and knew I was still working for the Forest Service and still sitting in the Washington office. So, she started recruiting me, and saying that she really wanted me to apply. You know, she thought my skill sets would fit pretty well. And so the position posted and they started By trying to fill the position internally. Hiring in the federal government can be incredibly difficult, and it's easier if you hire from already within the federal government. The process is just easier. So oftentimes, and this is why I say the Presidential Management Fellowship is such a great in, because It's easy to get brought in. Whereas when feds are posting jobs, they will often try to fill them either internal to the agency or internal the federal government before they open it up more widely. So they started by trying to just fill it internally. And I didn't apply. I just I loved the air program so much. I was, you know, three years into my position and feeling like I was really hitting my stride and was really contributing. I just didn't feel ready, even though it would have been a promotion, even though I knew I would have enjoyed this other job, I just was resistant to change. The hiring effort failed. They didn't find anyone that they wanted to hire, so they reposted it, but this time did it externally. And through that time I was having conversations with my husband and just talking about, the pluses and minuses and it was really difficult, you know, the travel was taking its toll and I had been in the position in a few years and maybe it was time to try something new. But also, you know, I loved my colleagues and, I was really happy with a lot of aspects of my job. So ultimately I decided, I should take the chance and see what was out there and applied to this, this wider posting and ended up getting the position. And so I was excited, excited for a promotion, excited for a change, but also, I had been, at least in some ways, part of the AIR program for five years at that point. So it was difficult to step away.

Carrie: 1:07:34

Yeah. Well, tell us how it's been since then. So the last 10 years, you took that new position, and so you didn't have to travel as much. What kind of work were you getting to do moving into that new position? And what was it like going forward from there?

Claire: 1:07:49

Right. So now I'm part of the research and development branch. I switched into this position, technical title was the assessment program manager. I then had the opportunity to take a step up and be the lead for the resources planning act assessment. So there is a congressional legislation that says that the secretary of agriculture. Now, the Forest Service is part of agriculture. I know most people think we're interior, but we're agriculture. The Secretary of Agriculture needs to produce, a report assessing the trends, current status, and then projected futures of renewable resources across all forests and rangelands of the U. S. And so the Secretary of Agriculture delegates just this to the Forest Service, and this is done by Forest Service research and development. So every 10 years we need to produce this assessment, and it's incredibly broad in scope right past trends. We look at 50 year projected futures. We look across renewable resources. So we look at forests, which include things like urban forests and forest carbon forest product markets. We look at rangeland resources, water resources, wildlife and biodiversity and outdoor recreation. It's a huge scope. We also, when we make projections, we incorporate projections of climate change as well as projections of socioeconomic change because both of these factors affect the future availability and condition of renewable resources. And again, we look at all forests and rangelands, so it's not just forest service lands, it's private lands as well. So it's a huge portfolio. We have Lead scientists that work at all of our forest service research stations. So they work across the country. And from the Washington office, I lead and coordinate this assessment. So to keep a massive assessment like this recurring every 10 years, we're going on 50 years of producing the RPA assessment. It takes a lot of oversight and management. We have a certain amount of budget every year that we have to distribute. We have to get all of these different scientists together on a regular basis, talking with one another because when we make these projections about the future, we want to tell A consistent story about the future. So how do we do that across all these very disparate resource areas to tell a consistent story? And then we have to produce an assessment. So you have to, you know, get everything written and edited and cleared through upper levels of clearance and leadership. And then there's the outreach side of things. And so this is again where you bring that. Science and translated into management, you know, sitting in our Washington office. I work with a lot of folks still on the National Forest System side and the RPA assessment. I think of it as an absolute goldmine of information. You know that our managers are trying to manage 193 million acres of land And we have all this information about what our resources might look like 50 years from now. And so when they're making management decisions, that's incredibly valuable information for them to have so that they can plan accordingly. So I spent a lot of time trying to create those relationships and help facilitate. Getting all of the data and information that our scientists produce into the hands of the managers in a way in which they can use it to make decisions. So I've really ended up at a fantastic place where I'm again, bringing the science, to the managers and, to application and having an impact in that way. So it's really been a wonderful, wonderful job. And, work with an incredible team of scientists from across the country. So I feel incredibly lucky to have ended up where I am.

