Podcast Introduction
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, hello. Welcome back to the Going Coastal podcast, the podcast of students and new professionals in the coastal field, hosted by John Miller, Marissa Torres, and Deb Fernandez. I'm one of your co-hosts, Marissa Torres.
00:00:22
Speaker
And I'm one of your other co-hosts, Deb Fernandez.
Guest Introductions
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Speaker
For this month's episode, we have a professional development episode to bring to you We have Heather Corzen.
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Speaker
who finished her master's in public administration at the University of Pennsylvania and is now a coastal resilience fellow with NOAA and works at the Urban Coastal Institute at the Monmouth University.
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Speaker
We're also joined by Neil McMillan, who graduated with his master's in marine affairs at the University of Washington and was a Knauss fellow through the NOAA Sea Grant. And now he works as a Director of Federal Affairs at the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources.
00:01:04
Speaker
Welcome, Heather. Welcome, Neil. Hello. Thank you. It's good to be here with y'all and talk coastal, even though I'm in Baton Rouge. They still have water there. Yeah, we've got a big old river, that's for sure.
00:01:17
Speaker
I mean, I'm up in New Hampshire and I'm doing coastal stuff, so we can't all live on the beach. Well, we're excited to have you both on the show. ah Thanks so much for your
Show Format and Guest Backgrounds
00:01:26
Speaker
time. And so usually how the show goes is we want to get to know you as people and your journey, essentially like your academic and professional background and how you ended up in the roles that you are in today. And then we'll talk about some of your fellowship experience. So Heather, what's your story map?
Heather's Journey to Climate Resilience
00:01:48
Speaker
Well, um I am relatively new to the world of coastal work or coastal management, but I'm not new to the coast. I was born in Virginia near Norfolk, and I went to school for sustainable business for my undergraduate at Mary Baldwin University, which is this really little historically all women's college in the Shenandoah Valley region in the Appalachia Mountains.
00:02:11
Speaker
And by the time I finished that degree, though, I realized that I didn't want to work for the private sector and I really wanted to go into government work or nonprofit. And so I applied for my Master's of Public Administration at the University of Pennsylvania, which I did end up getting in. And I did finish that program just this past year.
00:02:31
Speaker
And while I was at that program, I worked on the city of Camden's climate resilience plan or coastal resilience plan specifically. which really got me interested in climate resilience planning. i wasn't doing a lot of the direct community engagement.
00:02:45
Speaker
I was sort of peripherally involved in supporting the people who were at leading meetings and managing the overall project. But I was really inspired by how the project team integrated the community into the planning process and everything like that.
00:02:59
Speaker
And then I'm actually not
Heather's Fellowship Experiences
00:03:02
Speaker
new to fellowships. This is my fourth fellowship almost in a row. While at Penn, I did the Climate Leaders at Penn Fellowship, ah which led to my fellowship with the Water Center at Penn, which led to my fellowship with the Land Conservancy of New Jersey right after that, but ah which kind of led into this fellowship.
00:03:20
Speaker
So I am i'm a little bit ready to to settle down. I'm resolving to make this my very last fellowship, at least in a row for a little while. But yeah, as you said, I'm the I am one, I'm part of the NOAA Coastal Resilience Fellowship Program right now that just got started in July.
00:03:36
Speaker
Wow. We'll have a lot to unpack in the next section um to talk about all of your fellowship experience. Oh, that's awesome. So um you're residing where now physically?
Heather's Coastal Management Interests
00:03:48
Speaker
I'm in Monmouth County in New Jersey now. In New Jersey. don't know where Monmouth was. As someone who stares at maps, I'm very geographically challenged. I can actually relate to that a lot. Like I play video games and I can't get around at all in them, but I use GIS for my job.
00:04:04
Speaker
Video game maps are so hard. m I don't have that mental picture. My goodness. Okay. So you just kind of um liked the management and policy side of things, but kind of ending up in coastal and really loving it. Did I hear that right? Yeah, absolutely. i always knew I was interested in the environment and climate more broadly,
00:04:24
Speaker
And then by the time I had finished my undergrad, I knew that I wanted to work in the public sphere to some degree. Okay, nice. Another someone who just ended up in coastal.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yes, I didn't necessarily think the climate resilience. Well, when I started learning about climate resilience, I realized that a lot of it was flooding and and coastal related. So I just sort of naturally ended up back on the on the Atlantic Ocean. hmm.
00:04:49
Speaker
That's fair. Awesome.
Neil's Path to Marine Policy
00:04:51
Speaker
Neil, how about yourself? Thanks, Marissa. and got to coastal policy kind of through two avenues. One was as a Southern Studies major at Ole Miss in undergraduate. I took a Mississippi River class and was like, wow, environment, that's my lane for the how I can help get back to the South, my home area.
00:05:12
Speaker
And then on the other hand, I studied abroad in Scotland and discovered that they were really passionate about marine energy. So whether that's wind, waves or tides, that was kind of of their economic development plans. And so I kind of combined those efforts and went off to University of Washington to study tidal energy on a National Science Foundation grant from the social science side.
00:05:33
Speaker
So that was kind of my interest into marine policy and was hooked. I mean, there's so much that kind of goes into emerging technologies and renewables in the ocean scene. It was felt like it was very new
Neil's Knauss Fellowship Experience
00:05:44
Speaker
and exciting. And I'm an activator, so I love the idea of bringing new technologies to bear and kind of why it was such a struggle in the U.S. to do so.
00:05:52
Speaker
And so that's what got me rolling and looked to D.C. afterwards through the Knauss Fellowship and have been in the coastal policy scene since. Well, that's fun. Completely different paths.
00:06:04
Speaker
Look at that. um Tell me more about your study abroad experience in Scotland. When were you there? ah I guess three times. So I'm i'm a Macmillan, so maybe that's kind of meant to be ah with the name. But the first was in Dundee, Scotland. That's on the, they call it sunny Dundee. So on the East Coast of Scotland, very near the the beaches of St. Andrews.
00:06:25
Speaker
And so that was just a kind of get to know Scotland. And then when I was competing for a travel grant through our honors program, that's when I kind of discovered they were the the leaders in this marine energy. And so ah spent a summer there interviewing people as far north as the Shetland and Orkney and Hebrides Islands, which is ah really remote. But that's also where they're having all this technology innovation because of their ocean currents and waves and winds.
