Blog Entry #10

This past week I had an interview with Erich Neupert, the executive director of the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center, and Melissa Guevara, the Green Team Coordinator with Groundwork Dallas. Both are similar in that their jobs requires just as much public outreach as it does hard science. The public outreach portion of environmentalism has really grown on me over the past few weeks because it allows me to use my outgoing personality as well as my creativity to solve problems. In addition, public outreach has the potential to make real, lasting change in conservation and society as a whole. I really admire how Erich Neupert started with very little and has built Blackland Prairie into one of the ten largest raptor rehabilitation centers in the country. I see myself not as a scientist, but as an environmental-entrepreneur, somebody who has a vision and works toward it. My favorite interviews have been with people who fit this mold, the directors of nonprofit organizations instead of the scientists. I plan on learning more about this field by scheduling more interviews and learning more about these people’s backstory and goals. The information will help me decide what I do in ISM and how I can accomplish my goals.