Carrie: 1:11:40

Yeah. And I know on, several episodes, we've talked about there's people who need to find meaning and fulfillment and connection in their work. And then there's some people who don't necessarily need that for themselves. And you know, they seek it in other places. And it sounds like just throughout our conversation, it sounds like you do get a lot of fulfillment and connection in the work that you do. So can you talk about that for a minute? Just kind of how that plays into your life, in what you're pouring yourself into on your work side of life.

Claire: 1:12:15

Absolutely. And I would say for anyone out there who, who is looking for meaning and fulfillment for their work, I encourage you to look at public service and federal service because I think there's so much work that our country is trying to accomplish and there's so much of an opportunity to have an impact and make a difference. I find my work, but really the work of the agency, very mission driven. I think everyone in the Forest Service can recite the Forest Service mission, which is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the nation's forest and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. And I just think Wow. What a mission that is. And like every day when I turn on my computer, I feel like that's what I'm doing. And I'm doing it in a very different way than I did when I was an air quality specialist. And I'm doing it in a different way than people. There are so many different types of roles, in the forest service. But at the end of the day, that's what we're all doing. And I think that we are all very mission driven people. And, that's what draws a lot of us to federal service and the specific mission to the forest service. So, for me, that's an incredibly important, I spend so many hours of the day, doing work and some days are more productive than others. You know, I get more done and other days I'm, you know, in back to back to back meetings and answering emails. But, at the end of the day, I know that all of it is in search of fulfilling that mission. And that keeps me incredibly motivated and what I'm doing and feel like I'm having an impact and helping to achieve that goal.

Carrie: 1:13:55

Yeah. So in addition to the mission driven work that you have in federal service, are there any other things about federal service that you feel like are a much different experience as a worker than say, like a typical corporate environment?

Claire: 1:14:13

Yeah, well, I haven't had that opportunity to work much on the private side or in corporate, but I think something that's really Amazing on the federal service side that I've had the opportunity to take advantage of it is that there are so many opportunities for growth and development. The federal government has so many needs and, really encourages us employees to test out different aspects, of the agency. So in the Forest Service, for example, I mentioned with fire. If you're interested in going out on a fire, you can go out, whether you're working the fire line, or you can be a public affairs officer. Within the air quality world, you could go be an air resource advisor out on a wildfire. But also we have the ability to do details. It's basically a four month assignment, in another job and you apply for it. There's a list of postings and you apply as you would kind of for any other job. Where I'm sitting in research. If I decide one day, you know what? I want to spend four months, working in our legislative affairs office to find out more about our relationships with what's going on on the hill. Or I want to spend four months with our budget shop, finding out really how we plan our budget and how we move the money around between the Washington office and the field. Really anything. If you want to try something within your promotion line, or if you want to try something completely different, that is completely open to you and supervisors are very supportive. It's incredibly common within our agency. So it's just such an opportunity for growth. I did a detail as the air program manager. So I managed the entire Forest Service air program for a detail. Also my current boss, did was acting as the deputy chief for all of research and development. And so I detailed in behind her and was the director of our staff area. And that's. actually a SES position, a senior executive service position. And so have the ability to do all of the supervisory roles that I don't do in my day to day job and really overseeing, big programs, like our forest inventory and analysis program. So. It's a really great opportunity and I think this is common across a lot of agencies, this ability to test out different jobs and, something that's really fun to take advantage of whenever you need a change of pace, for a little while.

Carrie: 1:16:37

Yeah, that's really awesome. So that's something that's available generally speaking across all agencies?

Claire: 1:16:43

Yeah, I think so. I know my husband's agency offers that. I think sometimes people even, you can do details across agencies. So you can even go outside of your own agency to do a detail, that probably a little more paperwork if you do that. But yeah, it's very common in the federal service and generally they're four months long. Details, which is a good period of time. Sometimes they can be longer though, as well.

Carrie: 1:17:05

Nice. So the responsibilities for your. For lack of a better term, your regular job, while you go for four months to do a different one. How does that work? Does someone else come in and fill that in while you go? Is it like musical chairs, kind of?

