National Wildlife Federation, Peace Corps, and NWF EcoLeaders with David Corsar

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with David Corsar, Manager for Career Development Programs at the National Wildlife Federation about Peace Corps, NWF EcoLeaders, and the National Wildlife Federation.   Read his full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form.

Showtimes: 

1:21  Nic & Laura's talk about Reframing Mindsets
13:35  Interview with David Corsar Starts
13:55  National Wildlife Federation
23:06  Peace Corps
29:48  EcoLeaders

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with David Corsar at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-corsar-a1a8b89/.

Guest Bio:
David Corsar is the Manager for Career Development programming at the National Wildlife Federation. He is responsible for developing the online career center portion of the EcoLeaders community and managing the annual EcoCareers Conference. 

Before joining NWF, David completed a full 2-year Peace Corps service in the Republic of Armenia where he focused on professional and organizational development for local community-based NGOs. Prior to his Peace Corps service, David worked as an environmental engineer and project manager at a global engineering consulting firm, CDM Smith. David received Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering in Environmental Engineering from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA and a Master of Public Administration from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.

Music Credits

Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa

Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Laura 
Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Nic and I discuss reframing your mindset. We talked to David Corsar, about National Wildlife Federation, the Peace Corps and EcoLeaders. And finally, there's one strand of silk for each kernel of corn on a cob. How about that?

Nic
Isn't that wild?

Laura
Only one?

Nic
Yeah, one per kernel. Isn't that something.


Laura
Well, ok.

Nic 
Yeah, but there's lots of kernels of corn on the cob. It just doesn't seem like it. It's just, all the silk kind of goes to the top.

Laura 
Right. Yeah. Huh, Interesting,

Nic
Right.

Laura
Hit that music.

[NAEP Event News]

Nic 
Come join us for NAEP's 2022 annual conference and training Symposium on May 16. Through may 19 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Registration is open now. So you should check it out. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We at EPR are going to be doing our first live show there, which is going to be so cool and really looking forward to it. It's going to be an awesome time. So please do check it out at www dot n ap.org. We appreciate all of our sponsors and they will keep the show going. If you'd like to sponsor the show, please head on over to www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com and check out our sponsor form for details. Let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura's Segment- Reframing Mindsets]

Nic
So you're dealing with mindset like what are you seeing from like, is it stuff like that where it's like, they're not really thinking in terms of career, they're thinking in terms of individual things, or is it more like confidence where it's just I don't know how to be myself at work. Kind of thing.

Laura  
Yeah, it's all things. So you know these are people who sign up for coaching session, and then they get to choose out of a list of topics that you know, what do you want to talk about and predominantly, they pick mindset. And then when I ask them, Why did you pick mindset? Sometimes they know sometimes they don't? Well, I don't know. It was just something something wrong so that one just seemed like the best fit so I'm like, Okay, well, let's explore that some more. And honestly, when I started for coaching, I didn't think I was gonna spend so much time life coaching. With confidence and stuff, it's really become like, the predominant thing. There's no one I don't talk to that about in some capacity, you know, because ultimately, every conversation comes back to networking. What are you doing your job search and then they're like [gasp], I can't. I don't want to. I'm like what are you doing for networking? Nothing. I'm too scared, like everyone. So it's a lot of like, I don't know what to say. I don't know who to say it to. I don't know if I'm saying the right thing at the right time. And, you know, is what I'm saying making sense. There's just so much just self doubt. And I think like you said, remote work it's hard to deal with people in person, but when you're dealing with people remotely I mean, imagine how many times you get an email and you're like geez, was that person trying to be a jerk. When you're working remotely, how many interactions you have that you don't get to see body language and build a reputation or a relationship with someone. So it becomes even more like is it me? Is it them?