00:06:51
Speaker
So so interesting how a rural area could have kind of high-tech economic development thanks to the marine resource. So it was just like lot cultivating there and then was able to, through grad school, kind of compare how we were doing in the U.S., which was a real struggle. We actually couldn't get permits to try out these new technologies and then contrast it with how Scotland, thanks to the Queen at the time,
00:07:13
Speaker
actually owning the seabed was able to permit things much easier and test out some stuff. So kind of comparing and contrasting. So I got, I guess, two more trips out of it, but it's been a long time since I've been there. But it's been neat to see that some of the early projects we're studying are actually kind of into commercial development phases. So it's, I guess, over the past 10 years, things things are really going. But at the same time, we've got a lot lot of new stuff. And the U.S. is just starting to catch up on some of these technologies as well.
00:07:40
Speaker
That's also something we can definitely unpack in the next session or next part of this episode is like, what are like the biggest challenges that we have in the U.S. to implement these types of technologies versus out in Scotland?
00:07:54
Speaker
No, for real, we actually can steal some ideas from other parts of the ah the world as as well as ah from other states. And so I think that's what's really interesting about the coastal community is we have a lot of cross pollination from different parts of the country.
00:08:08
Speaker
And we kind of mimic what Alaska is doing or what Jersey's up to or what Florida's gotten. That's something that definitely think is very useful in my policy career.
Heather's Role in NOAA Fellowship
00:08:18
Speaker
is tapping into kind of different parts and mimicking kind of make it fit kind of your your coastal territory. You know, I do think it's worth going back to Scotland and checking things out. You know, I'm getting a little little rusty.
00:08:30
Speaker
So I'll tell that to my travel prover. Yeah, you want them to listen to the podcast? Yeah, i want to stand a right to them and be like, hey, there's this big gap. Sponsorship opportunity.
00:08:41
Speaker
There you go. We're always looking for sponsors. Yes. Awesome. Now we would love to know more about the fellowship that you did. Heather, do you want to explain to us and our listeners the fellowship you did?
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. My current role is with NOAA, with the Coastal Resilience Fellows Program. And NOAA hosts a lot of different fellowships. The Coastal Resilience one is unique to its Climate Resilience Regional Competition, which was funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funding relatively recently, just last year. So this larger program awarded a bunch of different regions millions of dollars through this competition, where all of the projects are oriented towards coastal resilience and community resilience.
00:09:29
Speaker
The Climate Resilience Competition funds the project themselves and also funds the technical assistance to these project teams and also funds 29 coastal resilience fellows that are placed throughout these projects to help support them.
00:09:44
Speaker
So all of these fellows are two-year positions. It started in June, July 2025 is going to all way through 2027.
00:09:53
Speaker
And we're all new grads and early career professionals that are getting started in a variety of different fields. My title is Community Engagement Fellow, and my responsibility in the project has to do with engaging communities in planning efforts and design when it comes to coastal resilience projects.
Community Engagement in Coastal Projects
00:10:10
Speaker
or resilience projects in general, not strictly speaking coastal, but that's what the focus is for this particular grant. But there's other fellows that are working on adaptation planning, data and spatial analysis, communications. I know there's a couple of groups that have fellows specifically dedicated to the incorporation of indigenous knowledge or communication with tribal governments across these projects.
00:10:29
Speaker
And a lot of them are already up and running or have been up and running for a couple of months now. The New Jersey project is in a little bit of a strange place because the federal funding is actually in place already, but we're waiting for grant agreements from the state right now. So we're a little bit in a holding pattern for everybody else in the grant, but since I'm funded by the fellowship portion of the grant and not the project, I'm kind of the only person who can work on it right now. So I've been doing a lot of just research and reading about the general state of climate resilience efforts in New Jersey and trying to get prepared to do the actual work once it starts.
00:11:06
Speaker
Cool. So by the actual work, you mean so like community engagement, how is that going to look like? Are you going to go on the field, talk to people? Like, what are you going to do exactly?
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm definitely still trying to get a good picture about what it's going to look like. Per the the grant, um we're supposed to be working with 18 to 20 communities on the development of resilience projects.
00:11:28
Speaker
So i know John at Stevens, And the Stevens team are going to be probably helping with the projects that are a little further along in development that already have like initial designs or are getting ready for implementation. I know his team is going to be working a little bit more on those more developed projects. The Urban Coast Institute is specifically engaging communities that are earlier in the process, communities that don't necessarily have ideas created yet or full designs ready to move forward. And so we're we're on the earlier side.
00:11:58
Speaker
that. So we're going to be you know hosting community meetings, connecting with stakeholders of various kinds of local government, local businesses, community members, non-government institutions, things like that, to try to work with them to identify projects that both increase community resilience, provide ecosystem benefits, and also provide other additional benefits, what we call co-benefits to the community, as far as usually economic development or education or other things like that.
00:12:28
Speaker
you're just going to have like town halls? Yeah, that's kind of the traditional model of community engagement that I think we're sort of more familiar with. But I know I don't have a background in planning, but my previous fellowship was with a planning ah group and i helped write open space plans. And they kind of did those very classic traditional just town hall meetings or sessions where community members can like go up to the front of a big podium and talk at kind of decision makers.
00:12:55
Speaker
And those are really helpful, but they're not necessarily the kind of deeper community engagement that you want to engage with when you're kind of co-designing projects with the community. When I was working in Camden, supporting their coastal resilience plan, we were doing work with the community very directly, like from the beginning of the process. It's not necessarily like, oh, we've created this plan and we're going to present it to you and we're going to take comments or take feedback that can be incorporated at the end.
00:13:23
Speaker
That's more of an older model. When you're doing like more, like deeper community engagement, you want to engage communities from the beginning of the process ah So before you have all of your ideas figured out, before you have designs created, you want to identify community priorities, key stakeholders, like community leaders, people who have influence that can help you understand the community on a deeper level, which hopefully results in plans or project designs that are more tailored to the needs of the particular community that you're working with.
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, I'm wondering like what kind of almost facilitation methods or tools that you use in these kinds of brainstorming to more actionable, tangible items and through these meetings. so Like how how does that process look and how does it vary over the course of time?
