career

Join is! Come meet some extraordinary professionals working with water resources March 5th in the Journey Room (MU) from 6 - 8:30 PM!

We have invited an exceptional group of water-resources professionals to visit campus and share their perspectives on how to make the most of your education and training, how they achieved their own career goals, and what makes an applicant competitive in today's job market. Each panelist will give a short introduction about themselves, their training, and the work they do, leaving plenty of time for a question and answer session where students can get critical feedback on questions they have about how to successfully pursue their career.

THE PANELISTS

John Colby, Bureau of Land Management - Umpqua Field Office Hydrologist for the Coos Bay District Bureau of Land Management where he is involved in many aspects of  water quality and quantity monitoring (well water sampling for permit compliance, stream temperature monitoring, gaging station operation, water elevation monitoring as it relates to wetland development, tide gate monitoring using tilt loggers) and land-use management.  Mr. Colby’s current projects include applying his hydrologic expertise to environmental assessments of timber sales, a wetland creation project, and environmental clearance of a proposed pipeline that would cross BLM-administered lands.  Finally, he is also involved with layout, environmental clearance, implementation, and monitoring of in-stream salmon habitat enhancement projects.

Aja DeCoteau, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission - Member of the Yakama Nation, is the manager for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission's (CRITFC) watershed department. Prior to joining CRITFC, Aja served as the program manager for the Yakama Nation's Environmental Management Program in Toppenish WA. Aja has a strong background in regional water and air quality issues, environmental review and environmental health issues. She oversees restoration and protection of fish habitat projects under the tribes' salmon restoration plan while providing technical and funding support to CRITFC's member tribes.

John Dummer, Clean Water Services - Principal Engineer in the Watershed Management Department at Clean Water Services, where his responsibilities include implementation of the Tualatin Basin Water Supply Project.  He is also an advisory board member to the Professional Science Master’s program at OSU.  Click here to learn more about John Drummer.

Mischa Heys, Watershed Sciences, Inc - Holds an M.S. degree in Biology with an emphasis in Landscape Analysis/GIS, and a B.S. in Natural Resource Management.  He joined WSI Corvallis in 2005 as a LiDAR processing manager and has focused his technical expertise in specialty LiDAR products such as LiDAR, hydroflattening automation, integration of hydro-acoustic bathymetric LiDAR, and full point feature coding.  Mischa’s recent R & D focus has been on vegetation analysis including forest stand and tree segmentation and vegetation classification and attribution using LiDAR and other remote sensing datasets. 

Mark Ingman, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality - A recent graduate of OSU’s Water Resource Policy and Management Program where he studied the role of plastic film mulch (plasticulture) in applied agricultural systems. He is now a Natural Resource Specialist at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, where he works to reduce the risk of invasive species introduction by commercial ships that discharge ballast water into Oregon waters.  Learn more about Mr. Ingman’s experience and research here.

Mary Karen Scullion, United States Army Corps of Engineers - Hydraulic engineer and the regulator for the Willamette Project, which consists of a series of 13 dams in the Willamette Valley.  This means that she coordinates the project outflows to achieve the coordinating objectives of flood risk mitigation, power generation, rivers full of water for fish and people, lake based recreation, and overall water quality.  She has also worked in the fields of environmental remediation, construction and civil design.  Her education consists of a bachelor's in Civil Engineering and a master's in Engineering Management from the University of Alaska.

Nancy Toth, Environmental Associate, Eugene Water and Electric Board - Environmental Associate working to protect Eugene's sole source of drinking water - the McKenzie River in western Oregon.   With expertise in GIS, watershed protection, and environmental consulting, she is involved in a number of projects to help protect the watershed.  A short list includes: the GIS-based McKenzie Watershed Emergency Response System (MWERS), septic system assistance project, water quality monitoring, watershed mapping and analysis, local/sustainable agriculture, and an Agricultural Chemical Collection Event.  Click here to learn more about drinking water protection at EWEB.

Special thanks to OSU's Professional Science Master's Program for sponsoring the event!

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