Nic 
I think was the rule of thumb is always like, if you meet a jerk, meet one jerk during the course of a day that person's a jerk if everyone you meet a jerk, you're that jerk and so like, there's ways to tell and I don't know I think like it's interesting you say that confidence is, I guess, like over time is something that you can get better at. And I think it's but it's just really hard to take those first few steps sometimes where you you know, you kind of get in your own head like no one I think I'm great at this, or no one will want me to be do this thing or whatever it is. But like, you know, we've talked about before. That's kind of a defeatist mindset. If that's the way you feel, and that's the way that you're projecting yourself, then you're right. And that is what's going to happen, you are going to be stuck where you are and you're going to be doing the same thing that you don't like, and if you don't even try, then you've already failed. So, you know, when I was younger, I had to kind of reorganize myself too. I thought buy try might take risks if you know you're gonna fail and then again, I realized, Oh, I am failing. I'm failing right now because I'm not taking risks and sometimes they're scary as heck. I mean, like switching jobs, you know, was really scary because I came to a place where we know where there's a small group and we had to rebuild everything from the ground up. And that's terrifying in a way but it's worked out pretty great. So really thankful that I did that and doesn't mean that didn't love working when I was but it's just I needed to challenge and this has been it's been awesome. Yeah.

Laura 
I think that's a lot to it. People need to have some successes, but they also need to recognize their part in those successes. So sometimes someone who is stuck in the habit of and I have this theory that your mindset is directly related to the stories you tell yourself, and those stories you tell yourself are born from the stories you've been told as you've been growing up. So when we talk about a person of color from a poor neighborhood, you're told your whole young life that it's going to be hard or impossible for you to do stuff and if you start telling yourself that same story, that's when you start living, and I face a lot of women challenges I have to figure out if I'm telling myself a story or the situation is real. There are people who are telling themselves they deserve more money because someone else told them they deserve more. And now they're out there just repeating that story. They don't even know what they're saying or why they're saying it. And so, you know, I've also talked to people who are just they're so negative. I'm like, you're not going to get a job because you're just you talking to me You sound like a miserable human being. And you've got to break that cycle. You keep telling yourself this narrative that the world's gonna end and people suck and that's it. That's one of the mindsets in the environmental field that are very challenging because you can very much get depressed when you start seeing stuff.

One of my colleagues used to say knowledge makes you sad. And you start working in the environmental field, you start to see things that regular people regular people, the muggles don't see. You're like, oh my gosh, the you know the challenges of climate change in the extensive reach and going out just even just me going out with my friends and seeing like, their behavior or lack of attention to sustainability. And what they could be doing personally is like, very challenging. So there's all kinds of things that can mess with their mindset. But I think as far as one confidence, I've read tons of books on how to build confidence and really, it's just about believing in yourself and getting some wins. At the end of the day, you just have to stop telling yourself the stories that other people have told you. A lot of the examples in those books are about students who have been told before a test that they're not going to do well or that they belong to a certain group. And those groups don't do well and then they don't do well. So it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Right? Which again, goes right back to the story. If you don't buy into that story. You might be the only person who passes that test.

Nic 
Yeah, and it's funny like so. My brother is by no means a dumb person. He's, you know, A/B student, you know, in high school, but he was always in my shadow, like always, is I was older, right? I came through first and I was really good at school. And it's just, which does not necessarily mean I'm smart. By the way, it just means I'm good at school, right? That's what it means. There's lots of different ways to measure intelligence, lots of different ways to do that. Right? They would come after him. They'd be like, Oh, you must your next brother. You must be like, super smart. So yeah, you're gonna do great at this and then you would do okay, are good, but not great. And they'd be like, Oh, well, you're not really smart, you know, is kind of like defeating for him. So he's like, why do I care about school? Because I'm just not as good as Nic is and it's like, that doesn't matter, man. It's just his mindset got set by other people. And that's really what

Laura 
Yes, he bought the story. You know, when you're young and impressionable.

Nic 
That's what you do? Yeah, he's that and I 'm this you know. We both had that we actually just, you know, different like he was he was much better in other areas. And so it's just kind of like, like, oh, wait, no we both can be great at things. It's all right. You know, even the same thing.

Laura  
Or different things.

Nic
Yeah Great in different ways. It's insane.

Laura
Or Whatever.