Challenges in Camden's Resilience Project
00:14:13
Speaker
a project more or less in the design phase. Yeah, I'm definitely going to be referring more to the Camden project just because the work with this particular fellowship hasn't necessarily gotten off the ground because of the current situation. But with the Camden project is what inspired me to to take on this role.
00:14:27
Speaker
The planning team, we started with identifying the key stakeholders in the community and doing a bunch of different interviews with them ah to try to get a really good picture of what the landscape of decision making and community priorities was. um A lot to do with who community members trusted, where they gathered, ah who is interested in the kind of work that we were doing in Camden, and who would be interested in being engaged with the project. We did also a lot of interviews with ah local government officials, um representatives from local businesses and things like that, um just to try to get a good picture about like where the people's trust in their local government was, where some of their mistrust was,
00:15:09
Speaker
And then also to start to identify the key issues with flooding. This particular project was very specifically focused on flooding. um Trying to identify where those locations were, what what their their key challenges were with that. So in Camden, they're a combined sewer um jurisdiction. So they they had a lot of issues with ah some of the sewer overflow that happens when their storm drains are over overwhelmed by storms.
00:15:37
Speaker
um And so... That was kind of more of the beginning of the process was his interviews. And then we ended up having community members ah directly involved in the process as part of the steering committee was composed of members of the community. And the key partner that we were primarily working with was a nonprofit that was very engaged with community and environmental justice in that area.
00:16:00
Speaker
And then later in the process, we also had design charrettes where we invited It was an open invitation where anybody from the community could come to these meetings and talk about their their priorities and their vision for potential park expansions or open space preservation projects or some green infrastructure ah solutions that we were proposing and to provide their feedback to try to shape what other benefits they wanted to be generated from these projects.
00:16:31
Speaker
Very cool. What were some of the biggest challenges with that? Yeah, I think... There had been a lot of planning efforts in the past that hadn't necessarily gone all the way through the implementation phase, is very common. um It's a very common thing that communities experience.
00:16:48
Speaker
ah or You'll have like planners come in and and build out this whole plan of action for a particular issue in the community, ah and then not necessarily having the financial backing or um other types of support to actually be able to get the recommendations put in place.
00:17:07
Speaker
um So there was definitely a mistrust in the planning process that we really were trying to alleviate through the very extensive community engagement that we did. um then also just a mistrust of local government is also something that has increased in recent years.
00:17:23
Speaker
It can be really difficult for people to want to attend these meetings, um as well as just the other barriers that prevent people from attending community meetings, like busy schedules, need for childcare, difficulty, you know, ah arranging, arranging times to meet and having the motivation to actually go.
00:17:45
Speaker
So that was some of the, some of the ways that we tried to alleviate those barriers were to have community ambassadors that were um these community leaders that had like a lot of social power or social influence in the, in the community.
00:18:01
Speaker
And, know, to train them or to give them a bunch of resources to make sure they were very well informed about our planning efforts and then have them go out as representatives of the community to sort of try to get people more engaged with the project.
00:18:19
Speaker
um the other The other way that we did it, we had multiple community meetings specifically for ah the different neighborhoods in Camden that we were considering um making recommendations for.
00:18:29
Speaker
And we used that, we used those meetings as an opportunity to to schedule them at night or at various different times based off of the population of the area to try to make sure that people had the opportunity to attend. I think we ended up doing multiple meetings um in some of the neighborhoods that we really wanted to focus on.
00:18:49
Speaker
um But near the end of the project, I and had graduated, so I wasn't involved. Sounds very intensive, and you really have to be a people person. the complete opposite of us engineers over here behind the screen.
00:19:01
Speaker
deb do you have ah more questions for her? Not necessarily questions, but I've never heard of a community ambassador. i feel it's like really, really cool. it's ah It's kind of an amazing way to like get one of the really famous neighbors to just go around and talk about the things that you're trying to preach for.
00:19:19
Speaker
ah so I think that's really cool. Yeah. And oftentimes it's people who are very involved in their local churches or people who are involved in some of the nonprofits that do a lot of work in Camden.
00:19:30
Speaker
um, that are just really tapped into the social networks. Because if you're coming in as somebody, you know, from Philadelphia across the river, who's coming in to you know, make all these recommendations about somebody's town that you don't even personally live in, um, it is not something that people are going to want to listen to. They're, they're much, much more, more willing to listen to and provide feedback, uh, if they're being specifically invited in by somebody who they already know, they already,
00:19:57
Speaker
have established relationships with, they know that this person cares about their community and they trust them ah that whatever project this person is involved in is going to be worthwhile and useful.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. That's great idea. Really cool. um Thank you, Heather.
Neil's Congressional Experience
00:20:14
Speaker
Now you, Neil, you get to give us your spiel about your fellowship experience.
00:20:20
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, I'm very passionate about the Knauss and I encourage all of y'all listening, if if you're in the right professional development scene to give it a consideration. It's for emerging marine professionals, usually science, but there's a whole lot of ways to plug into the marine field. So you're wrapping up at your master's or your PhD, you're kind of eligible for this nationwide competition to be a NOAA Sea Grant fellow or a canal. So I'll use that interchangeably.
00:20:51
Speaker
And basically you apply through your state's Sea Grant program. um There's different ones like in each state. So even though i grew up in Mississippi, my school was in Washington. So I was a Washington Sea Grant fellow. And so they have a ah miniature competition and then they submit, I guess, the finalists at the state level for a federal committee to select them.
00:21:11
Speaker
And so what's what's great about being selected is you get to join the Canals Mafia, which we always reference in DC that in this environmental space, you never know who's been one before. And It's been ongoing since the early 80s. So, I mean, it's definitely growing. So there's more of us younger generation folks there, but there is a legacy to that. And um that's been really cool to see, especially as you engage with federal agencies. There's two tracks ah for the canals, and it's definitely something you kind of want to recognize that both any opportunity can help your career blossom ah because you're connecting with the federal government and you're in D.C., um which is which is so great, too, especially a lot of us coastal people.
00:21:53
Speaker
I've been out there in the field or near the ocean, near the fisheries. And so getting into the very, ah you know, where you're student high, DC office life is a, is a, is a change in pace, but also it really elevates your professionalism.
