I grew up wanting to be a veterinarian. As I was growing up I was fascinated with the Jacques Cousteau specials and the nature specials on PBS as well as Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. As I got older thought about my career, I decided that if becoming a veterinarian wasn't an option, I'd like to be a marine or freshwater fishery biologist. Well after two years of undergraduate school, my grades were not going to get me into veterinary school. I didn't really study in high school and I learned how to study during my undergraduate years. If there was a class that did not super interest me or the professor was a dud, I did not do well. I did well in most of my science classes. Although I thought it was interesting, organic chemistry was difficult and I struggled a little in biochemistry, which I also liked. I probably should have asked more questions and put my nose in the book more.
While in college I tried to get a summer job with NJ Fish & Game and with a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) lab in NJ with no success. In my junior year I got a summer job with Oregon State University's (at the time) School of Oceanography. I thank the support of my parents for letting me do this. I was in Oregon for 2 months. One of the professors got me on a 3-week NOAA research cruise from Coos Bay, OR to Tokeland, WA. It was incredible.
As my senior year of college was coming to an end, I was short about 7-10 credits of graduating. I was going to go to the University of North Carolina during the summer to take my last credits, but I got offered a job my the NMFS lab in New Jersey. I decided to take the job and go back to MSU to graduate in the fall. I think both the summer job with OSU and the summer job with NMFS were instrumental in opening doors for future employment.
After graduation from MSU, I got a job with NMFS in Galveston, TX for about 2 years. Lost it due to budget cuts and moved back home. I was able to get a job with the NJ NMFS lab (I had called them up to see if there were any jobs) without even interviewing. I worked there for about a year and it was decision time....I had applied to graduate school and got accepted at Humboldt State (now Cal Poly Humboldt) or stay with NMFS because they were working on getting me permanent, which I had a high probably of getting, but the proverbial wrench could have been thrown in it at the last minute. So I opted to go do grad school.
In grad school I was having trouble agreeing to a project with my major professor and I was running out of money as I had no stipend. I moved back home and got on with NMFS again. I was also thinking of applying to Rutgers and working and going to school as I got a professor to sponsor me. However, they changed my status from temporary to intermittent and I was laid off after reaching my maximum amount of hours. I had written to my major professor at Humboldt and he suggested I contact the CA Coop Fish & Wildlife Unit. The coop unit had two projects, a project looking at stocking in an alpine lake and another project conducting a genetic analysis of steelhead in the South Fork Trinity River. It was agreed/decided that I would do the genetic study and back to CA I went. It was like a light switch was turned on. I loved the genetic work...both the lab work and collecting my samples in the field. If I had to work 7 days a week, so what.
As my lab work was coming to an end and thesis writing was approaching, I started looking for work. I applied for a position with the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Arcata, but lost out on the flip of a coin.
I ended up taking a job in with the USFWS in Gainesville, FL and then took jobs in Alaska, Maryland, and Texas (with NMFS, a university and Texas Parks & Wildlife). I was in Texas for for months before I got hired by the Washington Dept. of Fisheries. The work in Alaska and Maryland was genetics and my initial job with WDF was also in genetics. Several years after being in my unit, I decided that although I was surer happy with my work, I was very unhappy with my environment. So when the opportunity arose, I lateraled into another position within Fish Program (in hindsight, maybe I should have stuffed it out a little longer). So after leaving the genetics world, I was doing work that I admit I did not love, but was in an environment that I loved.
In about a 10 year period I average a move about once a year due to not liking the job/employer or the area. I was in the middle of nowhere in my second stint in Texas and I was not enjoying the area nor the employer. The only good thing was a co-worker taught me how to water ski.
I have now been in Washington for 34 years.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed longer in any of the places I previously worked in before coming to Washington. With that said, I have no regrets about the path I chose as I got to see and experience a lot of different and amazing things. I have also met some really wonderful people. For example, in my NMFS job in Texas, I went on research cruises from 5 to over 200 miles in the Gulf. It was incredible how blue the water became and how clear it was (visibility to 100 ft) when you got away from the influence of the Mississippi River. In Florida, I got to see a turtle biologist check out a nest and he found two hatchlings. It was amazing to see them make beeline to the ocean. I also sampled on NASA property and drove by the launch pads and vehicle assembly building. And on one occasion, had M-16s trained on me and my co-worker while we were pulling in a net. In Alaska, one memorable experience was my first helicopter ride (to a sampling site) and another was seeing the northern lights for the first time.
Sorry for being so long-winded (but I enjoy talking about it). For me I stumbled around for a while until I found a job that I really liked as well as the area. But once I got into fisheries, I never thought about working in any other field and I was fortunate I was able to stay in the field until I retired.
