Jessica Smith (BS Geology, 2005)

I've been working at GeoEngineers since October 2005. I started as the primary field responder for our Emergency Spill Response Program. This means that (among other things) I carried a pager and responded to spills 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. I did this until Janaury 2007 when I began managing the spill program instead of responding to spills. So, I still carry a pager but now when it goes off I no longer have to respond to the spills, I coordinate the response and send people to the spills. The spill response program keeps me busy for about 40% of my time and I spend the rest of my time working on projects involving soil and/or groundwater remediation for a very wide variety of clients. When I first began here, I spent about 70% of my time in the field and 30% in the office, but as my job has evoloved I now spend about 95% of my time in the office and 5% in the field. I miss being in the field during the summer when it's beautiful outside, but the remaining 10 months of the year I am very happy to be in my office. GeoEngineers is a great company full of laid back and pleasant people to work with. I have been given many opportunities since I've been here to learn not only about the technical side of Environmental Consulting, but also about the business and management side.

I never would have found GeoEngineers if it wasn't for Charlie Rubin's End of Major Review class taken during my senior year. During that class, a representative of GeoEngineers came to speak about the different opportunities to people with Geology degrees and I managed to keep in contact with him through field camp until I was ready to find a job. My degree from Central helped prepare me for this job in many different ways, but mainly by teaching me how to write technical papers successfully (which I do A LOT of now), how to take meaningful and organized field notes that anyone can read and understand (thanks Nick and Charlie!!), how to solve problems and "think outside the box," how to effectively communicate and work in a group setting and how to do field work in any environment or weather conditions.

I live in Redmond with my husband of 5.5 years. He is an airline pilot for Skywest (Delta and United Connection flights). We're expecting our first baby (a boy!) on September 1st! So, needless to say, my plans of returning to school have been put on hold for a while. We love to travel and are very lucky to have airline benefits so we can jump on a plane to anywhere we want at anytime. We also do a lot of hiking/backpacking in the summer and snowshoeing in the winter.