00:22:07
Speaker
ah So there's two tracks. There's one that's the largest chance, which is to go with the federal agencies. And so now I think there's roughly 50 to 60 fellows a year and they'll have a one year matchup with the federal agency. And,
00:22:20
Speaker
A lot of this is NOAA for sure, but there's a whole range. Like there's even some with the Navy or Weather Service, some with EPA, Fish and Wildlife, in the federal family. And a lot of these places have had kind of recurrent fellowships that they've learned how to mentor and grow, but also sometimes there's new projects, new emphases.
00:22:37
Speaker
So if you want to kind of be an active scientist um and kind of plug into federal ocean policy from a scientific perspective or comms or just kind of career scene, then I definitely would try to pursue that track because you have some sort of self-determination in this, though it's also kind of like fraternity or sorority rush. Like they're recruiting you.
Policy Challenges on the Hill
00:22:57
Speaker
You're trying to position yourself with them.
00:22:59
Speaker
i you're trying to do some matchmaking, right? And you can't really go wrong, but you want to go as right as possible, if that makes sense. And then the other track, which is what I did, was called the legislative track. So there's there's 12 when I went through there. There's now, I think, 17.
00:23:14
Speaker
um Congress has been increasing the funding. And so this is um like a Hill Fellowship. So you work directly with Congress, members of Congress. And it's ah it's a really neat and complex job interview because you have to do about 18 interviews over like a day and a half, which is really grueling and intense.
00:23:34
Speaker
But at the same time, there's more jobs than fellows. So you've you know you're going to land somewhere, which is ah can be relieving because I know a lot of us, at least certainly me when i was emerging from Marine Policy, I had this...
00:23:48
Speaker
look, I know contributions needed in the ocean space, but like, is anybody to think I can help? You know, there's that that kind of thing. So it's a good, it's a good scene. It's really interesting to go through that as you kind of hear just different parts of the country, whether it's Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, you know, what, what folks are looking for in their area, what they think a helpful person would be.
00:24:08
Speaker
And um so that's, that's what I did. And I matched with my home state senator, which was not my intention when I started, but it turns out there's a lot of good connection points there. So Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, and um he was a a Republican.
00:24:26
Speaker
And, you know, that's something I would also encourage is that sometimes folks, I think the majority of fellows on the Hill have matched with Democrat offices historically, probably like 80 plus percent. And some of that's based off where people come from or who's, what offices are applying. But there's been a lot of efforts to kind of balance that out because,
00:24:48
Speaker
really every coastal state needs extra muscle, if you will, on the policy front to kind of take our marine economies and and people and populations and elevate them.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of value in the Sea Grant Fellowship is that you have a chance to work for um either party and in different parts of the country. And there's been something so neat about being on the Hill and having peers, you know, through the fellowship, your peer network that's kind of working across the country and I found out that a lot of us were able to talk um across the aisle kind of instantly because of our science background, or our issue areas, and kind of create a lot of ocean policy relevant laws, funding efforts type of thing that if we hadn't been there, it would not have been happening because there's not that connection. And it takes a lot of effort for folks in kind of traditional office on the Hill
00:25:44
Speaker
so to like branch out and meet people from very different regions and stuff. So I think it's very interesting how the, for the ocean policy world, these fellows like I was like brand new, you know, just learn how to get around the Capitol are actually advancing ocean policy in a major way.
00:26:02
Speaker
Uh, thanks to the fellowship connections and peer group. if you took us out, I think, um, a lot of the coastal issues that we think are so important would be on the back burner and, um, just harder to get momentum. And, um,
00:26:14
Speaker
That would be disappointing. So not only is it a great professional development opportunity, but the Knaus, I think, is very essential to a thriving ocean policy environment.
00:26:26
Speaker
So it's it's personally helpful and meaningful. And as you can tell, why I'm so hyped about it. I love that. That's so good. You're very passionate about it. And it's exactly the kind of person that we need in this environment. Because I sure as hell couldn't sit through 18 interviews with congressmen and senators and their staff.
00:26:46
Speaker
So what was that like? Well, that was that was something. So it's like said, it was kind of like matchmaking. So sometimes you were like, wow, we're we're connecting. And like, that's one thing I advise fellows, if you get in the situation, whether it's in the agency
Young Professionals' Impact on Policy
00:27:01
Speaker
side or the the hillside is you're probably interviewing with who you're going to work with and you need that rapport because if you have good connection, you know, your good first impression, um that bodes well, whereas you're missing it.
00:27:15
Speaker
You may not, you may not want that. So it's, it's good to have that clarity, but then let me tell you when you're in a, uh, interview and you're like not connecting and you just out of it's pretty tough and then you gotta shake that and meet the next person but you know one office and now that person's a very important person the member but um yeah they had a very parochial issue they're like we have some whales washing up we want you to deal with these community members that are mad at us about these whales dying and I was like you know I don't want to do that for a year.
00:27:45
Speaker
That's tough. Then others had a very specific vision, like we're going to do all climate here, or we're going to work on this fisheries bill here. You kind of need to self-evaluate and realize, be open to anything, but also kind of what would you want to go through? And so after you do those 18 interviews, they make you rank right away, you know, which offices you would go to as long as you'd be willing to go. And then they have this formula to go and there's There's a couple offices that are really prime positions. So sometimes there's a little like jockeying for that. And sometimes it's just like a consensus. You're meant to be with this office. They want you. no one else cares.
00:28:18
Speaker
And it's funny because like even though ah you get to see where the office is ranked you. And I was like, oh, my gosh, they hated me. And I was really upset. I was like, I thought we had a good connection. They put me at like the bottom.
00:28:29
Speaker
And then a little salty about that. You know, I mean. Everyone knows your mom likes you, but you hope other people like you, right? But then I found out later that that office was being very political and they were like, we you're great, but we think you're being recruited by other people.
00:28:42
Speaker
So we're not going to waste our ah bullet on you. So you're like, oh, okay, that wasn't, there's a strategy. And that's that's what's so interesting about the Hill is it's helpful for early career ocean policy people is, You learn strategic thinking, how to get to a destination strategically, like what are the intermediate steps? I think a lot of us come in ready to fix problems and we're like, do people even know this is a problem?
