Briefly describe your job.
I am a Hydrologic Technician. I work for the Department of the Interior's United States Geological Survey. I create, manage, and store data based on information collected in the field on rainwater, groundwater and surface water (water in streams, rivers and lakes). I also quantify water quality on a couple of our projects. Our data is available to anyone who wants to use it for free (like the National Weather Service, who uses our data to predict and announce drought and flood conditions and amount of rain in an area).

How long have you been working in this field?
I have been doing this work for three and a half years now, but I have been working in the field of natural resource data collection and field work for 15 years.

When and how did you decide to choose this career?
I chose the path to work outdoors when I was in high school and cemented it with the choices I made in college, taking mostly hard science and field science courses. I also took professional writing and computer courses so I could process and analyze my data.

What education/training did you obtain to qualify you for your field?
I have had many internships between high school and the career I'm currently in. I completed a Bachelors of Science degree in Soil Science and Foreign Language and a Masters of Science in Watershed Management. My job also provides further training. In February I will take a statistics class to help me with one element of my job.

What was your first job in the field?
My first official job, not internship, was as a Hydrologic Technician collecting data on streams throughout Nevada. It was an amazing summer job in college. I traveled all over Nevada with two friends. During the day we analyzed streams, running various tests and completing data collecting sheets. In the evenings we camped near hot springs. On the weekends we hiked throughout Nevada's chains of mountains.

Describe a typical day on the job?
A typical day at work starts by arriving at the office between 6:30-8:30 am. I view the sites I watch over on the internet to see if they are all properly collecting data and that none of the data shows that the sites themselves or the machines collecting data at those sites needs work.

During the day I may do one or more of the following things: I enter data at a computer, fix a site or gather data. If it's a day when I plan to gather data, I put my waders on and head out with my measuring instruments. I find a good stretch of stream to measure how much water is coming through it. I check that it makes sense with the data that the machines monitoring that site are processing. I currently collect data around the Charlotte, North Carolina area, so I often run into deer, beaver, box turtles, snapping turtles, Argiope and Orb Weaver spiders, many fish, tadpoles, frog and toads. I love that part of the job and have many pictures to show friends of what I have seen on any given day in the field.

What do you like most about what you do?
Measuring floods and traveling to measure floods in different locations is a lot of fun. Working in the rain on the sides of bridges and seeing how much water is transported through our watersheds during flood events is incredible. I also like that I have a very relaxed flexible schedule. We don't have someone peering in at our work every minute - you work with your coworkers to get everything done and do the job to the best of your abilities. Once that's satisfied, everyone is content. I love that half my work gets me out of the office and into at least partial woods.

What do you like least about your job?
The amount of time I have to spend in front of the computer writing up all the data I collected!

What has been the most rewarding experience so far in your career?
There are a few experiences that come to mind. Being paid to hike for a two-month period in the Olympic National Forest and Park, working in Alaska and being paid to hike around the Juneau woods. Getting paid to hike in the forests throughout the US and Spanish Virgin Islands. Also, most of the locations in between.

What is the biggest challenge for you in this job?
My biggest current challenge is keeping up with changing technology. What we do, technically, never changes - collecting data on how much rain, groundwater and surface water are in our measuring locations. But the methods we use to collect this data change almost monthly with advances in technology. Some advances are tedious and seem like only more work has been created, but many of the advances give us better results and data, and make our job safer.

What are the most important personal and professional skills necessary to succeed in your field?
Being able to work with your coworkers, putting the data and quality of data before your own personal gain, and, if you want to create your own projects, the ability to write a good article.

What could someone do to learn more about this field right now?
The USGS (United State Geological Survey) has many mentoring programs. We take students of all ages into the field and show them what we do. Also, going to a college with a good natural resources and engineering program is a good way to get a foot in the door.

What advice you would offer to students making a career choice or on work life itself?
Get into a career you know you'll enjoy doing at all times for at least one reason. With me, no matter what I'm doing, I can't be unhappy as long as I'm outside. Even though a lot of aspects of this work are not the most fun, half my work is outdoors - just me alone with the woods.