Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 775: How to Work for Wildlife with Chris Borgatti and Matt Ross

Transcript

Ep. 775: How to Work for Wildlife with Chris Borgatti and Matt Ross · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the show, we are discussing how to make a living
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: in a conservation related field, as well as advice for
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: how to be a more effective volunteer, conservationist and advocate.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I'm joined by Chris Bergotti from back Country Hunters and
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Anglers and Matt Ross of the National Dear Association. All Right,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: welcome back to another episode of the Wire to Hunt podcast,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light and their Camel for
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Conservation initiative, which is quite relevant to our discussion today
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: because Camel for Conservation is a that benefits the National
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Deer Association. Every purchase of first Light's spector cameo pattern,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: so it could be their source jacket, it could be
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: one of their base layers, could be a hat, whatever
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: it is inspector portion of that sale. The proceeds go
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: to the National Deer Association and a member and a
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: staff member over at the NBA is with us today
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: as well as another person from another great conservation organization, BHA.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: They're with me today to discuss two different ways that
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you can work for wildlife, two different ways that you
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: can give back to the natural world and the resources
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: that we as hunters and anglers and outdoors people, you know,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: that we enjoy so much. It's Earth Week, right, Monday
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: was Earth Day, So I know a lot of people
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: are taking a little extra time this week just to
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: think about how can we give back to Planet Earth.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: How do we take care of these resources that you know,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: we enjoy so much, And so it seemed like now
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: would be a good time for us to do that too.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So the plan, as I alluded to in the introduction,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: is to talk through these two different things.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Number one, what if you want to make a living
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: in this world, how can you go about being a
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: professional conservationist? This is a question I get quite a lot.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: People are curious, you know, how do I get into
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: this line of work? How can I get a job
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: where I'm in some way giving back in some way
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: doing something good for the environment, for wildlife or hunting
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and fishing. It's a tough question to answer in a
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: quick email or an Instagram message. So I'm glad that
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: we finally found a way to do this in a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: long form kind of format. So we're going to discuss
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the pros and cons of working professionally in conservation. We're
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: going to hear from our two guests and hear about
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: their own personal stories and how they landed the jobs
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: they're in, and the winding path they took throughout their careers.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about I think I mentioned pros and cons,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: but we will talk about the drawbacks and some of
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the considerations that you need to think about if you
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: decide to pursue this line of work. And then we
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: also talk about like how to get a job like this,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Like what are the most important things to do? What
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: are the ways to open up opportunities that you might
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: be able to make a living doing good things for
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: wildlife and wild places. So that's part one of this chat,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: and then part two of the chat is, Hey, what
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: if I don't want to change my job. What if
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you want to keep on doing whatever it is with
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: your career, but you still want to find a way
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: to be a more effective conservationist in your free time?
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: How could you do that? What kind of things can
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: make you a more effective advocate, What kinds of things
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: can help you make more of a positive difference on
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: your nights or weekends, spare time here and there, That
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: and much much more is what we chat about today
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: with my guests Chris Borgatti, who is the Eastern Policy
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: and Conservation manager for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Matt Ross,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the director of Conservation for the National Dear Association.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And we already recorded the chat, so.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I'm coming off of that right now, and I'm gonna
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: give you a teaser, I guess, and tell you that
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I came out of this one energized, rejuvenated, pumped up,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: and excited to keep doing this kind of work and
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: to try to do even more of it. You'll hear from
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: all three of us here that this kind of pursuit,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: whether you do it professionally or you know, as a
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: side things, as a volunteer, you know, just part of
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: your weekends or nights or whatever it is, doing this
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: kind of thing fills the cup.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of things in life that drain you, right.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of things that can wear you down.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of things that can take the energy
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: out of you. Take that kind of suck your soul, right.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I think all of us have done things like that
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: and giving back to the natural world, especially if you
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: can be out there and enjoying it at the same time. Man,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: that just builds you. It just brings so much light
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and energy back into your life. So I can't recommend
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: it enough, and I hope you enjoy this chat as
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: much as I did. It's Earth Week.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Let's celebrate it. Man.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: We are the luckiest folks in the world. The fact
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: that we have so much open space still here in
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: North America, the fact that we can still hunt, the
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: fact that we can still fish, that there's clean water,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: that there's clean air, that they're pretty abundant wild species
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: across big parts of this country still like that is
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: not the case everywhere. That was not always the case here.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: We've had some ups and downs in the history of America,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: and we got to make sure that we keep it
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: going up and do not let it slide down, because
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: this is just too damn important. It's too good. The
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: things that we can go and share with our kids,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: the things that our grandkids could experience someday, the things
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: that you and I could take off this weekend and
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: see firsthand is stuff out of a fairy tale For
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: some people in different parts of the country. These are
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: things that you know, we're living the dream in many ways,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: and I try to pinch myself and remind myself of
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: that as often as possible. We can't take it for granted.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: We got to take care of this beautiful planet and
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: the wild creatures that live on it, because man, they
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: have given us so so much.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: So with all that said, I.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Hope you guys enjoyed this one. I'm excited. Let's get
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: to work. Here we go, all right, joining me now
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: on the show. I've got two great guys, great conservationists,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: and I think perfect guests for our topic today, Matt
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Ross and Chris Borgotti. Thank you, gentlemen for being here.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Great to be here.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: Likewise, Yeah, appreciate it. Mark.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I know you're both busy. I know you're both jet
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: setting from place to place it seems like all the time,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: so you know, making time to have this kind of conversation,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: especially Chris, I know you're at a hotel room right
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: now in the middle of a convention. Not easy to do,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: so I want to be respectful of your time time
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: and just jump right into the meat of our topic
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: today in this week, which is working for wildlife. And
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I mean that in a slightly larger more holistic way
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: than maybe I've talked in using that term in the past,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: because you know, anyone listening and you guys too, both
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: know about the Working for Wildlife tour. But I want
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about what it means to
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: work for wildlife just on a day to day basis
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: in their own individual lives. I think there's probably two
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: ways people could go about doing this. There's one way,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, being a volunteer, being an advocate,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: finding different ways in your own personal life, in your
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: kind of side time, your extra time to in some
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: way help out wildlife or wild places or a species
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: that you particularly care about, public land, whatever it is.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: But then, one thing we've not really talked much about
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: on this show, but I think a lot of people
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: are curious about, is how to do that professionally, which
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: is something both of you guys do you have found
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: a way to make a living doing good things for
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the natural world. Raise your hand, Well, that's not a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: good way. I was gonna tell you to raise your
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: hands but people listening would not be able to see
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: that there are some people watching. But I was going
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: to ask you, you know, do either one of you get
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: emails the way I do about people asking like how
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: do I get into constant conservation work professionally? Are there
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: jobs like that? How could I make a living do
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: this kind of thing? How did you get into it?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I got to believe you two have got those types
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: of requests too.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, absolutely, I mean I get a decent amount
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: of them. I'm sure Christo's as well. And I'd say
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: there's more that are coming from people that are in
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: a career already that are thinking about kind of reverting.
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: But I get a fair amount of students that reply
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: or not just me to our organization of how do
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: you know how do I get a job with you?
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: Guys that you know that they're in school. But I'd
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: say the line share is coming from a person that
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: is maybe younger, but in a career and wanting to
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: want to change a career path.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what about you, Chris?
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 9:12
  Speaker 6: For me, it's I would say mostly people who've already
• 9:16
  Speaker 6: who are already an established career. I think in part
• 9:21
  Speaker 6: they're interested because that's sort of what I did, but
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: also people kind of transitioning naturally. I've had Actually, when
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: I was at Rondezvous this past week, I had a
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: number of individuals who were coming out of military service
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: asking me about, you know, how do you get involved
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: in conservation professionally? Actually, though, yesterday at this conference, I
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: had a luncheon with current graduate students and I was
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: honestly quite surprised given that a lot of the people
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: at this conference were professional science professionals working agencies and
• 9:57
  Speaker 6: things like that. But several people, several of the students
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: asked me about working in an NGO and what that's like,
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: and and uh, you know, public or like a federal
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: or state agency versus a nonprofit. So there's definitely you know,
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: there's definitely people who are interested.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: When you get that question, Chris, and they're they're kind
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: of curious about it. Do you encourage them or do
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: you warn them off?
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Uh? I don't. I'm honest.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: I'm very honest with the pros and the cons and
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: and one of the things questions I kind of put
• 10:37
  Speaker 6: back onto them is you know.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: What what are you looking for?
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: And what is the balance of things that you value
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: in terms of work? Life, personal life is it? Are
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: you a passionate outdoors person who thinks this is going
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: to allow you to hunt more?
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: You know, with questions like that, and I think and
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: their responses, I can kind of give them a little
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: bit more tailored response. And but again I'm pretty honest
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: about it. It's not always glamorous. It's it can it
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: can be a grind, just like any job.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: There's but there, you know, there are different buckets, as
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: you're kind of alluding to, Mark. You know, there is
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: the nonprofit or NGO world, which we both work in,
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: Chris and I.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: There is agency work, state or federal. There's there's the
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: private sector, you know, private consulting. There's advocacy work and
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: advocacy groups. Uh, there's resource managers, which kind of like
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: overlaps a different of the you know, different categories, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: it does really you know, they all have benefits and
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: drawbacks and I find a lot of joy I really
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: thought I was going one direction early in my career,
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: more to like an agency person.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Uh, and I did.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: I worked at you know, seasonal work for a state
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: agency for in wildlife, but I ended up in the
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: nonprofit world. Uh. And I wouldn't have expected that early
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: in my career. But I'm really I've been here a
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: long time. I'm really pleased with it. And I think
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: one of the things that we both do our organizations,
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: our parent organizations is strong on grassroots, you know, community
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: based work, and it's all and we also do strong
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: educational campaigns and then there's all those other categories that
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: fall under it. And so it's just it's working with people.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: And if you were a private in the private sector,
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: you're you're working with the resource and your outdoors a lot.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: If you're with agencies, you're also managing the resource or
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: populations and you work for the people. But it can
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: be a very adversarial kind of relationship with people. Sometimes
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: it's unfortunate. But we have the great fortune of being
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: looked as we say the same message as all those
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: other people and those groups we're right in step with,
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: you know, ecological health and you know population balance and
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: and and habitat and all of the things that we
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: all talk about. But for whatever reason, the people in
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: NGOs tend to be held a little bit higher on
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: a pedestal from a trust factor, and you know, almost
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: like a heroic type thing, which I don't know. Maybe
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: it's my ego and that's why I've been here for
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: nearly twenty years. But yeah, I mean there are those
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: different categories, but there's drawbacks too, as Chris said, and
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: I don't know if your podcast wants to be about
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: that today, what are all the drawbacks? But there are
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: these different buckets that you can work in and they
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: all have really there's there's a benefit to it to
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: the person, but they also have a purpose for you know,
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: each of those jobs can really mean a lot for
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: the resource.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: If you like being alone.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: Outside a lot, you don't like working with people, you
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: might go one path, you know.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: So that's that's what I think about it.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do want to get into some of those
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: pros and cons and different you know, recommended paths based
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: on what you're trying to get out of it. But
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: maybe the best way to get into that would just
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: be to look at your own personal examples of how
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: you picked your path and where it took you, at
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: least as a starting point. You could you maybe kick
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: it off, Matt with with what your journey looked like.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, did you know from the time you were
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: in high school that this is what you wanted to do,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: or if not, how did this whole thing get kicked off?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Then how did you get to where you are now?