00:29:03
Speaker
They need to know and we're going to fix it. But the Hill is so good on building up the steps to get to that point and to get that consensus that Heather was talking about at a national level. And I think that's one of the the biggest takeaways is how to attack a problem afterwards because you've You're trying to convince folks way beyond the sphere of interest in ocean policy to agree on something that needs to change. And so it's an interesting journey. So even even the fellowship matchmaking thing is really a good lesson on kind of what type of value a policy fellowship on the Hill can offer.
00:29:38
Speaker
Still feels like going on a date and then getting graded afterward. though I'm sure that's not very fun. You know, it's it's probably it's far better than then on online dating. It probably is better than that because you're at least meeting the person. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we should go back to that in terms of ah the dating scene. Bring a scorecard. You know, I will say that the the guy in our fellowship who had access to a boat, like he was probably the most popular. So it does, know, the dating scene probably does apply to the policy scene.
00:30:06
Speaker
That's funny. You think that if you're on the federal level that you probably have access to the resources to acquire a boat, but no. Hiring your fellow based off of boat access is pretty cool.
00:30:16
Speaker
In the government, we have the least amount of resources. That's true. That's right. That's right. But, um you know, guys who love to fish, they don't have the hustle. they They figure it out.
00:30:27
Speaker
So I salute them. Though I was not... think each ah fellowship usually has the fish guy, like the one who's like, before morning fishing in the the Potomac River, you know, and we had that guy and it wasn't me.
00:30:43
Speaker
Oh, you're talking about actual fishing. I thought this was a metaphor for like being in a room and like he's going fishing for the right opportunity, like the right... That's the thing. That's the confusing, Marissa, is that there are ocean references for all sorts of metaphors. So... Oh, what's your favorite ocean pun? Heather, think of yours as well.
00:31:04
Speaker
I don't think that I've been in and coastal stuff long enough to have come into contact with the punny-ness of working in coastal.
00:31:16
Speaker
Well, I'll give you a marine-related one that's a little crass, but hopefully it's not too bad for your audience.
Humor and Communication in Policy Work
00:31:24
Speaker
So we introduced a bill, bipartisan bill,
00:31:28
Speaker
connected to by the Sea Grant Fellowship. So we had this good Hawaii, Mississippi connection, right? And the idea is to better explore the oceans, to take underwater drones and let them map out what's what's subsurface. Because we know less, and they say we know less about under the ocean floor than and the moon even, which is kind of, it's hard to believe, but that's what they say right?
00:31:52
Speaker
And so to create a successful bill on the Hill, you need an acronym. Right. It's got to be like exciting and explain what it is. And I definitely like working on that and trying to come with a funny headline. But ah the Hawaiian folks, they had the idea.
00:32:10
Speaker
And so we called it CNote, um which CNote is a way people used to refer a hundred dollar bill. um So that's that's what people thought we we're talking about money. A lot of times we're like, no, no, no.
00:32:21
Speaker
It's this Spanish thing called cenote or something like that. And so when whenever you put an accent into something, you get lots of laughs at like the briefings whatever. But, um, so that's what I thought it was. i was like, for my boss, he didn't want to say anything in Spanish.
00:32:37
Speaker
Or I guess, what is a cenote? It's a underwater cavern, usually in like the, Central America area. And like, there's rumors, the Mayans like used them for stuff, you religiously things. And, but the idea is like, it's like a little hole. Then you go, you scuba dive in there and there's like this amazing water and it's worth exploring. So it worked.
00:33:00
Speaker
It actually thematically worked really well. Um, but I just noticed I kept getting lots of laughs every time. if people were like, why are you saying this? Whatever. And then apparently, and Deb's probably laughing. She might know this, but apparently it's a,
00:33:13
Speaker
It can also be a crass swear word um for, you know, someone's bottom, basically. And so you want to just watch out with, if there's some humor, you just got to get, you just got to vet things. You can't trust someone. Apparently everyone thought we were making a a butt reference when we were trying to talk about exploring the ocean.
00:33:33
Speaker
And so that's like the opposite of a good fish pun, but No, I really like the whole story leading up to the fish pun. Well, it's just bad because I'm like, first off, when you work on a hill, you represent your boss. And so you never want to embarrass your boss, right?
00:33:50
Speaker
And apparently I might have if he'd done. I don't think he did. When i was at um I was doing the fellowship with the climate leaders at Penn, it was a relatively new group, but they their acronym, they just picked the first letter of climate leaders at Penn, which is unfortunately CLAP.
00:34:11
Speaker
C-L-A-T-P. ah And I can't believe because it was the students at Wharton ah Business School who came up with it. and i'm like, you didn't have one communications major on your team thinking about how CLAP might not necessarily be the best acronym to use for your organization.
00:34:27
Speaker
Nope. This is why we need teams with meme knowledge. Yes. and just Different perspectives. Yeah. Yes. And and and multilingual meme knowledge would have been helpful. Multilingual meme knowledge. I feel like every other word in Spanish can also be a bad word. Okay, well, that makes me feel better. i don't know if Dev can confirm, but...
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, I feel like you can use any word. Yeah, it depends on the way you say it. eight But I will say, i will say we actually passed that bill in the law. And right now they're actually using it to like better understand how hurricanes intensify. So like, you know, maybe we used humor to to to make a difference. So we'll see. But could work.
00:35:11
Speaker
Do you can. I think what's interesting, some of the things that you were saying about your experience on the Hill and being on the Hill and on the surface, most of the senators and congresspeople, they're not as in tune with the younger generation, right?
00:35:27
Speaker
But it's it's you guys, you fellows in the background who are providing their staffers with this information, who are working with them. no that's a great point, Marissa, is like there's this perception that the Senate or the Hill is like,
00:35:41
Speaker
an ancient area. But actually, if you added up the ages of folks working on the Hill, you know, made it made it even, it would be an extremely young team compared to like a Fortune 500 company or something, anything, because it is really run by 20-somethings.
00:35:57
Speaker
And as a fellow, you come in probably in that medium age, actually. So if you've done a PhD, maybe you in your upper 20s or something, but, and there's a ton of turnover too. You you might surprise yourself and you're, you're in the on block for about a month or three months. And then someone else is on the team that's newer than you. Most of the folks are under 35, if not under 30 that are actually on the staffs.
