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2003-06-26
Program links Alcoa workers, conservation
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It's taken awhile but Jan Shrader is finally starting to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up.
The 47-year-old environmental analyst for Alcoa's Warrick Operation has spent the last few years working part time so that she can pursue a biology degree at the University of Southern Indiana.
"My background is really financial," she said. "I've been with the company 18 years. I'm really interested in environmental issues, conservation specifically."
In her current job, Shrader mostly works analyzing the manufacturer's cost to comply with environmental regulations.
So when Alcoa offered its employees the opportunity to partner with the Earthwatch Institute and work on various conservation projects around the globe, Shrader jumped on it. The new partnership will give Alcoa employees from across the country opportunities to support and participate in conservation projects around the world. Earthwatch Institute is the second-largest private funder of scientific research in the world, said Shawn Fitzgibbons, the organization's director of corporate programs.
"I saw a little blurb in some company literature about an ecology-based research project and immediately sent back an e-mail and applied," she said. "I thought, 'This just sounds amazing.'"
And that was before she even knew where she would ultimately be chosen to work. On Saturday, Shrader will leave for the island of Barbados in the Carribean where she work until July 9 helping to monitor the nesting success and ecology of endangered hawksbill sea turtles, once prized not only for their meat but also their shells, which were used to make genuine tortoiseshell products. Information accumulated by the project will be used to help in the turtles' recovery.
The project is a perfect fit for Shrader's interests. She was even able to work the turtle's plight into a research paper for one of her biology classes at USI.
"I've been doing a lot of research on it," she said.
Now she is looking forward to applying that knowledge in the field and sharing her experiences when she returns.
"When you directly experience something, you come back with a whole different appreciation of it," she said.
Shrader said she is hoping to share her experiences with fellow employees as well as interested schools and community organizations.
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