Raincoast

In keeping with the theme of my last entry, it is often hard to know what it is that one wants to do, especially when the potential options are unknown. This has certainly been the case when looking at careers.

However, in the past month, two potential career options have presented themselves serendipitously.

The first lead came from a client at my weekend and summer job working as a water taxi pilot in Howe Sound. By chance, one gentleman overheard a conversation I was having with a regular customer regarding how my studies were going. After explaining my coursework and the various projects I had been working on, the client handed me his card and mentioned that I should send him an email once I had graduated. As it turns out, this man was the general manager at Hemerra Environmental, a boutique consulting firm covering a wide range of projects from wind and hydro installations to environmental assessments for the oil and gas industry.

I was hesitant at first, but have begun to think that consulting may be exactly what I want to pursue. It would involve dealing with many different projects, allowing me to utilize my multi-faceted education and look at problems from many different angles. My hesitation of having anything to do with the oil and gas industry faded away. These are industries that are not going away, why not work from the inside and make them as environmentally responsible as they can be. This is certainly a path that I will be pursuing in the future.

The second opportunity that presented itself was from a guest lecturer in what I consider to be the best course I have taken at UBC, APBI 402 Soil Processes. While working on a case study where we were required to construct a fabricated soil in order to systematically close the Vancouver Landfill, our guest lecturer, the president of Sylvis Environmental was quite inspiring. Sylvis is a residuals management company that primarily uses municipal biosolids as a carbon source in order to create healthy, fabricated soils to remediate sites such as mines and landfills. Being very interested in biosolids as a potential resource, I was immediately intrigued at the possibility of working with Sylvis.

Many APBI 402 students have worked with Sylvis and found it to be a very rewarding experience. I plan on following up and hope to begin working with industry residuals soon!

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