Division of Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment
School of Natural and Built Environments
School of Natural and Built Environments
Year of Graduation: 2000
Current Employer: The Nature Conservancy
Current Job Title: Conservation Planner/GIS Analyst
Honours: No
Most memorable experience on the degree program: Living in Adelaide
What is most challenging about your role?
Seeking first to understand and then be understood. You see, any
interactions with people or nature are always, to some degree, influenced by
their past and to really get a conservation strategy to work on the ground,
or generate a fire plan that is ecologically aligned, you must always be
open to dialogue and new information. In this way, meaningful results that
have the best possible likelihood of success can be achieved.
Do you have any advice for students about career progression?
Don't think you are going to land your dream job first time. If you do -
well done; but if you do not - don't sweat it. Each job I have done since
finishing my undergraduate studies has in some way (small or big)
contributed to the position that I am in now.
An example for my experiences - pulling weeds on a 3300 acre preserve for 3
months every weekend (and thinking at the time that my education is not
being used here what am I doing), and then 2 years later, being employed by
the same organization as a conservation easement monitor for the entire
state of Colorado, and then 1 year later, being responsible for designing
and implementing a uniform strategy of documentation and monitoring approach
to conservation easements for the state of Missouri. The point, at the time
you may not see that what you are doing is really adding much to your career
but the cumulative effect will show itself later.