Nic 
Yeah. I mean, honestly, yeah. But that takes time to kind of unpack because it sits with you for a long time. And it's weird. Like you have to kind of reflect a little bit on how you grew up and what your influences were what what actually caused you to think that it had the amount that you have today, right? And it doesn't mean you cannot change your mindset, which is people say that all the time. And then, you know, some people will hear that and say, Okay, well, whatever. You guys are being ridiculous, but it's absolutely true. You definitely can.

Laura 
Yeah, it is possible. It's a habit. You know, your mindset is based on the thoughts that are in your head. So you have to start to first recognize them, right, and then recognize where they're coming from, and then figure out what type of thoughts you want to replace them with. And that will change your actions, which is really the goal that you want to have. And, um I think really one of the best ways to do that is to journal I think that's a recommendation I make to a lot of my coaches is like, get it out a book and write stuff out and try to figure out where it's coming from.

Nic  
Yeah, yeah, I mean, honestly, like, just having an idea of, you know, you know, for example, like just not not wanting to answer a question in a group setting or something like that. Something simple like that. We all have those moments, right? And understanding Oh, I don't want to do that because I'm afraid of being wrong. Why am I afraid of being wrong? Because I think of myself as a smart person and worried that people will think I'm dumb it I do that. There's the issue, right? I'm worried about what other people think, okay, just do your thing. You know, if you're wrong, you're wrong. And don't be afraid to do that. Especially as a leader you have to kind of take you know, you have to bring everybody with you. You're the one in front you have to be able to take challenges and adapt to them and that's really hard to do. If you're still kind of stuck in your I don't want to say prehistoric but you're like you know your younger self doubt mode. It just doesn't work. You can't be a leader with extreme doubt. It just, you can't. So you have to reset.

Laura 
Yeah. On the flip side, if you find yourself in a workplace where you do try to speak up or contribute and it's completely not appreciated. I've seen that. I've experience that. Then you have to consider whether you know, you're in the right place or not.

Nic 
Exactly, exactly. But that's all feedback, it's all information. And that's how people that too, you know, it's like, if you want the things that you know, these are the things you want, and if you ask for them, and you don't get them, and you ask for them well, and you don't get them, then that tells you that you're in the wrong place. And that's exactly it.

Laura 
Now, tell me how that works with the people who are asking for more money.

Nic  
Well, you have to ask well, that's the super, super important part. Because I think we've talked briefly about like I had, you know, there was somebody years ago who told me that she was going to ask for a huge raise. And I was like, okay, cool. Why? And she's like, Well, I've been here for three years. I'm like, Okay, so as everybody else. Why do you want to raise? You know, she's like, Well, I've been here for three years. I'm like, so like, are you good at your job? Are you great at your job? Are you doing things above and beyond what your job title says? Are you taking on more challenges? Are you doing those things? Yes, no? If you're not, if you don't have an answer for that, if you don't know why, or your answer is just because that's not good enough, you know, and like if you're doing that, and you don't get a raise. That's different. than if you're saying, hey, look, I have been leading this project. It's going extremely well. We're under budget. I have a great relationship with the client. They really appreciate the work that I do. We're actually going to get more work because of the work that I've been doing. And you know, I think that's commensurate with with a promotion and you know, a substantial raise because this is I'm bringing value to the company. And here's how, here's why. And this is what I believe. And if that's the case, if it's actually genuinely true, because if it's BS, your bosses will know think they know who you are, especially the longer you work together. But if it's genuinely true, and they still don't give you that, then you know, it's time to go.

Laura 
Yeah, I think do you know you're talking a lot more in the private space, you worked for governments a lot harder. You may be providing insane amounts of value, but they don't have the kind of leniency with their budgets. So you also have to consider but that is something to consider if you aren't getting paid what you want, but you might need to change your situation. You know, that could be a new job. It could be looking for a new place to work with a better job title, but some there are places that you know nonprofits, governments, even some small businesses that just don't have flexibility in their budget. Yeah, but that's on you. That's not you can't get mad at your employer.

Nic
No, no.