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: I did know from a very early age that I
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: wanted to work in an outdoor sector, specifically deer, and
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: you know, I work for the National Deer Association. So
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: when I look back at my journey, I'm very proud
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: of myself, which is a good thing for anybody to feel.
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: But that was because I grew up in a family
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: that deer hunted, and I belonged to like a sports
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: you know, rotten gun club with my dad and uncles
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: and was around that, and so from high school, you know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: later in high school, I was really interested in how
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: I could make that happen. And one of my relatives
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: was friends with somebody that worked for the our state
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: Wildlife Agency. And I live in the state New York
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: up kind of in the hills of the Adirondecks, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: one of the wildlife biologists, regional biologists, was friends with
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: my uncle, and so I talked to him about what
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: I would need to do to kind of work with deer,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: and that set me off on a path of looking
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: at schools that had degrees in wildlife and I went
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: to college in Massachusetts Chris for wildlife biology, got a degree,
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: and then I actually for a bachelor's and went back
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: home and started working as a seasonal wildlife technician for
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: three or four years doing game and non game work.
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: I did some pretty cool stuff work with peregrin falcons
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: and owls, and a lot of deer work and habitat work,
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: and then decided I need to go back to grad school.
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: Just from the path that I was thinking, I was
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: going to go into a role that needed a master's
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: degree and got my masters in wildlife again, the whole
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: time thinking I was going to work and not go
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: to get a PhD, but work in some resource manager's role.
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: Got a master's working with deer in New Hampshire, which
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: was an awesome experience. And before I was even done
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: with school, I got a job working for a private
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: wildlife and forestry consulting company in New England and that
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: was amazing. I really I missed parts of that job.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Honestly. On a day to day.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: I would go out just I worked for a guy
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: that owned the company and there was a small crew
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: of us, but on a day to day it was
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: just me and my chocolate lab in my pickup truck.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: You know, a guy in his twenties mark and timber,
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: putting paint entrees, work, talking to loggers, talking to landowners,
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: making prescriptions of what to do. So I was out
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: there managing habitat for several years, got my license in forestry,
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: and I was introduced to the NGO world as a
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: volunteer as a member. So, and you know, I knew
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: about several of the groups from a deer side, though
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: I didn't know there was a deer group out there,
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: you know, being a Northeasterner. There are some other deer
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: groups that I think have been around as long or
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: longer than NDA in the Midwest, but I just didn't
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: know of them. And so at the time our organization
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: was growing. Quality Deer Management Association was the name back then,
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: and I joined when I was my last year in
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: grad school. Became a member, started getting the magazine, started
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: a local chapter we call them branches. I was an officer,
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: so I did the volunteer thing, still do. Actually we
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: have a local group, and eventually I saw a lot
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: of value. And I can get into this deeper if
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: you're interested. But I saw a lot of value in
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: the NGO side and applied for a job and got
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: it in two thousand and six. So I had done
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: the net the outside, you know, working on habitat for
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: six years, and then got a job with then QDMA.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: And it's been coming up eighteen years the spring that
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: I and I've served in various roles, worked with our
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: volunteers in the Northeast.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: That was my job.
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: Initially, I was a regional director and then moved into
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: our conservation department. I ran our conservation services and training
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: program called dear Steward and developed a program for land
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: certification and anyway, you know here I am all these
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: years later, but so that that's my journey in a
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: five minute snippet.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel like you've got like the kind
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of the more traditional path I think, in which you
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: knew from an early age, you got an education, specifically
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: wildlife based, you went and became a practitioner on the ground,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: and then have moved into like a more managerial role
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: of sorts. I guess maybe manager might be the wrong word,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: but but you know, I see something different with Chris
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: from what I know about Chris's background. Can you tell
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: us about your path to this point.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Chris, Sure, mine is very different.
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: So I yeah, I was in college as a double
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: major environmental science and geography. I sort of thought I
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: would be going into sort of the environmental field in
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: some way, and that's what I did. I started my
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: career as a environmental engineer and was doing all sorts
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: of projects for large wastewater type of projects for large
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: basically most of our clients were large corporations, and doing
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: that work, you know, it was it was really good
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: in terms of the paycheck, but I found that my
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: clients were oftentimes not necessarily sharing the same values I
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: had in terms of the environment, and they were just
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: basically trying to be compliant. And so I kind of
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: had this man, I just I wasn't sure that this
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: was the place for me. And to be honest, I
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: took that job because of the paycheck, and I kind
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: of figured that that is what I'm supposed to do.
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: You know, I've been you know, I've done great in school,
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: have done great in sports, Like this is like you're
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: supposed to achieve and this is sort of a value.
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: And it just occurred to me that no, like I
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: have to have a better impact on the world around me,
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: and so I stepped away from that became a trout
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: bum for a short period of time. I'd like to
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: like to say that I'm completely recovered. If anybody completely recovers, Yeah, well,
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: I've mostly been able to satisfy that by checking flies
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: at saltwater fish a lot. But anyways, before graduate school,
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: someone I was planning on applying to graduate school. There
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: may have been a little bit of an intervention there
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: to kind of encouraged me along the way. And I
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: was going to get there, but you know, I had
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: money in the bank and fish to catch, so I
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: I basically someone suggested, Hey, you should go teach at
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: a at an urban school, and you know, teach a
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: year before graduate school make a difference. And I thought
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: that sounded like actually a good idea. And you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: back in those days there's actual newspapers when employment sections
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: and opened up. The newspaper found a science teaching job
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: in Boston, called it up and the principal answered the
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: phone and said, you know, very sorry, the position has
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: been filled. And I asked her if we could do
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: an informational interview because I didn't know anything about schools,
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: didn't know anything about teaching she agreed. I came in
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: and we hit it off right away. I was asking
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: her about her students and the community and the curriculum,
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: and she just stopped mid sentence and said, hey, if
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: I can, if I could offer you this job, or
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: you take it. And I thought to myself, well, yeah sure,
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: and she said, excuse me. She got up went into
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: her secretary's office. I overheard a conversation and the person
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: on the outer line she was talking to she said,
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: I think I've made a mistake or I've made a mistake.
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: The position's no longer available. And that is when I
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: became a teacher. And that was a nearly two decade
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: period of time I was a teacher in that time.
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: I worked at that school for a couple of years,
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: went to graduate school at Boston College, and found my
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: way out of prep school north of Boston, and worked
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: there for about seventeen years. And it was actually a
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: student's question in my class, one of my environmental science
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: class classes.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: He asked if we.
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: Could talk about hunting and an upcoming unit on food
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: and food systems and food and food systems, a topic
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: that I worked on as an undergrad and I was
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: sort of saving it from when I was going to
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: return after paternity leave. It was right before I went
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: on leave, and I told him, hey, you know, I
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: don't know very much about hunting. I do some research
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: and I will incorporate it when I get back. And
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: I picked up a number of books and you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: started doing some research in that little, you know night
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: when I'm taking care of the baby and all that
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: kind of thing. And it wasn't long before I came
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: to the question, why am I not doing this? Why
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: am I not hunting. I've been fishing my entire life.
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: I'm in the outdoors and in all these places. I'm
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: concerned about where my food comes from. And without having
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: any people in my family that really hunts other than
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: a younger cousin, I called them up. I said, I'm
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: taking hunter safety and then to come down to Virginia
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: and you're gonna teach me what you know.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: And that's where it started.
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: And you know, in that process, I discovered backcountry hunters
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: and anglers and got attended a couple events. Next thing
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: I know, I'm helping out with the Massachusetts State Leadership team.
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: And then a year or two after that, I joined
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: the New England Board became increasingly involved in policy and
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: and that kind of work, and with some really rapid
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: growth in the chapter HQ, I need to get a
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: full time staffer in the Northeast, the chapter coordinator. This
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: is around the period of COVID when teaching was not
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: exactly a great time when you're remote and all that
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: kind of stuff, And I just thought, you know what,
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: I'm passionate about this. I want to continue to make
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: a difference. This satisfies that, and applied and was offered
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: the job. And I've been doing that for a couple
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: of years now, and this a few months ago. I
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: was promoted to Eastern Policy Manager and so a little
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: shift in my day to day.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's the quick version of how I ended
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: up here.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: That's awesome, Chris, super courageous, and I find like depths
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: of inspiration here in stories like yours. I mean, really
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: just kind of amazing. And there's more folks out there
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: just like you, and they should take that leap.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, that is awesome.
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And to be honest, I had a lot of
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: people not just asking me about making a you know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: mid I guess I'm in mid life, so they tell me.
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: I still feel still feel pretty pretty young. A lot
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: of people outside the conservation space, just former colleagues of mine,
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: friends of mine, when they heard of me making a
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: pretty dramatic change career wise, they wanted to talk about it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: They wanted to know how like the courage to do it,
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: and of course, like I had support, I had support
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: from my wife, I had you know, I was fortunate
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: to be in a position where I could take that leap.
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: And yeah, and to be honest, I'm really glad I did.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Uh talk to me a little bit about your decision
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: making process and motivations other than like you felt drawn
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: to do it. But I got to believe your old
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: job had a steady, very reliable paycheck. You had history there.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: You you know, you knew what you had been doing,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: you knew what it was gonna look like moving forward.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: You worked at a very you know, really nice prep school,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: seemed you know, kind of glamorous within that world maybe
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a little bit. And now you're gonna take off work
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: for an upstart conservation organization. I don't know for sure,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: but just from what I know about NNGO is usually
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: it's less pay. Uh you know, why why would someone
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: do that?
