Carol Webber McAdams (BS Geology, 2008)

Currently, I am working for the State of Wyoming as, you guessed it, a geologist! I am part of the Department of Environmental Quality, Water Quality Division, Underground Injection Control Program. It's a mouthful, but basically my job is to protect underground sources of drinking water by making sure that folks injecting wastes into the ground put them in "the right spot" (i.e. a naturally low quality aquifer that is sufficiently confined from, and well beneath, any useable/drinkable aquifers). I get to study the geology of Wyoming, look at cross sections, discuss porosity and permeability, discuss groundwater flow) I have been at this job for 7.5 months now and it is going very well.

I get a lot of field time, whether it's snowing, blowing, or sunny and the content is challenging from a technical aspect, which I love... I even get to do math on a regular basis! I came to this job after having worked for Versar, Inc. for just over three years as a consultant doing environmental work for the Department of Defense at Fort Lewis (aka Joint Base Lewis-McChord). While I completely appreciated and mostly enjoyed what I was doing at Ft. Lewis, it was not related to my geology degree and I wanted to get back to what I loved.

In Februrary of 2011, my husband Andrew deployed to Kuwait so I took that opportunity to pursue a geology-related job in his hometown of Cheyenne, WY where we have wanted to live for some time. Obviously it turned out well, as I have a much more technical, geology related job, and now live in WY! Andrew returns from deployment in less than two weeks now (!!!) and we will complete our move to WY together!

I loved my time at Central - it was priceless.