Continuing from How I Got Here: Beta.
Sustainability Career 1.0
As grateful for these opportunities as I am looking back, I knew I had more to give the world than great shots of espresso and latte art. My then-girlfriend and I sat down with an atlas, a spreadsheet, and a general sense of opportunity. I wanted to build a career in sustainability, and she was passionate about food. We narrowed it down to:
- San Francisco, CA – too expensive (which sounds quaint in 2020 looking back at 2007)
- Vancouver, BC – obstacles of immigration/citizenship
- Seattle, WA – just right
Like a lot of privileged choices, there wasn’t a wrong answer. We packed the cars and cut west in December of 2007 without jobs and the generous offer a place to call home until we figured it out. By February, we had a one-bedroom apartment in Capital Hill ($750/mo.), I worked for Dr. Dan’s Biodiesel while networking hard for a big-boy job, and my partner was an admin for Alex Steffen (during the Worldchanging years!). By April 2008, I landed the first of many dream jobs. I was Project Manager on Cascadia Consulting Group’s Waste Team.
Arrogance, naivete, privilege, and youth aside, this was my first genuinely lucky break. I heard about the job through networking, somehow beat out a pool of 300 candidates, and joined a remarkable team.
At this point in my career, I knew how to be a good student (a longer journey than I originally imagined), I knew how to grind, and I knew the basics of customer service. I was a long way from being a polished professional and knew next to nothing about consulting.
To avoid too much digression, consulting was a wonderful teacher. I worked with smart, thoughtful, and genuinely good people. I also got to see waste, energy, and carbon through a variety of lenses. City, County, and state government. Waste haulers and utilities. Large corporations of a variety of stripes. I think this is where pragmatism (a part of my personality?) really took root. I also got straightforward lessons in systems thinking.
As the great recession took root, I had a growing urge to go back to school. I had a general notion that running a business better was more important than deepening whatever expertise I might have. I chose the Bainbridge Graduate Institute and an MBA in Sustainable Business ($90k) for better and worse.
It’s a general and safe assumption that grad school is a time in someone’s life where they want something different. Career. Partner. Identity. Whatever. For me, I broke up with my live-in girlfriend. Fell in love with my now wife. Left Cascadia. Moved into a Subaru Outback for a six-month road trip that ultimately ended in Boulder, CO. A longer story here for another time.
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