00:36:20
Speaker
And lot of that's a challenge because of, you know, low pay, high cost of living in DC, all the things that, you know, we know are tough to be early career folks in a, in a major city definitely applies But what's interesting is on top of that, there's ah kind of all the off the hill, the lobbying firms, the trade associations, the federal agencies that can you know offer something better than you know the lean hill life. So there's lot of poaching. Sometimes members i have one or two kind of, I don't want to say adult, like I'm obviously an adult in my thirty s but adult adult, like 50s, 60s, whatever, advisors that's been there long term.
00:36:52
Speaker
So there might be a couple coaches, but um it really is a youth moment.
Mentorship and Self-Direction on the Hill
00:36:56
Speaker
And it is so funny. um You'll see the CEOs come in. They're extremely important people. And they come in and the boss is a little busy. And i guess I was like 24 at the time. And you're like, so Mr. CEO, got a few minutes. What can I do to help you? And it's like, they just, they what is going on? Like this, they're used to being kind of courted. And so a lot of the veterans understand that it's a youth movement and they're like, well, is the person doing the work anyway, but there is kind of a cognitive dissonance.
00:37:20
Speaker
And then I think that's another big learning of the whole fellowship is you get to go, you know, in the room where it happens at a very early age and see how these principles, these real decision makers, how they, they frame motivation and strategy and what needs to happen.
00:37:37
Speaker
and it's kind of up to your initiative to to make it happen. So on the Hill, there's always a fire drill. And what's the unique about the fellowships is you're kind of insulated from a lot of the fire drills because you're you're like a policy expert. You're adding value to the team. You're like a bonus.
00:37:51
Speaker
And so you can use your own initiative and actually grow something and make it into a real initiative in a way that a lot of Hill staff can't. I guess trying to keep these old guys hip and gals, if you get trust,
00:38:05
Speaker
You can establish trust really quickly and then you'd be surprised how much these high level people will just defer to you. And that's that's pretty rewarding because then you're able to bring in all your expertise and all the stuff you've worked so hard and feel like you're making a difference.
00:38:18
Speaker
Sweet. Yeah, really cool. And I i will um back up what you said because I went on the Hill a few times thanks to the ASBPA Coastal Summit and most sort of the people that we dealt with there were younger than me.
00:38:34
Speaker
So like, yeah, there are still there are a lot of people like young people there, but we just don't see them. And I feel like they probably do most of the work, but we don't really see them or hear about them.
00:38:44
Speaker
All right. I wanted to ask you, Heather, what are some of the technical or policy related skills that you've gained through your experience and your different fellowships?
Skills Gained from Fellowships
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think my fellowships have given me the opportunity to work without as many like guardrails or training wheels in place that you kind of usually get in like an academic setting or at least at the master's level where you're always working under like a particular class or with a particular professor.
00:39:15
Speaker
um Working with the Camden project kind of had me problem solving in order to help the decision making of the planning team that I was supporting.
00:39:30
Speaker
um And this particular fellowship with NOAA, I know I'm not in the meat of the actual project yet because I'm one of the only people who can be working on it every day, given the fact that the grant isn't in place yet. um But that has freed up almost all of my time to ah engage in professional development opportunities or and educational opportunities that will help me prepare for the actual work of the grant when it gets started.
00:40:01
Speaker
So right now I've just been, you know, reading a lot about the new, the, landscape of climate resilience in New Jersey and understanding more about strategies, usually nature-based strategies ah to increase community resilience and really focusing on the human element of that, but also learning more about that science-y engineering ah side of of what these interventions are, what the options are, how they can be categorized and and just learning more about that.
00:40:31
Speaker
So it's really been interesting to to look at how these different disciplines kind of come together ah in the realm of climate resilience planning. Because we have like urban planners who are going to be working on the project, engineers, policy folks, all kinds of different people from from different different spheres that are all coming together to work on this particular project.
00:40:56
Speaker
And so do you believe that even if you don't have a coastal background, you can still apply for those fellowships and understand what's going on? Or is it too difficult? Like, how's it been for you?
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think... For my particular fellowship, I was selected because of my experience with community engagement, even though it was relatively ah like a short time period that I was able to work with Camden Project and to work with the Land Conservancy Open Space Plans.
00:41:25
Speaker
um But the subject, the coastal element of this particular project wasn't something that was as much of a factor, I think.
00:41:36
Speaker
ah So I think with a lot of the fellowships, so long as you meet some of the criteria or or meet the particular experience that they want, if not the subject matter, you can apply that ah to the fellowship.
00:41:49
Speaker
But there's a lot of diversity out there as far as what opportunities are available. I wouldn't have been applying for like engineering fellow positions or something like that. It would be completely out of the realm of possibility for me to work for.
00:42:03
Speaker
But I do remember something that one of my professors said and when I was in at Penn was that if you're really interested in a particular topic, which for me is climate and environment, um, go, go to school for the hard skills that you're not going to be able to pick up anywhere else because you're probably going to be interested in it enough to read about it and get more information about it, ah outside of your formal education. and So when I was having trouble choosing, like what classes do I want to take? What do i want to do? And I actually skewed a little bit away from, um,
00:42:39
Speaker
some of the classes on like the subject matter I was interested in to learn more about like coding or data analysis, data visualization, um statistics, and things like that that I think would be useful in my day-to-day, which I now use ah relatively frequently in my my job now.
00:42:56
Speaker
I love that advice. That was a little advice in disguise there, but that is great advice that we haven't had on this show yet. So thank you for that. Learn to hard stuff and you'll be passionate enough to just learn by yourself or find ah the resource by yourself to learn what you like the most.
00:43:14
Speaker
That's easier to learn on your own. Yeah, especially when you're in a program, an academic program that has you know, two electives that you get to pick, especially at the master's level. It's like you only get to pick two classes outside of the required classes for you to to focus on. um And I think it was very useful that I ended up picking like GIS and stats for those two classes that I had to take.
00:43:38
Speaker
Really cool. Since you've done a few fellowships now, I was wondering how have they impacted your career path? Yeah, completely. i they pretty much led directly into one another. I like my friend was one of the the leaders of the climate leaders at Penn, which originally got me into like water policy in general, because I started, i applied for that fellowship and ended up working on ah analyzing comments on the EPA's PFAS drinking water rule that came out ah just last year.