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: Uh? I get that, get that question a lot, and yeah,
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: it in terms of if you had asked me five
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: years ago, would I be doing working conservation, I'd say no.
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: I totally planned on retiring as an educator at this school.
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: I could not have worked at a better school. It
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: was phenomenal, you know, as someone who's coming from a
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: science background. They allowed me to continue to do professional development,
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: to go to graduate school, to take courses, and I
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: was able to do climate change research in the art Arctic.
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: I was tagging sharks in Monterey, California. Like those were
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: my professional development experiences. It was a great place to be.
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: But you know, I just, you know, after sort of
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: immersing myself in them in this space, I recognized that
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: that I could make an impact and I had this,
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: I had this opportunity to do it, and you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: in life, you don't get many of those opportunities.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: So Yeah, while there was certainly a little.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: Bit of a decrease in benefits for sure, you know, salary,
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: the fact that I could have had my boys go
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: to that school tuition free, things of that nature, I
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: just I just felt like this was something that I
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: that I wanted to do and.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: It was sort of like a fresh fresh start.
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: And and like I said in the beginning, when I
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: had that initial career change, like it was really when
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: I came to that realization that I couldn't just do
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: a job, that I had to be able to have
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: an impact on the world around me and the things
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: that are important to me. You know, that was something
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: that I really reflected upon. And yeah, and that was
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: always something when my students would always ask me at
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: the last you know, especially my seniors.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: My seniors would ask.
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: Me about you know, the the the you know, any
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: parting words or advice, and I was I always told them, like,
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: I blow them off, and like, I'm not.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Giving you guys advice. Do you guys can figure it out.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: That's part of life.
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: But one of I really got pinned down one time
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: by some students and I'm like, all right, I'll give
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: you a couple And one of those things was to
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: to to take a career where you can make a
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: positive impact. And so many of my students were really
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: interested in what I was interested in graduating college, which
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: was you know, having making that you know, having that
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: big career and and all that kind of stuff. So yeah,
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: it was an opportunity to do that. It was an
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: opportunity to continue to have an impact. And yeah, so,
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: like I said, I took the jump.
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: I think that I think that job satisfaction thing is
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: a huge part of well, I mean, it's starting at
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: the volunteer level all the way up to like careers
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: like you're talking about, Chris and Mark wants us to
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: kind of dive into is. I mean, I think one
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: of the reasons I've stuck with it for so long
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: is I do feel like I make a difference and
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: I can see it. It's tangible, and uh, no matter
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: what level you're working on, I've always kind of tried
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: to elevate that. Each time I've had a promotion or
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: a decision to jump into a career like I did,
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: the same thing trickles down all the way down to
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: the volunteer because they feel like they're making a difference
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: than they are. And one of the things I think
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: I heard this actually on one of the trivia meat
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: Eater trivia's is the highest job satisfaction out there is
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: like foresters, you know, they feel like they make a
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: difference because they're outdoors. It's obviously a little stress doing
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: that you're just hanging out with trees, but you can
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: see change. You can see it. It's tangible, and that
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: relates to any job.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: And if you're.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: Dissatisfied with work, it's really hard to justify that paycheck.
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: So one of the upsides then of making your career
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: revolving some way around conservation is that there's this real
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: sense of satisfaction and fulfillment and purpose. And I would
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: say that's something that I felt in my work on
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: What are some of the other things on the positive
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: side of the career choices you've made that are worth highlighting?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Anything else other than other than impact in the way
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: you've discussed it, Is there anything else like when you
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: look back in your career choice that you're like, man,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: this is this definitely goes in the pro's column that
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: someone listening maybe hasn't thought about.
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: Man, There's so many things that fall under make a difference.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: You know, they're all like subcategories.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: I feel like.
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: Being able to work in a community that is like
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: minded is a positive. You know, you get you get
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: energy from like minded souls, people that work for the
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: organization that I'm employed by, but others that that is
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: a huge positive it's like a daily dose of adrenaline,
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: you know, to feel that motivation. You know, from a
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: deer hunting deer management things have changed. I'm in my
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: later forties. It's a pretty different world out there, in
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: good and bad. You know, there's some from at a
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: population level, and that's one of the things I really
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: enjoy about my job is working at a national level,
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: running national conservation programs and seeing change changes in the
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: actual population of hunters. How that's changing, good and bad.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: You know, we're losing hunters, but seeing a different demographic
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: pick it up, seeing deer heard health change. But then
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: there's the negative to the CWD issue that we all
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: know about. And so I feel like one of the
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: things that I have high again job satisfaction is is
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: I'm in the mix. You know, the company I work
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: for is in the mix, and I'm right there at
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: the table about talking about those at a national scale.
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: And if I worked for myself or worked in the
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: private sector, I'd be in a couple counties. Or if
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: I work for state agency and I was the state's
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: deer biologists, i would work at a state level. But
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: I really like talking about things at a national, national scope.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: So that's one thing that comes to mind too from
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: a positive.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: What about you, Chris, Yeah, I would agree with matt
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: first point. I think one of the most.
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: One of the best parts of it are working with
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: the people like our grassroots chapter level, our chapters, our
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: chapter leaders, just our members who are active. It is
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: such an awesome community and there are so many talented
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: people that give so much of their time and resources
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: to to get us to a point where we have
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: more opportunity, where we have more access. And so that
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: community aspect I think is really important and it makes
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: my job now as as a policy person to be
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: able to tap into that that advocate network of people
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: from around the country. And you know when when you're
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: in you know, in some grinding political battles, maybe some
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: legislation that that is very you know, it's just if
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: you're dealing with some really tough rhetoric around from animal
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: rights group and it's just yeah, it's a battle.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: Having just come from our rendezvous, it was such a
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: big pick.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Me up, you know, just to be around that those people.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: The enthusiasm, the energy.
• 35:39
  Speaker 6: The commitment to make a difference that I think is
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: it's probably the greatest positive because you know, I think
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: Matt is as well, like we're we are. We're remote
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: workers most of the time, and our office is in Missoula, Montana,
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: but I'm the time sitting in my office in Massachusetts.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: So when you are able to connect with not just
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: your colleagues, but the people your membership, I think that
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: that's one of the one of the best best parts.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: I'll add to that mark before you shift to probably
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: the negatives is one thing that I was thinking about,
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: and I mentioned this earlier, you know, being viewed differently
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: from the outside. The NGO community is viewed differently, almost
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: like heroic, right, as I said, And that's probably silly
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: to say. But we in our field of where Chris
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: and I we connect a couple things. We are all
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: science based, right, we are involved in policy. All the
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: NGOs advocate for good things that are happening and oppose
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: things that are bad. But we take that responsibility the
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: NGO world. And I'm just talking from first person. I mean,
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: I only worked for a few years in an agency setting,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: and I'm sure I would find a lot of positives
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: if I had done that for seventeen or eighteen years.
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: But one thing I really enjoy is being the conduit
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: of information, the educator, the driver of motivation, not just me,
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: but like the people that are that are in our
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: field Chris and mis field. Is taking and packaging things
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: that are hard to either read because it's deep in science,
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: you know, scientific literature, and turning it into more of
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: a layman's term so that people can understand it, or
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: from a policy end, telling people how to act, not
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: in the truest sense, but give them the package and
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: say this is why this is bad or this is
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: why this is good, and try to motivate them to
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: act on that. That is also that responsibility in the
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: role that NGOs serve is also deeply satisfying because that
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: is the making the difference. It's not only making the difference,
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: but it's also the community aspect that we talked about.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Where you're marrying those two. You have a community that
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: trusts you and listens, and you can get them to
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: take good action to make a difference for whatever species
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: you're you're you know, concentrating on For us, it's deer,
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: and there are other groups that you know, focus on
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: turkeys and ducks and others. Or if it's just public
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: land management or you know, whatever the umbrella is that
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: the organization oversees, you funnel that energy and you can
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: point it like a bow or a gun towards the
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: bad and motivate people to take take action. Which that
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: is one of the things I love about sitting at
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: this desk every day, honestly, is I do work from
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: the field, but sitting down there are there's a lot
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: of pleasure in knowing that that difference is going to
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: happen because that responsibility is on us.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And I would add that we occupy like a
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: really we're really lucky that we occupy in a kind
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: of a unique niche in the greater sort of hunting
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: and fishing space. Like we're we're kind of like industry adjacent, right,
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: We're not.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: We're not necessarily.
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: Part of the industry where we're not necessarily part of
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: the agencies, the state or federal agencies.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: So what we have the great.
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: Opportunity to do is to represent the stakeholders who are
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: in the middle of that and and like you said, Matt,
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: like to sort of represent, to help support, to direct,
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: to empower, and to elevate the voice of that of
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: the stakeholders, the actual hunters and anglers.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: You. So you mentioned something there Matt a second ago
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: about just that energy you know that you have there
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: that you can harness, and it just got me thinking
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: about another part of this part of my of my
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: role that gives me so much energy, And it's the
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: fact that this kind of work because of those types
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of impacts that you guys are talking about, because of
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: the downstream effects that we can help bring to life.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: It's just personally so like intellectually stimulating and internally motivating.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a huge positive too. Like when
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: I wake up in the morning and I know that
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: what I'm going to be working on today has the
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: potential to make that difference, Like what I'm going to
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: be working on today like lights of fire in my belly,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: and I'm excited to get to the computer and start
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: writing about this thing, or I'm excited to fly to
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: wherever and work on this project because like I know
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: it's going to make a difference, and I know there's
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: gonna be other people that'll be influenced by and that will,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: you know, join me in this thing, and like all
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: of that creates like a cycle of positivity and like
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: your own you know, in your daily life that I
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: know from my previous work I've done, you don't have that,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: even when you've got a great salary and maybe it's
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: challenging work and fun people, when there's not that sense
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: of like, well, I guess it all comes back to
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: impact and purpose and what you're doing. But when you
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: have that, it lights like a there's something different going
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: on in your body and your mind. When you know
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: that that's what you're working towards, that I think shines
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a totally different light on everything you do throughout the day.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: So all three of us are parents, right, and so
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: you know we we hold that responsibility as a parent
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: deer and you know, try to embody and teach and
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: it's not the same thing as being a parent, but
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: I'm just you know, using that as a metaphor, that
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: is part of it. I mean, I do feel like
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: with the wave of a wand especially you Mark, I
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: mean you guys have a megaphone in terms of how
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: to people listen and are influenced by your brand, it's
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: the same, it's the same thing. It's just use that
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: power for good and get that army moving in the
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: right direction. And when you see it happen, and it's
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: tangible and you see see action happen, or you see
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: regulation or legislation be shot down. Man, how how good
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: does that feel? And it's an endless bucket of responsibility
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: because there's always going to be those challenges and unfortunately
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: they become more complicated as we go forward, just with
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: the way the world is. And maybe it wasn't like that,
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: and you know our parents' day, they felt like things
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: were complicated then. But I mean all of the layers
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: of complexity with conservation man and wildlife management and habitat
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: and threats to those things, threats through policy and threats
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: through actual environmental threats. It is intellectually stimulating. I mean,
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: I do feel satisfied from that side of it too.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: You know I didn't mention that earlier, but you're just
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: saying that just the challenge, the puzzle that it creates
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: is a fun puzzle to tackle and you feel good about.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: It, yeah, one hundred percent. But there It's not all
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: rainbows and butterflies all the time, though, is it?
