past interns
Through our internship program, NRCC helps motivated graduate students develop the analytic and research skills necessary for effective careers as natural resource professionals. Our commitment to providing professional support and development for interns does not end with their internship. We keep in touch with past interns, follow their careers, and provide assistance when we can. Below are updates from a few NRCC interns who have moved on to rewarding careers. For more information on the NRCC intern program, please contact us: nrcc (at) nrccooperative.org.
Greg McLaughlin, 2002 Intern
Natural Resources Conservation Service

Working with the NRCC has been instrumental in my development as an expert and a professional in the area of collaborative conservation. As Principal Author of "Participatory Projects for Coexistence: Rebuilding Civil Society" in the NRCC supported publication, Coexisting with Carnivores: Lessons from Greater Yellowstone, I was given a great opportunity to explore the sociological dimensions driving both opportunities for and obstacles to conservation in our society. The triangle of interactions between local, bureaucratic and natural communities, whether good or bad, sets the waypoints for how conservation efforts can be expected to proceed in the American West. My current position with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Fort Collins, Colorado, has placed me at that critical interface between local people and the land, with the responsibility of developing voluntary and site specific conservation projects with farmers, ranchers, and other landowners. As I continue forward in my career, I hope to draw on my lessons from working with NRCC and continue on with the mission I share with your organization, which is to bring people together via civic engagement to establish conservation and stewardship of natural resources as a truly collective community value.

 
Geoffry Suttle, 1999 Intern
Associate Representative, Sierra Club's National Political Program

Following my time with NRCC, I conducted wolf and large carnivore research in Yellowstone National Park before moving to Bozeman for a position with the Sierra Club's Grizzly Bear Ecosystem Project. In the fall of 2001 I moved to Washington, D.C., to work with the Sierra Club's Legislative Office, lobbying on public lands and wildlife issues. Currently, I'm an associate representative for the Sierra Club's National Political Program and assist with the coordination of its Voter Education Campaign.
Noah Matson, 1998 Intern
Refuge Program Manager, Defenders of Wildlife

As an intern with NRCC, I participated in a multidisciplinary study of the issues facing the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming. My research focused on assessing how biodiversity has fared over the last 90 years under the refuge's elk-dominated management. My refuge research was a perfect background for my work following graduate school with Defenders of Wildlife (www.defenders.org), where I run the national wildlife refuge program and other federal lands policy projects. I have continued to be involved in the National Elk Refuge's management issues as well as work on refuges throughout the country, from Alaska to Florida. I feel that the interdisciplinary learning I gained from my internship with NRCC has been essential in my work today, 7 years later. Through my NRCC experience I synthesized science into management recommendations, learned the ins-and-outs of federal land law and policy, and gained experience working with diverse stakeholders on controversial issues—all skills I regularly employ whether fighting damaging drilling projects on BLM lands in Wyoming, or working cooperatively with agencies on the recovery of the Sonoran pronghorn in Arizona. I recently finished working on a report of the ten most endangered national wildlife refuges, which was released this fall.

 
Brad Kahn, 1998 Intern
Pyramid Communications

I currently work for Pyramid Communications, a Seattle-based strategic communications firm that serves nonprofit organizations around the country. I focus my efforts on conservation and health issues, including promoting Forest Stewardship Council certification, building support for conservation in Latino communities, and the impact of land-use on public health and salmon restoration. For the past four years, I have directed the Active Living Network (www.activeliving.org) for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Network promotes community designs that encourage physical activity in daily routines, such as walking to the store or biking to work.
Christina Cromley, 1996-1998 Intern
Government Accountability Office

The hands-on experiences, along with attentive mentoring, I received as an intern at NRCC prepared me well for a career in public policy. After my internship at NRCC, I continued my education, obtaining a Ph.D. in natural resource policy from Yale. My first job after grauate school was as Director of Forest Policy at American Forests, a nonprofit conservation organization in Washington, D.C. American Forests serves as a “bridge group” between communities and policy makers in D.C. Much of the work there involved improving contracting practices in the Forest Service to help the agency provide benefits to communities and improve forest health. I became interested in the role of contractors in helping agencies to find and secure the common interest, so I moved from American Forests to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), where I investigate contracting issues. Not all of my work now relates to natural resources—my last engagement covered the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, but also Veteran's Affairs, the IRS, and Health and Human Services. I am currently working on contracting issues in Iraq. I have not lost my ties to natural resource issues, however: I serve on the editorial board of Communities and Forests, have reviewed books on natural resource issues, co-authored a book (Finding Common Ground: Governance and Natural Resources in the American West) and am authoring a chapter on community-based forestry. Living and working in D.C. is quite a switch from Jackson Hole! I could not perform in my past or current job, or in my “extracurricular” activities, without the skills I gained and lessons I learned as an intern at NRCC.


David Gaillard, 1996 Intern
Conservation Director, Predator Conservation Alliance

I served as an intern with NRCC in summer 1996, where I helped NRCC President Tim Clark research the policy challenge of organizing an effective partnership to advance the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). I interviewed the major participants of Y2Y from Jackson Hole, Wyoming to Banff, Alberta and identified common themes. Tim and I found that Y2Y participants had very different definitions of the “problem” Y2Y exists to solve, based on the different values, knowledge and skills of those participants, and thus very different strategies emerged for Y2Y to pursue. Our conclusion is that this diversity can be a strength of Y2Y, since success at its mission requires a diversity of strategies, but there must be effective communication and coordination among all participants to avoid conflicts. A paper that describes my research is available online.   My experience at NRCC prepared me well for my subsequent work at Predator Conservation Alliance in Bozeman, Montana, which I joined in 1997 and where I now serve as conservation director. Predator Conservation Alliance (PCA) works to conserve and restore predators and their habitats, and helps people and predators coexist in the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains and Northern Great Plains. With the development of its predator conservation program since its inception in 1991, PCA has found that coexistence between people and predators frames everything it does. Coexistence is necessary to achieve PCA’s goal of resilient populations of native predators fulfilling their natural function across a mosaic of public and private landscapes, rather than just a few “token” predator populations in small, isolated protected areas. Navigating PCA’s work on behalf of controversial predators through a highly complex social and political landscape requires a firm grounding in the policy sciences, and I credit my work with Tim Clark and NRCC for laying much of this foundation.