00:44:12
Speaker
And so when I presented on that work for the climate leaders, like end of the year presentation session, somebody from the water center ended up attending my talk and she offered me a job at the water center. With with that fellowship, I ended up working on more research with PFAS with regards to how the new rule would impact communities and water industry stakeholders.
00:44:38
Speaker
And i also got the opportunity to work with somebody else at the water center on the Camden coastal resilience
Networking and Career Impact
00:44:43
Speaker
plan. So even though I wasn't necessarily engaged in climate resilience from the beginning.
00:44:50
Speaker
I ended up there just because of this opportunity doing well and um being able to show off my work from this opportunity leading to the next one. And then my advisor from my work with the Camden Coastal Resilience Plan suggested that I apply to some of the NOAA fellowships.
00:45:09
Speaker
And in the middle there, I did have my work with the Land Conservancy. But because of her recommendation that I apply for the NOAA fellowships, I ended up applying for this program with the NOAA Coastal Resilience.
00:45:20
Speaker
So I've had a lot of I don't like to network in the the sense that I i think Some people seem to like and when it's framed in a way that going fishing.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's like leverage your network to get better job opportunities and things like that. I hate that framing. It makes me feel kind of gross, but always looking back, I realized that the people who I met or worked with throughout the course of the job or program or whatever it was ended up leading me in the direction to opportunities that were very exciting and very good for my development.
00:46:00
Speaker
So I think I've learned to kind of step back from saying how much I hate networking because ultimately it has benefited me. Although I think there you definitely you definitely have to be very like genuine about it. i I do not do very well with like making connections just for the sake of leveraging them for another opportunity anything like that. I don't know if that makes sense.
00:46:23
Speaker
Absolutely. It seems like your path and how that happened was through... organic relationships and you maintained positive relationships with folks that you worked with. You cared about the job and then it just organically moved a recommendation into the next, ah next phase of your life. And that is really nice.
00:46:44
Speaker
No, I'm very fortunate. I'm, I am really grateful for, for all of the people that, that helped me at least become aware of these opportunities that I could put my name in for.
00:46:55
Speaker
I don't know, Neil, if you've had a similar experience or or how, your your NOAA fellowship ended up leading you to your current position or if it was a linear track if it kind of branched off somehow sure I um was lucky to get hired a full time in the same office afterwards so I think it was interesting like you had is your fellowship is really a prove it opportunity which is so exciting because when you're coming from school you're all potential all knowledge but you know ultimately you're trying to translating that and have a constructive job to help about things.
00:47:29
Speaker
Um, and so, yes, the fellowships are great, proved opportunity. And that's something that I just advise everyone is to kind of attack your fellowship. Like it can be in a new scene and you might not know, mean, you might be getting your bearings and all sorts of stuff, but really it's, there's a time clock. And so how much value can you provide?
00:47:50
Speaker
And, um, something I would encourage folks doing the canals especially is sometimes you can apply and you still have some more grad school to do um But I would encourage y'all to try to time it up so that you're actually done with your graduate program so you can fully invest in that limited time on your fellowship.
Maximizing Fellowship Opportunities
00:48:08
Speaker
You know, so that that can be kind of tricky with the certain timing of the fellowship, but you really want to um take a chance. And I totally agree, Heather. It's the people who know you the best that'll be looking out for the best fit opportunities. And so, yes, you should meet new people, but you should also make sure your core champions are really, you know, on your team.
00:48:27
Speaker
I love that. Neil, I was wondering, so you were working with a senator from Mississippi. And so what are the kind of projects you worked on during your fellowship or one that you like the most?
00:48:39
Speaker
I guess one thing I would say is when you're working on the Hill, i was excited to work for a Republican office because lots of Democrat offices came to you to work on their issues to make it bipartisan. Because for ocean policy issues to happen, they got to be consensus. They got to be bipartisan. So it's a really nice area. it's not It's not the stuff on TV that's so divisive. But so folks were always coming to us since we were a member that had a coast.
00:49:03
Speaker
And so we got to work on aquaculture, seafood imports, fisheries management, recreational fisheries management, shellfish, marine technology, ports, The game at Ramp kept going. And so I would say that since my boss in particular liked to do bipartisan work and liked to connect with other folks, it was a great fit. And so we actually were had one of the more active portfolios. And you know when folks think about D.C., it just seems like so almost like yucky. Like my graduate school cohort in Seattle, they could not believe I would leave the great Washington go to the swamp Washington.
00:49:37
Speaker
But we were actually working constructive and like all the the big fights. That's not in the ocean policy scene. I mean, not that things don't get very unique. I mean, fish politics are regional and very complicated, but you feel like you're doing like what your civics class wants you to do to help the country. And so I just would say that don't let your impression of you put a bad taste in your mouth on this.
00:49:56
Speaker
You're actually going to work on kind of almost every issue that's current in the scene. That's good. I'm glad you didn't shy away from it. Sounds like yeah both of you are doing an excellent job throughout your fellowships. And thank you for your sacrifice on the Hill and positive attitude. Positive attitude's in very short supply. And that's that's where fellows come in. And I worked with Coast Guard fellows, Navy fellows.
00:50:18
Speaker
and Usually we just refresh and jaded and had ah an expiration date on our fellowship. let's So we knew we were going to escape. And so if you can bring that positive energy, let me tell you, everyone that's kind of worn down, going appreciate that. So a chance to this shine your little light, I guess.
00:50:32
Speaker
That's fair. It's nice having ah having an end date and out. Very good. Well, so what I'm curious about, and this will be for both of you. So Heather, what are things that you wish you had known before applying for your current coastal management fellowship?
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah, I wish that i knew how much work went into achieving this grant, something that I'm kind of just now realizing. Not that I wasn't aware of the weight of the responsibility, but...
00:50:59
Speaker
It's been very interesting to read more and hear more from people about how the place we're at now with climate resilience in New Jersey, how much work went into getting to that place and and to getting the grant from the climate resilience regional competition. And i don't know how how heavy that kind of feels. I'm very excited to get to work on this project.