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: There's there are some inevitable, less sexy parts of this
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: line of work, and it all varies depending on the
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: specific role you have, of course, but I would assume
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: that if someone comes to you and is asking you, like,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: how do I get into this stuff? I'm sure you're
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: going to tell them all the things that we just discussed,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: But then maybe there's gonna be some words of caution too.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: What might some of those things be? Uh, Matt, if
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: you were giving some thoughts to that eager beaver wanting
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: to get into this world.
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: Well, that's a that's a slippery slope, right, and let
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: me try to think about how.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: You know, there's the positives far far outweigh the negatives.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: But it isn't all uh standing on a stage giving
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: a plenary or standing in the weeds and pulling you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: you know, pulling a bunch of people behind you to
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: cut trees or spray things. You know, a lot of
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: a lot of the work that we do is administrative.
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: I mean that's you have to enjoy that and also
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: be proficient at it. A lot of it is not
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: as fast as it seems that your phone tells you
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: that it happens.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm.
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: Working on projects that are three years deep that have
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: not really moved that much, but I'm still pushing on it.
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: And you know, from the viewers stand point. If you're
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: on social media and you're watching the results of something
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: or a call to action, and you see the next
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: one the fifteen seconds later and the next one fifteen
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: seconds later, it feels.
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: Like it's it is.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: All in that kind of name of all good. But
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: sometimes you have to have persistence and dedication and rely
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: on your colleagues. So those are things that come to
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: my mind. Is that the amount of administrative work. I mean,
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: I think this is going to be true. There's all
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: these memes out there about if you become a biologist
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: or a conservationist, and what your mom thinks and what
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: your friends think.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: You know, when I was in school in college, I
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: had a bunch of roommates.
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: I went to UMass Chris, and a bunch of my
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: buddies would tease me because none of them were in wildlife,
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: and so they'd say, you know, how a.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: Deer counting one oh one today?
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: When I get back to our environment, I'd be like,
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: that is you know, that is not exactly what what
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: we do.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: It's it's a dropping count, guys, I'm counting deer droppings.
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that was my master's degree. So you know, the
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: amount of an administrative work to to get these programs
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: to occur.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: There is a lot of like non sexy side of it.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris, uh, your stuff's nothing but glamour, right, oh yeah.
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: All the time, you know, big wrapped truck and all
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: that kind of stuff. Far from far from far from
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: the reality, you know. For one of my as, I've
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: transitioned from a chapter coordinator to a policy manager and
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: I am more intimately involved with some of the legislative
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: and regulatory battles around around the country.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: They're not all battles, I suld. I should I should
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: mention there's a lot of.
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: Great people doing some good policy work out there that
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: you know that that can be solved through you know,
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: pretty light bipartisan lifting. But there's a lot of stuff
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: that isn't And a lot of stuff these days are
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: extremely polarized and contentious, and when you're in some of
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: these battles or and you know, strategizing talking to lawmakers,
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: you tend to get you sometimes get take take some
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: flack and and that can be you know, that is
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: something that can be I haven't. I'm getting better at
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: letting a lot of that stuff slide off. Like when
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: when when a leader of an animal rights organization calls
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: me an extremist or a liar. I mean, I can
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: let that slide. I can let that slide. But you
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: know it is uh, you know, being around and being
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: in some of some of these uh negative environments. Can
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: you know, that's not necessarily a fun part. It's not
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: like working with our chapters executing a conservation project or
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: stewardship project. You know, they take those types of things
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: take more of a toll, and you of course, like
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: Matt said, there's definitely the administrative stuff as well that
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: we have to do. But but yeah, so there's there's
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: definitely that aspect and and you know the other the
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: other thing. Even though we're working with especially Matt and
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: I are, like working with state agencies, very often we
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: come in contact with a lot of people who work
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: for these agencies that even though they're they're in the wildlife,
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: fish and Wildlife agency, they might not have a really
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: strong connection to hunting or fishing at all, and they've
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: had very little contact with the stakeholders, and not all
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: that contact might have been positive. You know, they they're
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: fielding complaints there's not enough deer or you know, you know,
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: why didn't you do a cut in this field like
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: you've done in the last for the last however many years.
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: So I think oftentimes we have to spend a lot
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: of time and energy at uh at building bridges and
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: building relationships. Not that that's a bad thing, it's a
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: great thing. But you know, sometimes we're unpacking the or
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: dealing with problems that we're kind of left left for us,
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: and you know that that takes time, and it takes
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: you know, building that relationship, building trust. So yeah, we're
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: that's that's just you know, comes with the job.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: I suppose I'll elaborate on that too. And Chris said
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: something that kind of peaked something in the back of
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: my mind. As you know, we are member based organizations
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: from the NGO side, and we have volunteers, and we
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: talked about all the positive and that again far far
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: far out weighs of the negatives. But when working with
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: people and communities, you almost need a second degree in psychology,
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: you know, to work with volunteers and figure out, you know,
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: where there are always going to be differences. People's motivation
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: to volunteer are different, their purpose is different. Some people
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: might want to work more with youth versus you know,
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: bringing out non traditional audiences to learn to hunt or
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: the habitat you know, or stewardship or habitat recommendations might
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: might be contradictory from one person's pursuit to another, between
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: organizations or even within an organization. And so when you're
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: working with volunteers, and I did this for several years
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: in the beginning when I was one of our regional
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: directors working with the chapters or branches, that that being
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: a good you know, being a people person and reading
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: people and being able to navigate those discussions is part
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: of the job. You know, just like having any good
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: relationship with friends or kids or a spouse, you know
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: you're going to run bumps into the road. And when
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: you have those bumps, you got to figure out how
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: to navigate around them. And they happen pretty often with
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: when you work with people. And that may be a
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: legislator versus one of our local volunteer groups, and maybe
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: two volunteers in the same chapter or a branch. And
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: so that's not something that you're really taught when you're
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: going to school for conservation or wildlife for forestry, is
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: how to navigate those personal grievances or those personal issues
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: and being able to almost be a therapist or a
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: mediator between two different people that happens, and I say
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: it kind of jokingly, but I'm serious. Is just being
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: able to get people to sit down and talk about what,
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: you know, why they're having a disagreement. And another thing
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: that I think schools are doing a much better job
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: now is being a good communicator. Chris just said, you know,
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: being able to I've had those same instances where you're
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: put on the spot and you have to you have
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: to explain yourself in a not in a heated way
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: and talk about the facts or even write about or
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: be on camera talking about those things that happens. Because
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: of NGO's being that conduitive information, you're always going to
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: be talking to an audience in written or video form,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: audio form, in front of a live audience, or however
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: be And that communication side is also that's not for everybody.
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: And I'll tell you there are far more people that
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: are not good at that than that are good at that.
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: And that's another not a negative, but a consideration. If
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: you're going to get into this career, you have to
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: be a you know, a mediator therapist, And you also
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: have to be really good and think on your feet.
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: And then when you do communicate, you have to push
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: down any personal feelings you're having to a degree. It's
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: always good to pull those in in a positive way,
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: but then in a very even tone, communicate the facts
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: and talk about you know, why it's important. And I
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: do like to show passion. I'm using my hands here
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: if you aren't watching me, you know, being Italian, I
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: use my hands a lot. But you know, I like
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: to show passion and when I'm talking about and it's
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: important for the people to connect with you. But you
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: also don't want to get to the point where you're
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: putting other people down and it's having a negative impact
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: on what you're trying to accomplish in the first place.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's there's There are so many considerations when
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: it comes to getting into this line of work or
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: trying to incorporate this as part of your job or
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be. And I think you make a
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: great point in emphasizing that despite all of these extra considerations,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: despite the parts that are not glamorous, despite you know,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's almost a rule that you're going to
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: make less money if you choose to go to the conservation
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: route than if you choose to go some other commercial
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: route in many ways or in many different instances, at
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: least you know, it just seems like the positive still
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: far away, because at least from where I'm sitting in
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: my experience, the benefits of feeling like you have a
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: real purpose and that you're making an impact and that
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: you're making a positive difference that gives me so much
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: more satisfaction than having enough money to buy a nicer
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: car or something like that. I know everybody's situation is different,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: everyone has different burdens, it's different for everybody, but I
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: feel like that's been a very consistent thing I've heard
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: across the board from almost anyone who's chosen to take
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: this kind of leap. So that leads us to like
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: the inevitable final piece on this side of things, which
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: is just like, Okay, now it sounds like this is
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: something that I want to do. I've been thinking I've
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: wanted to do it for a long time.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I've heard these two inspiring stories. I've heard the good
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: and the bad. Yes, sign me up. Where's this really
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: easy job board that lists every single conservation job that
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: I can just quickly sign up and get this gig.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: How do you do that? Right?
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: It's not that easy? What Chris, what would you tell
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: someone who's like, Okay, I want to find a job
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: in this kind of world. I want to make a
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: positive difference. I love the natural world. I love hunting
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: or fishing or rivers and forests and prairies, and I
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: want to do something like that. How do you how
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: do you get that job?
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: Chris?
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: It? Yeah, it's a it's a question.
