Keeping California green is both a social responsibility and an employment opportunity. Jobs involve more than picking up trash on a beach. The business of the environment covers communication and public relations, education, engineering, environmental management, fundraising, public health, legal service, outreach and activism, sales and marketing and research.

"We are multifaceted and a jack-of-all-trades," explains Steve Ashe, a partner and geologist with ADR Environmental Group in Sacramento. "We are always looking for people to do what we do."

Most environmental firms require a college degree with background in science, geology, general engineering, environmental engineering, geotechnical or civil engineering. Specialties in related fields are a plus.

Mold a Growing Concern

Mold is the premier niche market in the industry today, spawning mold-related businesses and laboratories throughout the state as public awareness grows.

"It's all a matter of supply and demand," Ashe notes. "We used to send samples to mold professionals in Washington State. But now there are several labs in the Bay Area. There was a vacuum, but someone stepped in and filled it."

Stricter environmental laws make indoor air quality another emerging market. There are many environmental consulting firms that offer a good wage reflective of your experience, background and training, but for Ashe the best part of the job is not being confined to a desk.

"If you want an indoor/outdoor job, the environmental sector offers it all - varied work conditions and semi-flexible hours."

Dominion Environmental in Petaluma does consulting related to ground water, soil, mold and indoor air-quality problems.

"Mold inspections and air quality are the hot topics in the industry," agrees company president Chip Prokop. "I think some reasons for the awareness (of mold) are better understanding and recognition of the danger. Unfortunately there is the hysteria, but the industry is coming to understand there are valid concerns about exposure to mold and fungus."

Prerequisites for employment include engineering or microbiology and Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored credentials in indoor air quality or industrial hygiene. Programs through the UC Berkeley extension offer certificates in indoor air-quality inspection.

"During the late 1990s, most college graduates went into high tech instead of environmental fields," Prokop explains. "So now there is a shortage of qualified candidates."

It's definitely a growing field, which is illustrated by a recent increase in Dominion's staff. But some issues are beyond their control. "The air is getting worse and that's not good for us," Prokop says with concern. "We would rather have it clean."

Worldwide Waste

Environmental Careers Organization Inc, with offices in San Francisco and other US hubs, offers environmental job postings throughout the world, including another hot niche - waste management.

As long as human beings have been around, we have been grappling with garbage. Archaeological digs show lots of bones, tooled stone chips, pottery shards, and other debris, sometimes in concentrated points around early human settlements. The first written records of a dump date back to at least 500 BC in ancient Greece, and dumps have been springing up across the landscape ever since.

Thirty years ago, "waste management" meant getting garbage to the dump and the incinerator," relates ECO's Kevin Doyle. "Today's solid waste professionals face a much more difficult task - to simultaneously reduce overall waste production at thousands of businesses and households; collect, sort, separate and sell an ever-growing number of recyclables; assure that toxic materials are kept out of the waste stream; and bury or burn the rest without damage to our land, air and water."

The next decade will require work as scientific as it is political, as technological as it is economic. The need for further innovation is everywhere, from building cleaner landfills, to collecting recyclables, to redesigning products, to changing consumer lifestyles and perceptions.

Going Public

Public-sector jobs in waste management account for 40 percent of all jobs in the field. The majority of government positions are at the local and state levels.

"I don't think of the recycling area as sexy, but an extension of the garbage business," quips Ann Ludwig, senior program manager with the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (ACWMA). "But there are businesses being created as extensions of the three basic concepts - reduce, reuse and recycle."

Armed with a degree in finance, Ludwig got into the environmental field through packaging small business loans. Similar to other businesses, it is impacted by government, but opportunities do exist in operations and transportation for analysts, urban planners and management.

The authority's mission is to encourage the public to reduce waste. One example is promoting the use of double-sided photocopies.

Extracting Gold from Garbage

Reuse is the second phase. "The grandmother of all reuse is Goodwill and Salvation Army type models," notes Ludwig. "Other businesses specialize in entire building reuse. They dismantle a building rather than demolish it so the wood and brick can be salvaged." Often good materials like a window that a contractor didn't use on a job are thrown out. Companies like Urban Ore in Berkeley specialize in retailing used building materials. Other private firms specialize in selling used equipment and furniture.

"It's a growing field and, increasingly, businesses are focusing on environmental performance and understand it's tied to the bottom line," claims ACWMA public affairs director Bruce Goddard.

In the old-school way of thinking it was the economy or the environment, but new thinking has demonstrated that when companies or individuals do the right thing environmentally, they are doing the right thing economically. The same might be said for your career.

For more information on environmental careers, check these websites:

• ECO.org - Website for Environmental Careers Organization. ECO places college, grad students and recent graduates in environmental internships in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, and operates a collection of programs in collaboration with a number of federal agencies, corporations, nonprofits, and state and local governments. The website offers information on all the programs, listings of current internships, a career center with industry articles, career tips and links, and a newsletter. (415) 362-5552 (Southwest Office in San Francisco).
• EnvironmentalCareer.com - This website offers resume posting, job searches, links to other environmental sites, a calendar of events for seminars and conferences across the US and Canada, and links to environmental degree programs.
• EnviroNetwork.com - Job listings, resume posting and email alerts of current opportunities matching your criteria.