00:51:22
Speaker
um But I definitely don't think that I was necessarily prepared for how much kind of pressure it feels like ah it feels like I have on me. um But I think that it's good. I think it's good. I don't i wouldn't change any any of my decisions, my decision to to work on this project or work on this fellowship.
00:51:41
Speaker
It does show that you have a lot of responsibility, I guess, on the other hand. Yes, it's almost like, ah be careful what you wish for. It's like, I want to work for government. And then you work for government. You're like, oh, man, there's a bunch of people relying on me to do my job really well. Like, well, that is what I wanted. That's the place that I wanted to be at. So it's on me.
00:51:59
Speaker
And how about you, Neil? Sure. So what I wish I'd known when I started is that on the Hill especially, but I bet this is true in any D.C. position, folks are so busy and stretched so thin and grinding so hard that mentorship And training is not going to be their forte.
00:52:18
Speaker
They may wish to do it, but the fire drills will kind of keep them from it. I got to swim with my own mentality. And then at the same time, what I did eventually, but wish I'd done early on is find the people in my office on my team that are really adept at the job.
00:52:32
Speaker
Like you can clearly tell who's really performing well. And I should have been like how do you organize your calendar? How do you decide what to research? What to put effort on? Like, where do you direct your energy? Because the energy I put in some things at the beginning were way disproportionate to the reward and some things were like underutilized. So yes, my mentor was helpful, but the exemplar people from my team and kind of got some of the tricks of the trade to be efficient. Because again, you only have so much time in this fellowship, you want to get the most out of it.
00:53:01
Speaker
And so it's great to be self-directed and that's so probably better than being micromanaged, which is not fun and kind of stifling, but how do you skill up and be kind of elite fast? I think you can learn from some partners on the team. So very good.
00:53:17
Speaker
You got that folks.
00:53:24
Speaker
That's to our listeners.
Advice for Fellowship Applicants
00:53:25
Speaker
Um, we're out here being awkward today and everything's great.
00:53:31
Speaker
Deb, would you like to ask the last question? Yes, my pleasure. Thanks. So the way we end our episodes every time is that we both ask you, what advice would you give to someone who's considering applying to the same fellowships that you did?
00:53:48
Speaker
And if you want to go ahead, Heather. Yeah, for sure. i think my advice would be, don't be afraid to throw out an application. So when I finished my MPA and I was getting ready to finish my MPA and started looking for jobs and fellowships and other opportunities and things like that, i I, you know, it takes a really long time to apply for things. So I definitely understand that you want to place those applications strategically.
00:54:13
Speaker
I did find myself like wanting to, what did I found myself shying away from some of the like federal opportunities or opportunities that felt a little higher profile to me or more competitive.
00:54:27
Speaker
And i was applying for a lot of like local government jobs with some smaller organizations. And I definitely wouldn't have thought like I'm a shoo-in for working with NOAA. But I'm really glad that I did end up applying for the NOAA fellowship.
00:54:39
Speaker
You know, it would be nice to know it from the beginning of of the process, of course, that, yeah, you're good enough. You're going be fine. You're going to get the position. But of course, you can't know that from the beginning. But it felt very like affirming to to be offered the position and to um be able to accept it and to be able to do this work. So even though it takes a long time to write an application because of the cover letter and everything like that, and you have to go through the interview process, which some people really don't like,
00:55:03
Speaker
Even though it is all that work, don't be afraid to throw out your application to some of the the jobs that you feel like might be a little bit more of a reach because sometimes it works out and it's really great. think throw out in this context means put your name in the hat, not just, you know, scrap it. Yes. Don't be afraid to put your application in the hat. There you go. That's better. All right. How about you, Neil?
00:55:25
Speaker
Some advice I'd have is, I guess, embrace the opportunity to be in D.C. D.C. is much easier... to join in and absorb the the lessons when you're in your early career.
00:55:39
Speaker
You know, when there's less strings kind of pulling you in different directions in your life. And so even if you get one year fellowship or a few years beyond, or maybe, maybe your life would, that'd be great, but becoming fluent in how the hill works.
00:55:52
Speaker
um What's kind of second nature to you after a fellowship, you'll move somewhere else. And that will be like, very insightful stuff to your peers. And you might be like, well, that's not cutting edge. I that's just what you know when you're in the DC bubble, but it's such a difference maker.
00:56:05
Speaker
You can just kind of make it resonate with a lot of folks there. And that's that's really helpful. And at the same time, my advice would be embrace bipartisan opportunities. A lot of the coastal community is really kind of concentrated on on one party.
00:56:19
Speaker
But again, as I was saying, you have to have both parties and consensus to change any policy long-term for the coast. And we definitely need that. So there's kind of a need, I think, to balance that out.
00:56:30
Speaker
And just hope that folks don't shy away from helping any part of the country because of a personal partisan thing when you have this fellowship. And yeah it might really surprise you how rewarding bipartisan work can be. And surely our whole our whole nation needs even more of that. And i think us ocean people can definitely be great examples of that.
00:56:47
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks for really good advice from both of you. Yeah, appreciate both of your attitudes and outlook. Cool. Thank you both so much for being here and speaking with us today. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for the in invite. I feel like I learned a whole bunch on the policy side of things and it's really nice having ah your both of yours fresh perspectives on it.
00:57:09
Speaker
I feel like we haven't talked with many fellows before, so feel like this could be a recurring session for sure. It's it's really cool. Yeah. Thank you both so much.
00:57:19
Speaker
We'd like to thank the New Jersey Sea Grant for sponsoring the podcast. And hope you have on your calendar ASBPA National Coastal Conference is coming up the 7th through 10th of October in Long Beach, California.
00:57:32
Speaker
Should be a rad time for those who are able to travel. Have fun, everybody. ICCE, the International Conference on Coastal Engineering, is coming to the U.S.
00:57:43
Speaker
in Galveston, Texas, of all places, in 2026. I think it's in May 2026. Abstract submission is open until October 1st, 2025. I do think they might have poster submission open a little bit later, but I'm not sure. Be sure to check out their website to get more info there.
00:58:02
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in to Going Coastal. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Your ratings and reviews help more coastal professionals and ocean lovers find us.
00:58:13
Speaker
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00:58:26
Speaker
Contact us at our email address, podcastgoingcoastal at gmail.com. Thanks for listening.