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: A lot of people are asking and and and I
• 55:48
  Speaker 6: should mention that in it in the space, partically in
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: the agency space, they are looking for people. They want people,
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: and they want to they want people to to stay put.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: For a period of time.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: I had a meeting yesterday with the directors all the
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: fishing game agency directors yesterday and one of the tough
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: conversations that we were having was about how do we
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: retain wildlife professionals beyond five years. So they're they're looking
• 56:18
  Speaker 6: and they're looking for good people. So I think you
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: know to start your search if this is something that
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: you're interested in, I think you have to connect with
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: the professional the professional groups, the professional uh wildlife professionals
• 56:37
  Speaker 6: or an organ or the Association of Fisional Wildlife Agencies.
• 56:41
  Speaker 6: If you're interested in the nonprofit world, then connecting with
• 56:49
  Speaker 6: you know, the nonprofits, becoming a member, volunteering, seeing if
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: like the the your values are reflected in the organization,
• 56:57
  Speaker 6: picking up skills. I think those are all important steps
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: in the process. I mean, there are, of course recruiting agencies,
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: and all of our organizations are regularly posting positions that
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: are available. But it goes back to something I mentioned earlier.
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: I think you have to be honest with you know
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: what you want out of a career, the balance that
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: you're looking for, and you also have to be honest
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: about your professional skills and abilities and figuring out ways
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: to improve areas of weakness and make yourself an attractive
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: candidate for one of these positions. That said, so much
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: of it, of this space here that we're in is
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: built on relationships. So the more relationships that you can
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: build and nurture, the better off you're going to be.
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: You have an opportunity to share who you are and
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: what you're about in all of those personal contacts and relationships,
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: and oftentimes that's one of the most important and the
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: most overlooked parts of this whole thing, and yeah, yeah,
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: what about you, Matt.
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: Chris is right, there are opportunities now. And not to
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: sound like the old man walking uphill both ways or whatever,
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: but there are lots of opportunities now because people are
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: retiring and that generation, the baby boomer generation that we're
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: losing hunters, we're losing not to resource professionals, because they're
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: they're making space within all of the buckets that we
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: mentioned before.
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: And when I was getting out.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: Of school, it was harder to find a job. Not
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: that it's easy now, but there just was no space.
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: And so if you were interested, I think there is opportunity.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Mark.
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: There actually is a couple of conservation job boards that
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: people can go look at Texas A and N. If
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: you just type in Texas A and M job board,
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: I think it's conservation job board is another one. I
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: can provide the links to you if you want to
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: share with people, but there are a couple like unique
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: places that you can go look. I'll also say Chris
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: is right in surrounding yourself and building relationships, but I'll
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: kind of take a step back from that. You know,
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: different jobs have different requirements. Some might involve a degree
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: that you don't have, and so that's a path that
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: you want to go down. You have to start looking
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: at schools and try to get a degree in it.
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: And there's a lot of online programs you can try
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: to get those degrees. Some are going to and a
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: lot will require a master's degree, not only a bachelor's
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: but a master's and that's more on you know, it
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: depends on what level work. If you're going to spend
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: your career. If you do this doing more out outdoor
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: technician type work like the doer, that wouldn't require an
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: advanced degree. If you want to be in more of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: an administrative role, you wouldn't need something like that. But
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: I would say, figure out what direction you want to go,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: and you can do a couple things.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: To do that.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: Great advice is to just surround yourself, get involved, join organizations.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: Join if there's you know, opportunities, if you want to
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: explore something with your local state agency to go volunteer,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: go knock on the door, call people there. I was
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: fortunate that I knew somebody that was affiliate with an
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: agencycy early on, I was able to ask those questions.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: But there's no reason why you couldn't go to your
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: local agency and make an appointment and talk to somebody
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: there and express those things. And I would say internships
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: are also another great opportunity because there will be these
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: kind of trial by a you know, opportunities in NGO world,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: but also doing things for all of the other private
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: sector federal agency. You can go do like an intern
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: or volunteer day and talk to people, so you don't
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: have to dive one hundred percent in. You can kind
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: of try different things out before you do it. But
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: my kind of reflecting back to my mention about being persistent,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: I mentioned I got a master's degree, but it didn't
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: just fall in my lap. And this is one thing
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: that a piece of advice that I have told anybody
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: that's a young person that's looking to go into a
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: career is if they're going to get a master's is
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: to try to surround themselves with the type of people
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: that they're interested in doing the degree. And so for me,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: it was deer and so I looked up all the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: different when I was in high school or college. When
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: I was in college, I looked up all the different
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: places that good dear research was being produced and so
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: a lot of that was in scientific literature. I mean,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: it's only like a couple couple names that usually come
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: out with that type of thing. So I familiarized myself
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: with the universities and the professors that were churning out
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: good deer research, and I started making phone calls and said,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: I'm an undergraduate, I'm interested in going to school for deer,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: you know, in a couple of years for a master's degree.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: Can I come visit you? And I got in my
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: pickup truck or car back then, and I would go
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: visit and you know, put myself in front of those
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: folks and applied to schools when there was the opportunity.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: But the position I ended up getting was because of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: exactly that I was just a known commodity. And I
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: think that would that type of effort would would be
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: replicated in any of the buckets I mentioned. So if
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: you really want to work for a policy group, or
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: if you really want to work for a private consultant
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: that is nearby that does wildlife and forestry work, you know,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: or if you want to do something with a state agency,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: be known, don't just hope go do it, Like make
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: those phone calls, make you know, send emails, be persistent,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: be polite, and just be somebody that you portray yourself
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: as professional, respectful, and you're a go getter. I mean,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: this is like anything in life. We're not even talking
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: about conservation, but just that's what I did and the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: position that I ended up getting, the graduate position studying
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: deer poop mark I fell in my lap.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: Actually we did, no.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, my project had to do with a winter feeding
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: up in the north. You know, people dump out corn
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: in the winter and it's not good for deer, but
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: poop had something to do with it. But that ended
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: up because I was known. The professor knew I was looking,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: and he said, hey, I got a project coming up
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: and would you be interested. And that was awesome because
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: I ended up living and working at a research facility
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: that we had captive gear or research dear that we
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: were doing metabolic research. But every summer I got to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: work with a bunch of undergraduates and we had thirty
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: or forty fonds that we were bottle raising. And I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: mean that that was an awesome experience that came with it.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: But my advice to anybody listening this is do your research,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: dip your toes in and then once you kind of
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: figure out the path, if you're hungry, just jump in
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: and you'll make it happen.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I just quickly added, and this is like I'll
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 6: pre physic by saying, this is the case across like
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 6: all industries, all spaces.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: But you know, one of the things that.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: Is a reality is when you are on the inside,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 6: things are different than what you might have men. That's
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: the case for the in the NGOs, it's the case
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: in the industry. And so yeah, like there is that reality.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: And for some.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: People that's a little bit shocking when they they've come in,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 6: they've been you know, involved, and when they sort of
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: get a different perspective of things, they're a little bit
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: taken aback. But like I said that, that's normal in
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: any space. And then the only other kind of like
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: you know, like our job, Matt and I, our job
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 6: is not.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: To go deer hunting.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: Like do we get opportunities to do that that you
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: know that we might not have, but that I might
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: not have had as a teacher. Certainly, definitely, I'm not
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 6: going to fully admit that. But I think the other
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: important thing to just acknowledge, and this goes back to
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: that advice about knowing your what you're interested in, your
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: values and and everything is if if hunting or fishing
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 6: is a real passion, like there, there is reason to
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: sort of be aware and cautious about aligning that so
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: close to your job and and Mark like you've you've
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 6: kind of talked a little bit about this over the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 6: years and have been really honest about it, which I've
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 6: really appreciated that, and I've been able to relate to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 6: that at times where you know, this passion of yours
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: is so close to what you're doing for work, and
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: you've put this extra like this pressure on you that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: doesn't necessarily need to be there, and that cuts in
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 6: a little bit on the passion. You have to set boundaries,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 6: you have to be aware of that, and because it's
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: going to impact you, it's going to impact your family,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: it's can impact your ability to have an impact in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: the space that you want to to have.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: Excellent, very good fact excellent West Chris, Yes, yeah, very true.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: I'll jump in with one last kind of pile on
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: note and kind of validate something you said there in
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: regards to you know, the the do everything be everywhere approach.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Once you figure out your lane. That applies not just
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: to NGOs or agency work or being a practitioner on
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: the ground. It also applies to like the conservation communicator
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: role as well. So I have lots of people who
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: are asking me how do I make media? Like how
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: do I do a podcast? How do I become a writer?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: How do I become a TV show host? How do
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: I do this thing or that thing? And all of
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: those things plus everything. Both of you described the same
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: approach does work, which is you know you just said,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: figure out what your thing is. Figure out what your
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: angle is or what your lane is, or what your
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: unique skill set is. So like, are you do you
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: have that science background and you can be someone who
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: can work in resource management, or are you a great
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: orator or are you a great writer or are you
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: passionate about photography? Find out whatever your thing is that
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: you can bring to the world, and then do it.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: I think that that's a big thing. Some people think
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: they need to wait until they get permission to do
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: the thing, or to wait until someone validates them and
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: says like, hey, you now work in this field, Now
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: you can do your thing, or they're waiting for someone
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: to bring it to them. You kind of alluded to that, Matt, like,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: no one's going to knock on your door and ask
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: you to do this stuff. You have to put it
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: out into the world. So my biggest advice is, once
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: you decide on what your thing is that you can
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: bring to the world, do it. Do it, make it,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: create it, start doing the work. So if you want
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: to be a habitat manager, go out there and volunteer
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: do projects. Go and volunteer on the back forty or
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: go out there and be a part of these different
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: events and do the work and showcase, hey, I've done
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: this stuff. I'm doing it all the time, I'm getting
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: better at it. Or if you want to be a
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: podcaster or you want to be a writer, don't wait
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: for Field and Stream to tell you to start writing
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: for them. Just start writing all the time, getting better
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: at the craft, doing the thing, and put it out
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: into the world. Whatever the thing is you end up doing,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: make sure the world knows about it, share it with
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: the world, put it out there as much as you
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: possibly can. Because that leads to the final thing which
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: you both alluded to, which is, like, so much of
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: this is network based. It's based on who you know
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: who knows of you, who's aware of your work, who's
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: aware of your skill set, who's aware of your talent
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: or of the value you bring to the table. And
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: so you just need to make and do and share
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: and work with other people. And if you do that
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: over and over and over again with this set of
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: values and motivation that we've been talking about, with that
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: fuel burning and making your fire go and go and go,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: you can make this work. You can do this stuff.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: But you know it's it's it's not it's not easy.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: It's easier said than done. But I think we all