Claire: 1:17:19

Or dominoes? Yeah. Yes. It sometimes is a bit of a problem when you have people moving around so much. But yes, when you leave your position to do a four month detail. Your supervisor can then backfill behind you with a detailer, and depending on workload and whatnot, you kind of figure that out. I had an occasion where I didn't bring in someone behind me because of what I was working on. It just wasn't gonna work. And I ended up doing a little too much work, for four months. But in most of my other experiences, yes, someone else was brought in behind me. And sometimes I helped find that person.

Carrie: 1:17:57

As you look back on your journey, were there points in time where you received some advice from people that was particularly helpful to you to make decisions or move forward with something? Or is there just general life advice that may not at all be specific to your path that you've learned along the way that you would want to share?

Claire: 1:18:18

I guess what I would say most is to stay open. I think my path and Carrie having listened to several of your other episodes, it's definitely a theme that, life, happens to you and you can have a plan and having a plan is great. It helps us get where we want to go, but also you need to be open to veering off path, and letting opportunities take you in new directions. And also knowing that sometimes your life circumstances will dictate where you go or what job you take or where you end up. And that's okay. So. Having a plan is a wonderful thing, but also letting life happen and enjoying The sidetracks off of that path.

Carrie: 1:19:01

Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like you had a handful of them really that led to really incredible spaces for you.

Claire: 1:19:08

Absolutely. I definitely followed opportunities that came up, but at the same time, you know, I said I wanted to be an engineer slash scientist and to some extent, I am, so I both had a path and also veered off the path.

Carrie: 1:19:24

Well, and it's important for students to understand that how you picture that role is very likely not going to be what it ends up being, right? Because like when you say to be a scientist, there's a lot of people that are going to have a very specific image in their head when you say that, right? Right. But there's thousands of other ways to be a scientist than whatever picture you have in your head. Also just being open to, even if you do end up being the thing that your original goal was to be, it might look a lot different than what you think it's going to.

Claire: 1:19:57

Exactly. I certainly never said I wanted to RPA assessment when I was a kid. Did not know what that was. But yeah, You find out along the way, not only what you like studying, but also what you like doing in life and on a day to day basis and who you are and what brings forth passion and joy from you. So letting that guide you, as much as anything else.

Carrie: 1:20:21

Yeah. Well, if there's students out there who've been listening to your story and think You know, I didn't even think about the Forest Service as someplace I could end up in my career. Do you have any specific advice for them or any suggestions or perhaps a little plug to encourage people to look into that further?

Claire: 1:20:42

Absolutely. I mean, the Forest Service is all over the place. We have all of the different national forests, but we also have research stations. We also have regional offices that are located in cities. We have a branch that's devoted to state private and tribal forestry. So we do a lot. We show up in places that you don't really think about. And even when you're thinking about, you know, The National Forest, you don't really think necessarily about, okay, there are ecologists and botanists and there's fire professionals and, we do a lot and it is a fantastic place to work because of how much we do. So your career path within the Forest Service can take so many different directions and you're allowed and encouraged to have experiences across the breadth of what the Forest Service offers. So, if you're interested in research, if you're interested in ecology and land management, I definitely encourage you to give the Forest Service a look. I also certainly recommend fellowship programs. If you're coming out of a graduate school, the Presidential Management Fellowship is a great way to get hired. There are other different fellowship programs. There's a Resource Assistance Program. That is for undergrads, so you can look into that. But yeah, the Forest Service shows up in a lot of different places and has a lot of different opportunities to get out in the field or do research, or work from a Washington office doing more kind of oversight and policy. It's all there.

Carrie: 1:22:19

Okay. We can put a link to the fellowship information in the show notes. So we can put a resource there for students to click on if they're interested in what you were just talking about. Well, Claire, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story. There's been so much insight into this field that I'm sure a lot of people didn't necessarily know about. And so I'm excited to just bring this information for people to really consider a lot of different pathways and different ways to approach their journey. So thanks so much for sharing that today.

Claire: 1:22:53

Thank you so much for having me, Carrie. It's been a lot of fun and I really appreciate what you do with this podcast. I think it's important for students and young professionals to understand just how varied the options are out there. And how it's also okay, not to know what you want to be when you grow up.

Carrie: 1:23:11

Absolutely. Still trying to figure that out sometimes.

Claire: 1:23:14

Yes, exactly. All of us are.

Carrie: 1:23:15

Yeah. Thank you.

Claire: 1:23:17

Thank you, Carrie.

1:23:20

Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.