Warner College of
Natural Resources

How my career path unfolded:

After graduation, I moved to the mountains (Leadville) and became a raft guide for a couple years. I then met my current husband and we moved to Frisco, Colorado. Shortly thereafter, a colleague of mine from CSU (a watershed graduate) got in touch with me about a job as a hydrogeologist. He was working for a water resource consulting company and they needed someone to install groundwater wells and perform some water modeling. We worked on the water resources for the City of Parker to come up with their projected water needs in relation to growth. We also tested the groundwater and surface water in and around Cherry Creek for water quality and flows.

After 6 months, I moved on to SECOR International Inc in Golden, CO. We are a nation wide company that focuses on groundwater clean up and environmental engineering. I am currently the project manager for a large convenience store and petroleum distributor. I
manage the state of Colorado and when any of the stores we manage has a gas spill, either above or below ground, we respond and begin clean up as necessary. I currently manage 30+ sites where we have gasoline impacts to the soil and groundwater. We install monitoring wells and sample them quarterly to monitor the gasoline plumes and the breakdown of the contaminants. If the site has serious impacts, we design underground engineering systems to pull those contaminants out of the ground.

The work I do on a daily basis:

I began as a field geologist, drilling and installing monitoring wells, monitoring and sampling wells and writing reports. After three years, I have become the project manager and I have a staff of four people working for me, an administrative assistant, a field technician, a field geologist and an engineer. On a day to day basis, I schedule sampling of sites, manage financial information and budgets, review reports for the state and manage deadlines, as well as, other project management tasks and specific tasks that our clients requests.

How my degree prepared me:

I think my degree from CSU prepared me very well with the geology knowledge that I needed in the field.

Faculty member who had the greatest impact:

I really enjoyed Sally Sutton and Eric Erslev. I remember Sally and Eric mostly because they were tough teachers, but also because they knew what they were teaching and knew how to teach it. As long as you showed them effort and interest in what they were presenting to you, they would help you figure things out and be become better prepared for the tests and material you needed to learn.

Favorite class at Warner CNR:

I really enjoyed all my classes because I am a geology geek and I love geology. None of the classes in the Warner CNR were easy, but they were all interesting.

Advice to students:

work hard and enjoy college as much as you can without letting your academics suffer. Also, aim for a decent grade point average, but do not focus all your time on that item. Your life outside the classroom is important, especially in the people you meet and the contacts you make. So far, I have gotten jobs in my field based on people I knew.