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: agree it's it's well worth it, right.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: It's easy if it's a genuine burn, if that if
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: that fuel is genuine, if you're doing it for self
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: validation or val, not self held validation from the outside
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 5: to get approval, which is you know, just being a parent,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: just watching all the stuff out there and trying to
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: figure out, you know, self esteem and all the things
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: that we all we all have doubts about ourselves. Don't
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: do it for for that. Do it because you have
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: a genuine feel of wanting to do it, and do
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: it for yourself honestly, as much as it is about
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: the difference that you make. Do it because you want
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: to be proud of yourself to do that, to make
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: a difference.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: Sleep a lot better at night when you know you
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: did something. Yes, I always anyone who's listened to me
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: for any period of time has heard me say this,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: and I'll say it to the day I die. But
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: you know this line from Avon Shinar, the greatest cure
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: for depression is action. And that's like, that's become like
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: the mantra for my life. Like every time I see
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: some new headline about this river getting polluted and this
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: species going into decline and this public land that's being threatened.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: You hear all this stuff, and it's so easy to
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: get down in the dumps about it, and it's so
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: easy to you know, feel that like cloud hanging over you, like, jeez,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: what is the world going to be like when my
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: kids grow up? Anytime I start feeling that way, you know,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: I just think, Okay, well, now what what then, Like,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: what's the step I can take? What's the action I
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: can take? And that immediately makes you feel better in
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: the short term and the long term. And that's I
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: think so much of what this conversation. I think revolves
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: around it. I think there's a lot of people listening, reading, watching,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: seeing the world around them, who care about wildlife, who
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: care about wild places, who love to hunt and fish,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: They love these things, and they're seeing they're seeing those
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: loves threatened, and they're thinking to themselves one of two things.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: Either hands in the air, it's all going to shit
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: and they're feeling really lousy about it, or they can say,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: all right, now what And I hope this conversation is
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: an answer to that question, at least to some degree,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: which leads us, though, to a second part of the conversation,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: which we've gone way longer than I thought in the
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: first part. So apologies to both of you for keeping
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: you here longer than we originally discussed. But there's so
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: much good stuff to cover there on the Hey, what
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: if you want to work professionally for wildlife, But what
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: if you want to work non professionally for wildlife. What
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: if there's someone listening who loves all this stuff, wants
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: to be able to make an impact, but the same
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: time has a career that's already fulfilling, that's already checking
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: all the boxes for them, and they're just looking for
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: a way to do this kind of stuff in the
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: other part of their life.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: We'll keep this a.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: Little bit more brief in the first half. What would
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: be like a handful of ways that you guys have
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: found to be the most impactful ways to do that
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: for someone listening that wants to start making a positive
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: impact on fish, wildlife, public lands, conservation, whatever their specific
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: passion is. Chris, what would be a couple suggestions you
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: might throw out there for folks.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: I think a great starting point for people is to
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: simply learn to take the time to read so that
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: you can better understand why agencies or like what is
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 6: the what's the logic behind conservation efforts? I think that
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: is a great starting point. It's going to make the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: time that you can go and actually do something, you know,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: whether it be volunteer some time or whatever, it's going
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: to make it You're going to be able to see
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 6: and understand better what you're doing and why you're doing it.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 6: It's going to make you a better conservation advocate in
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: the long run. So that's it, Like you know, and
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 6: it doesn't have to be like you don't have to
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 6: you don't have to go out and read every conservation book.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: It could be as simple as yeah, y, I was actually.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 6: Thinking of your your your recommendations from yesterday for for
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 6: Earth Day and and anyways. Uh so after you've read
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: that book and what you had, like if your state
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 6: agency has a magazine, sometimes it's it's a separate thing,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: a some separate subscription. It's usually not much, but in
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: there they're going to profile the conservation projects, the initiatives
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 6: that they have underway. And it's obviously it's more in
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: depth than a than an Instagram post or something, and
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: that way you can understand the efforts and the motivation
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: is behind. You know, your your state agency. That's starting
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: point number one, and then number two. Just find opportunities,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 6: whether it's through uh nd A or b h A
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 6: or whatever. UH attend a project or.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: You know every.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: Land trust are doing projects, uh state or are some
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: federal fish and wildlife refugees are doing stuff all the time.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 6: And I think those are just simple, great opportunities to
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 6: to to go out there and make a difference in
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: an organized way.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a local.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: Property that is you know, publicly accessible, state, federal county,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: and there's likely some kind of friends of group, you know,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 5: friends of that group, friends of that property. Those those
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: are good opportunities to kind of plug in locally. That
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: was learned is a great baseline Chris, that was that
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 5: was good advice. And I thought about this, Mark, you know,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: when you send us a message before recording, is what
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: would what would the baseline advice be? Is obviously a volunteer.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's what a volunteer is. And uh, there
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: are tons of ng os out there like us that
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: are geared toward you know, a specific niche so whatever
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: that would be. And so that kind of goes without saying.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: But I was thinking more deeply about that advice. Why
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: would you want to do that? You know, as you know,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 5: we're we're people, right, and we're we're kind of a
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: community based species. Like we like being around others that
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: are similar to us, related to us, that like the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: same things. And that's one of the great things about
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: volunteerism is you're you're plugging yourself into a community and
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: you will draw from that. You can kind of go
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: in full bore and become, you know, a volunteer every
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 5: weekend or if you're you know, busy with work and
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: family and other obligations, you can you can kind of
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 5: come and go. That's what's great about being a volunteer
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: is you give what you can. It could be financial.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: There's like the three t's right, time, treasure, and what's
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: the other one. Chris, I trying to remember what the
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: other T is. But it's like the three ways to give.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: You could give financially, you give your time or talent.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: You know, your talent is the third one. Uh, those
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 5: are those are like that. That's the three legs of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: the stool of a volunteer. And everybody has something. You know,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: if you don't have the financial means to give a
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 5: couple of dollars or become a member, you know, most
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: organizations twenty thirty forty dollars to be a member per year,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: you certainly have a talent because everybody has something.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: They can give.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 5: Maybe you're a graphic artist for work full time and
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 5: you can provide that, or maybe you take really good
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: photos or you know, instead of being there for giving time.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 5: But those are the three categories that volunteers exist in.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 5: And you can do it one hundred percent and go,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 5: you know, a million miles an hour and volunteer all
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: the time, or you can just do a little bit.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: But those, I would say, surrounding yourself in a community
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 5: of like minded folks. So I'm a deer guy. You know,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: there's a deer behind me in the video. I like
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: being part of the organization I work for, and I
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 5: eventually applied for a job because I just loved it
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 5: so much. I'm talking to people about deer all the time.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: My wife would think that I would get sick of it,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 5: but I don't. I just I love talking about deer
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: and dear research and deer hunting and dear you know,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: all of the things around that.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: That's me.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's who I am. I've been like that
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 5: since I was little. But if you're super passionate about
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: our public lands, that country Hunters and Anglers is the
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 5: group for you. If you're a turkey hunter, there's the
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 5: National Wild Turkey Federation. So there's all these groups that
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: are national and goos. But don't look past those local
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: groups too. Chris hit the nail on the head. Because
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: you live in a community and there's some environmental issue,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: whether it's development happening too fast, or some piece of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: property that is being threatened by invasive species or something
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: that's going to be built on there whatever you feel
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 5: like giving to find that group and plug yourself in.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and if you want to be a kind of
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 6: like have a force multiplier approach to conservation volunteering, there's
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 6: a couple of things you could do. You can take
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 6: your kids with you and involve them and and sort
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 6: of nurture that aspect and you know that becomes part
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 6: of what you do as a family and gets them
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: outside and I think that's a great one. And then
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: you know, going back to like the friends groups that
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 6: you mentioned, Uh, you know, we've we've we have at
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 6: times some of the local chapters are have gotten together.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 6: Not a bha thing, but we'll go to a friends
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: of a refuge event and just help out. We're not
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: over it. We're not like making a big thing about
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 6: our presence. You know, maybe you wear a camo hat
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 6: or a hat or whatever, and you know, time over time,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 6: people recognize these are a bunch of hunters coming to help,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: you know, do this, help this project, you know, remove
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 6: this evasive plant or whatever and it And why that
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 6: is a multiplier is because you're representing the community and
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 6: you're showing up and doing things in areas that are
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 6: kind of adjacent to you know, to what you normally
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: would do, and those types of things make a huge,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 6: huge difference.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: I like that both of you mentioned physically showing up
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: because because there are there's like two ways we can
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: be advocates or conservationists in our spare time. There's there's
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: the things we can do, you know, digitally or through
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: a phone call, right, we can we can call a legislator.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: We can call a friend and tell them about this
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: thing we can learn, which is very very important. That's
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: a very important baseline. You can send a tweet, make
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: a blog post, do a podcast about this kind of stuff,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff is good and helpful and important.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: You can share your photography, very good. But there is
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: something special, There's something magical. And you guys heard my
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: spiel last year when I talked about this at the
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: Working for Wildlife events. But there is something different that
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: happens when you make that shift from just like talking
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: about this stuff to actually showing up physically for it.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: And it's my snowball theory, and I'll share it again
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: even though I know you both know it. What happens,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: I think is that when you start showing up for
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: conservation in a physical way you arrive at an event,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: you say, you know, I'm going to pick up trash
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: all day today because I care enough, Or I'm going
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: to go and plant trees today or collect acorns or
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, clean up a river. You are kind
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: of staking a flag in the ground. It says something
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: about you. This becomes your identity when you're willing to
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: take the time out of daily life to drive somewhere
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: else or to hike out somewhere else, to actually get
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: your hands dirty for these places, for these animals. That
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: is saying something about you in a very real way.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: And that doesn't end on that day, because if you
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: can show up tomorrow or yesterday Earth Day. My wife
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, let's real quick, grab a trash bag
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: and let's just go for a walk with the kids,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: and let's just make sure we're actually taking real action today.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: I was like, Yes, you're absolutely right, let's go do it.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: And just that little bit of my kids going out
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: there yesterday and spending an hour walking through the woods
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: picking up trash, that says a little bit of something
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: about them in them, a little bit of them is changing.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: And tomorrow when they're out there and they see a
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: turtle crossing the road or something. They're going to be
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: just a little bit more likely to say, Hey, you know,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: I'm the kind of person that picks up trash because
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: I care about nature. So I'm also the kind of
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: person who's going to take the time to hold my
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: dad's hand, look both ways, go into the road and
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: pick up that turtle. Right, and in a more serious note,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: like with any of us, right, if you can pick
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: up that trash today, then next week you can pick
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: up that trash on the side of the road, because
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: you know you're that kind of person. And then maybe
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: a month from now, there's some bigger project that maybe
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: in your past life what is seen like outside of
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: your realm of interest or would be too much work.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: But these little things start adding up, and all of
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: a sudden you start realizing you start seeing yourself in
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: a different way because hey, well I did that thing
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: last week, and I did this thing last month, and gosh,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: I kind of amd that kind of person. And you
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: start having this snowball effect where all of a sudden,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: you're making more and more of an impact, and you're
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: surrounding yourself with people who are also doing these kinds
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: of things. And you get this compounding effect if you're
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: putting yourself out there, surrounding yourself with people that care
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: about these things too, and actually investing a little bit
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: of your time and energy. That is I think how
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: any big important thing has happened in this world. Yeah,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: and I think that's how we can make real change
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: to help deer, public lands, trout stripe, bass, prairie or
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: ass lands, whatever it is. That's how we're going to
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: start making a difference. And so it's a long winded
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: wind up to say we've done some of these things
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: over the last year with the Working for Wildlife tour
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: that both of you helped out with and we're part of,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: and to kind of wrap it up, I guess I
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: would like to just hear a little bit from both
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: of you about your takeaways from those events last year,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: and I do want to plug a couple upcoming events
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: here for twenty four to two. So Chris, I want
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: to start with you on this front because you helped
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: us with our very first event last year there in Massachusetts,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: and when it bumped into you the other day at
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: the BHA Rendezvous, you mentioned that there have been like
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: a whole series of like rippling effects coming out of
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: that event. I'd love to hear your takeaway from that day,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: what you thought about the whole thing, and then you
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: know what's happened since that. Yeah.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a good I mean, it was a
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: great day.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 6: And it was you know, as you said, it was
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 6: the first first of the tour, first for us to
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 6: to sort of plan an event, because it kind of
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 6: kind of became a kind of an event conservation event.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 6: We had to It took place on the north shore
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 6: of Massachusett at w May and you know, there's only
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 6: limited parking on a w May and we had a
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 6: lot of people registered to attend, so I had to
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 6: secure off site parking.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 3: I had to get a minibus. I had to get
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: a minibus driver.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 6: You know, we wanted to make sure that we had food,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 6: and the State Agegency mass Wildlife got got involved. So
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 6: there was all this logistics that were you know required,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 6: and again these logistics are are a product of of
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 6: of Marks platform and support and willingness to engage in
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 6: this and engage with the cunning community uh in Massachusetts.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 6: So yeah, a lot of people came, and a lot
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 6: of the state agency people came, many of whom were
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 6: coming from outside the district on their days off and
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 6: were there and really really excited about engaging with constituents.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 6: And that I think was one thing that was huge,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 6: the fact that people had an opportunity to spend time
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: work alongside, whether it was putting up wood duck boxes
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 6: or just picking up trash, picking up spent shells at
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 6: the shooting range. They had time to meet the people
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 6: who are responsible. They saw the passion all that stuff
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: that we talked about for the first hour. They saw
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 6: that in these people, their state employees, and I think
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 6: that was huge. And we had a hugely diverse population
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 6: of people there from real old timers who had just
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 6: not been plugged in with any organization. I mean they
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 6: might have members of organizations and they just heard about
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 6: this event and then it was taking place in a
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 6: place they spent their youth hunting, and they made put
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 6: a lot of effort in trying to be there too.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: A brand new.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 6: Hunter to you know, are a local Olympic legend coming
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 6: down and taking part and giving of their time. So
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 6: it was just a huge mix of people and experience and.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: Though many of.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 6: Those people and I talked about this yesterday at my
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 6: PLENARYA I actually put a picture of the group picture
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 6: of all people, and I was talking about how I
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 6: could point to just individual people who have never stepped
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 6: up before, have never offered testimony at a regulatory hearing
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 6: or at a legislative hearing, and who've become involved and
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 6: invigorated through that experience in part because they met all
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 6: people like them and they built community. And it's been
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 6: pretty pretty awesome to see one guy who was there
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 6: at another w A very close to there, I bumped into.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 6: He was a new hunter, he'd moved to the area,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 6: and you know, he was inspired just by the conversation
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 6: and that led him to actually shooting a really good buck,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 6: which I helped him drag.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: Out of the woods.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 6: So from from conservation things to time in the field
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 6: and experiences in the field, friendships, it's been it's been pretty.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: That snowball It definitely snowballed.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: I met someone at the at the b h A
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: rendezvous the other day who was at that Boston event.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: And I might get the details, the exact details wrong,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: but the basic gist of the story he shared with
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: was that that was the first like event like that
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: he'd ever been to and coming out of that, he
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: was so invigorated by it that he started getting more
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: involved with BHA, started doing doing some more chapter related stuff.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: I guess came to this rendezvous all the way from Massachusetts,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: came all the way to Minnesota for the rendez who
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: for the first time and it is now about to
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: retire from his previous career in armed services and is
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out a way to take a new
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: career within the conservation world. And it kind of all
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: stemmed from this year journey he's been on since that event.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: So just incredible kind of stories like that to to
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: fuel our fire, I think when you hear that kind
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: of thing, right, Yeah, so exciting stuff. Matt.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: I also just want to say, like, you know, and
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: thank you.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 6: You gave so much of your time and energy to
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 6: talk to people, to work alongside with people, and I
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 6: think that made just like the fact that they get
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 6: to meet and work with their state agency people to
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 6: to you know, be there alongside you who they've probably
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 6: listened to or watched. I think that also, you know,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 6: was a big I mean, we're going to be honest here, Matt,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 6: and I are going to be honest here. That was
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 6: a big part of it, and so we definitely appreciate that.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: That's my absolute pleasure, that's for sure. And even though
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: Aaron and the guys from Missouri aren't here, we also
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: had another great event with BHA in Missouri last year. Yeah,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: similar effect, I mean, just like really reinvigorating. We got
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: to work on all sorts of cool projects out there.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: It was a very diverse event in that we were
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: removing encroaching willows within a wetland restoration area. We were
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: creating owl roosting locations in a prairie, we were collecting
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: native prairie sees for future replanting efforts to restore grasslands.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: There was a couple other things, but there was a
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of different projects. A very cool event, and
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: then we also had three events with you, Matt and
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: the Nash Deer Association. Would love to you know, we
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: talked about some of the stuff last year, but would
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: love to kind of hear your perspective on what the
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: impact of that stuff was or what the trickle down
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: effects have been that you've seen, whether that's with volunteers
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: or the Forest Service or your organization or anything like that.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, same experience that Chris had with a diverse group
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 5: showing up. We did events in northern Idaho, did one
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 5: in Mississippi, and did one in Kentucky last year. All
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 5: three of the events that we held again with Mark
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 5: you mentioned the Forest Service, we did a little bit differently.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 5: We have a public Lands Initiative. It's just one project
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 5: that we have within the organization, trying to improve a
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 5: million acres of public land, doing this through various methods,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 5: and one of the ways that we're trying to do
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 5: that is we do stewardship work through the Forest Service.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 5: So we have contracts to agreements with the US four
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 5: Service around the country, and so we plug that program
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 5: into the Working for Wildlife tour. Our chapters are our branches.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: Our volunteer branches do a variety of different activities and
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: they vary based on the makeup of those volunteers. Some
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 5: of them are really strong on hunter recruitment events, some
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 5: of them are really strong on habitat work or education.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: They vary.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 5: Not as many of our branches or do public land work.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: Some of them do probably the biggest trickle down effect,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 5: and that's one of the reasons we tried to hold
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 5: it and administer those tour sites from the National Office
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 5: was it just was more opportunity because we have dozens
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 5: of projects going on on public land. It just was
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 5: it was easier to plug in. And the experience was
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 5: similar in terms of the people that showed up varied
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 5: from families to people that had never heard of us before,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 5: but they hunted that WMA for years, and they showed
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 5: up because there was a volunteer day to some of
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 5: our volunteers and longtime members brand new hunters. It ran
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 5: the gamut. In Idaho, that project was pretty neat. We're
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 5: restoring aspen. In Mississippi, we were planting trees and also
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 5: seeding some areas for game hunting because that's a highly
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 5: used wildlife management area for that upcoming deer season. In Kentucky,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 5: Mark mentioned picking up acorns. We picked up seven eight
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 5: hundred pounds of white oak acorns which are now being
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 5: grown out in the state nursery. All three projects involved
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 5: other partners. We had the state Wildlife Agency involved in
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 5: each one. But the trickle down effect, we have a
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 5: lot of our branches that are now interested in doing
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 5: these kinds of events. We've always had a few, but
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 5: I've talked to at a national webinar series to our branches,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 5: and just this year alone, I can name events happening
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 5: in Missouri and in Indiana and other things because of
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 5: the work and for Wildlife Tour. So it did have
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 5: that multiplier effect, and I think it'll become a larger
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 5: part of the persona of our branch network, and we've
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 5: actually provide them guidance on how to hold similar events locally.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 5: I think one of the best stories that came from
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 5: you know, there are lots of stories and the people
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 5: I met. One of the best stories. Mark and I
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 5: were in Kentucky talking to a young man that brought
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 5: his whole family, little children there, and he was courageous
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 5: enough to talk to us about why he was there.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 5: We asked a bunch of people, I'm sure you did, Chris,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 5: you know why they came that day, and he was
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 5: courageous enough to say, you know, we had wanted to
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 5: learn how to hunt, and this was something he was
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 5: trying to do on his own and he figured coming
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 5: to this event that he heard about on the Meat
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 5: Eater and Wired to Hunt platform, it was in his area.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 5: He was he's a military man, and that event allowed
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 5: us to connect him with somebody through our for service
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 5: contacts there locally that took him out and got him
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 5: his first year. And I shared that with Mark last
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 5: fall and he's he wants to volunteer now and is
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 5: starting one of our branches. So there's these These events
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 5: do have that snowball effect that you talked about. We're
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 5: excited to do more of them and use them as
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 5: a baseline of how not only volunteer branches or chapters
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 5: and mngos can do it, but anybody can do it locally.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 5: You don't need you just need a couple of people
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 5: and permission to go out and do it. And I'd
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 5: love to see more of this stuff happening.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's it's been. It's been a lot of fun.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: Been very fulfilling to see, exciting to see, you know,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: both on like on the day of just hearing all
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: the stories and seeing the good work that's getting done.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: And the surprise for me was just all the the
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: pure enjoyment of the whole thing. Like I knew i'd
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: feel good about doing the work, but I did not
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: realize it was just gonna be so much damn fun
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: and that there're gonna be so many friendships started and
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: connections made. Stories like that like someone getting connected with
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: the mentor who was able to help him, you know,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: teach him how to deer on get his first year,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: Like how incredible is that? So that's exciting and it's
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: it's it's a big part of why we're continuing the
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: tour going this year, and I'm gonna do everything I
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: can to keep it going the year after that and
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: the year after that and and hopefully see this thing
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 2: grow this year. Right now, we have three events scheduled
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: so far. We'll see if there's more or not, but
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: we have do we do a three locked in right now?
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: Two of which Matt, you are helping organize again, do
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: you want to give folks the quick spiel on these
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: next two coming up here pretty soon?
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we have an event coming up in a month,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 5: May eighteenth. It's in Kentucky on Daniel Boone National Forest.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 5: That showing was real strong. We actually had the Kentucky
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 5: BHA volunteers showed up in force that day, Chris, So
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 5: that was awesome. So we have one on May eighteenth
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 5: on Daniel Boone National Forest. We're going to be actually
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 5: on a WMA doing some habitat improvement and access improvement
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 5: within the WMA. Then we have one on June first
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 5: on Allegheny National Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania, and that one's
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 5: going to involve a whole suite of activities, installing bird
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 5: nesting boxes and bat boxes, removing some old fence, and
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 5: actually repairing some fence. They actually have deer fencing up
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 5: all over that National Forest. We're going to be we're
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 5: doing some access work as well and tree and shrub planting,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 5: and so that's on Saturday, June first.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we've got another one on August twenty
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: fourth that's up in northern Minnesota, right on the edge
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: of the Bounder Waters, and we're going to be doing
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: a pretty cool project in collaboration with the Minnesota DNR
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: and I think with the Forest Service up there too,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: in which we'll be actually creating an access point where
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: you can, like they've got all these different access points
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: for water access there on the boundary waters and surrounding lakes,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: so we're going to help install an access point off
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: this lake and then create white tail wintering habitat back
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: in this area as well, so they'll be like a
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: public land access component of it and the habitat side,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: So it's gonna be a you know, kind of like
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: that other one you mentioned, Matt, A very clear connection
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: between man, we're giving back to wildlife and then we're
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: also creating opportunities for hunting, fishing, camping, whatever it is.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: It's a big cycle that feeds itself and all these
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: parts come together to help both us and the natural resources.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: So very cool stuff. I will definitely be keeping folks
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: posted if there's more that we can add to the
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: slate this year or early next year. But I'd say
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: anyone listening if you would like to participate in one
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: of those three events coming up or want to see
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: if there's other ones down the line, Rather than try
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: and give you a specific url, I don't have it
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: easy RL. Just google the Working for Wildlife tour or
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: visit the meet at or website which is the meat
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: Eater dot com and search for the same thing and
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: we will have the latest information there. I think that's
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: There should be sign up pages, Matt available for the
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: first two right rock and roll, so hit those up.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: Please sign up Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and possibly more to come.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: If you guys, the two of you had any last
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: final words. You want to leave folks with a final
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: action item, suggestion or just peace out. I got to
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: take a nap. How would you like to leave things?
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 7: Chris?
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 6: One thing, just jumping way back to the the career thing.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 6: I think one of the things that is, and I
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 6: think Matt mentioned it and Mark you touched on it
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 6: was separate. I think I forget exactly how you put it,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 6: but I think it was, you know, separating your ego
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 6: around a lot of this stuff, particularly you know, in
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 6: this this hunting space. And I think that is really
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 6: important because when you go and make those connections and
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 6: as you start having conversations with people, that is going
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 6: to if your if your motivations aren't you know, I
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 6: don't want to say we all.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 3: Obviously it's a job, you have to pay, we have
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: bills to pay and all that kind of stuff. But
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 3: if your motivations are.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 6: Outside of what the people would use your skills and
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 6: talents for, it is going to be a parent very
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 6: very quickly. And so I'm always kind of like remind
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 6: myself that, all right, I am, I am operating. This
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 6: could be advantageous for me, but I need to make
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 6: sure that this is going to be the benefit of
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 6: my organization, to the benefit of the resource. And I
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 6: always keep that in mind. And one of the silly
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 6: kind of ways I remind myself and Mark's been in
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 6: my office it.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 3: Is the wall of four keys.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 6: In my office because I was I'm on all these
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 6: calls and all these times, and I have the beer
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 6: that I have in my office are four kys.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 3: Now, I have made an adjustment. I have put in
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 3: a better deer.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 6: But that was a deer that I did with that
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 6: I that was harvested along side one of my partners
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 6: or one of my mentees, and it was just a
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 6: meaningful experience for both of us. So I've made the
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 6: exception in that case. But it's just a little bit
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 6: of a reminder that, all right, like, this isn't about me,
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 6: This isn't about sometimes, it's not even about Baja. This
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 6: is about working for wildlife. And so that would be
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 6: one point that I would make on the professional front,
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 6: and then just in general, just just get involved. Just
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 6: get out there and do something and find like minded people,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 6: build community, and let's continue to build that snowball.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, mat Uh, this is great advice for anything. Learn
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 5: as Chris said, and share. And that's the one thing
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 5: that I you know, sharing is caring right, you know, share,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 5: share what you've learned, Pull people along with you on
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 5: the journey, talk to them about what is what you're
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 5: passionate about when you show up to things, because that
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 5: that tangible of showing up. You know, our self identity
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 5: is a big part of how our confidence and how
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 5: we feel about ourselves. As Mark said, So there's the
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 5: physical showing up for a Working for Wildlife event or
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 5: a BHA event or an NDA event or you know,
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 5: whatever that is. But you can also show up and
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 5: be a good son or daughter, or show up and
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 5: be a good parent, or show up and be a
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 5: good friend or a good employee by doing right. And
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 5: part of that is sharing. And so my advice to
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 5: anybody is, if you're inspired by the story of conservation,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 5: if you're inspired by the work that Chris does or
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 5: that Mark does, or that I do, and you want
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 5: to get involved, either as a volunteer or take the
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 5: deep dive, bring somebody along with you. Some of the
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 5: most meaningful experiences what Chris just said in my life
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 5: have been when other people are involved. And that might
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 5: a lot of that is involved in the outdoors, but
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 5: watching somebody get their first dear or watch their first
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 5: sun rise, or the jitters they get, or my kids
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 5: walking with me in the woods and me just teaching
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 5: them how to walk quietly, and all the things that
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 5: we do as outdoors men and women. A lot of
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 5: it does have to do with sharing and the genuine
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 5: mention that I mentioned that earlier. You know, do it
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 5: for yourself, you know there is that self side of it,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 5: but don't be afraid to share, share with somebody and
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 5: and take the things that you've learned. I hope people
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 5: are inspired, honestly, you know, not just listen to a
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 5: podcast about it like this one, but to do something.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 5: And it doesn't need to be grander, it doesn't need
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 5: to be big, but just do something, you know, hold
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 5: somebody's hand and jump in together and do something good.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 5: It'll make you feel better.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the greatest care for depression Action Action Action. Well,
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: thank you both, Thank you so much. I am leaving
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: this inspired and reinvigorated and excited to continue trying to
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: to make a difference and induce good stuff in this world.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: For these incredible places, incredible creatures. We're so so lucky
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: to live in a place where we can do these things,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: where we can hunt and fish and explore. Man, that's
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: not the case for everyone. So we got to remind
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: ourselves not to take that for granted and not to
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: assume that it's guaranteed. We have to make sure that
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: we are putting in the effort to maintain these opportunities, privileges,
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: and resources. So on us, I will leave with two
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: last notes more practically. Number one, an action item that
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: everyone I would highly suggest you take if you have
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: not already, is become a member of the two organizations
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: that these guys are a part of. Both tremendous conservation organizations.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: Both have opportunities and events that you can participate in,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: like we've talked about, even outside of working for wildlife, right,
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: there's other stewardship events BHA chapters have as you just mentioned.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: Other chapters are trying to get some things kicked off
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: with NBA in places. Man, there's so many opportunities. So
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: these are two organizations you can join. Become a member,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: please do. It's Dear Association dot com for the NDA,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: and it is Backcountry Hunters dot Org for BHA. All right,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: you're right, Okay, so head to those websites, become a member,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: get involved, and then I'll reiterate something I just said,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: which is, yes, there's three events scheduled so far for
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: the Working for Wildlife Tour this year, but there are
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: many other stewardship events across the country involved with other
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: organizations all over the place. So if you do not
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: live near one of those three we mentioned, don't let
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: that stop you. Do a little bit searching around, do
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit bit of googling, reach out to your
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: local chapter of whatever organizations you're part of, reach out
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: to your your local forest service unit, whatever it is.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: There's probably some way you can get involved. Like Matt said,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: do it, get involved, do the thing, and let's get
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: more snowballs rolling.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 7: Down the hill.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: All right, that is a wrap. Thanks for being here. Please,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: as a mention, make sure you're a member of.
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 4: BHA and NDA.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: I hope you'll take some action after our chat here,
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: sign up for those Working for Wildlife events, sign up
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: for a different stewardship event, Participate in any kind of
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: way you can. When it comes to online advocacy, make
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: your phone calls, chat with your legislators. Learn Like Chris said,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: make sure you're maintaining a baseline understanding of the different
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: issues ongoing. Follow the news. Make sure that you are
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: an educated and enlightened conservationist so you can take action
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: on the right things when the time is ready. And well,
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: that ill said, thank you.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: Thanks for being here. I appreciate you being a part
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 3: of this community.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you being the kind of person who puts
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: a flag in the ground and says, hey, I care
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: enough about wildlife, about wild places, about deer hunting, fishing,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: turkey hunting, what every thing is. You care enough to
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: do something about it, to give back and to work
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: for wildlife. So thanks and stay wired to hunt.