Laura
You know, I mean, you can get mad at your employer, especially if it's government, you do deserve it. But your only option is to accept it, or leave if you just sit and grumble about it and get worse at your job and you're creating a bad reputation for yourself. You're probably hurting your work value. And that's not going to help you make more money.

Nic 
No, it really won't. Yeah, I mean, like I said, it's a great conversation and then said something and then we're gonna come back to a bunch but yeah, why don't we get to our interview?

Laura
Yep.

Nic
Cool.

[Interview with David Corsar Starts]

Nic
Hello, and welcome back to EPR. Today, we have David Corsar, who's a manager of career development programs at the National Wildlife Federation on the show. Welcome, David.

David Corsar  
Hello. Thanks for having me.

[National Wildlife Federation]

Nic  
Yeah, it's really great to meet you because Laura has talked about so many wonderful things that you do. And she really is really, really excited to have you here. And you've also been organizing and presenting an Eco Leaders Conference over the last few years. But we want to start with maybe talk a little bit about the National Wildlife Federation as a whole and the work that you're doing for them now.

David Corsar   
Sure. Thanks for having me. So the National Wildlife Federation is made up of affiliate organizations in all of the different states in the US and territories. And each of these organizations has their own goals and priorities, but they get together every year and decide on an agenda for the Federation as a whole. And so I work out of our headquarters, which is located in Reston, Virginia, and I manage the career development programs for the Federations. I'm part of the education and engagement team. And I was brought on to on our higher education team to work with college students, but it's kind of grown beyond that to include young professionals on one end, and also high school students on the other end. So what I do is put together career planning resources for young people who know that they're passionate about the environment, but maybe aren't sure what they want to do for a career. So we have a suite of tools and resources to help young people make those decisions and put together those plans.

Nic  
Wow, Laura, we should have had him on earlier. What are you doing to me? That's that's really

Laura 
He's a busy guy. He's got a lot of fun stuff to do as well. And it's a great program. Lots of great resources.

Nic 
Yeah. And like, you know, you sparked my curiosity there. You say it started off in one area, and then it expanded out to early professionals and in high school. So why the shift? I mean, I think we know but I'd love to hear how that came to be.

David Corsar   
Yeah, I think that there were a few different factors involved. One of them was, we started working with college students, especially fellows and interns, and we followed them as they progress through their careers. And they would give us feedback about things that would be helpful and we would then feed that back into the young people that were just coming into the program. And then also the National Wildlife Federation has been in K through 12 space for decades, and that has taken shape in a few different ways. The biggest program that we have is called Eco schools, and that's in hundreds of K through 12 schools and districts across the country. And that's a school greening program. And then we also have a really cool program called Earth Tomorrow that is more location based, and that gets high school students together to learn about environmental justice and careers. So we saw just a lot of natural connections between the work that we were doing in K through 12, and particularly in high schools, and the tools and resources that we were developing originally with college students in mind, but really anyone who is looking to either plan their career from the start or plan changes in their career.

Nic 
Yeah, wow. That's really incredible. And we like to ask a lot of people on the show, you know, about their, their career path and you've had a really impressive and exciting one. were you always interested in environmental career?

David Corsar   
Yeah, I would say I was always interested in environmental career, but the way that that has taken shape has changed over the years. So and that I think is helpful for addressing some of the concerns of young people that feel like they have to have it all figured out, you know, before they graduate college or before you even graduate high school and it's just so not true.

Nic
I know.

David Corsar
So that's a that's a thread that we bring up a lot. And actually I'm glad that you're asking me about my career path, because this is something that I do to everyone else in my conference and webinars. So my first environmental career was as an environmental engineer. And so that's what my bachelor's degree was in. And my first master's degree, my first professional job was as an environmental engineer, and that was mostly on water and wastewater engineering. So working with municipal government.

Nic 
Yeah, and I can't believe this hasn't come up on the show yet, but you had that experience earlier in cooking your career and took a job ended up being a poor fit for you.

David Corsar
Yeah.

Nic
And so what's the story there in how did you navigate out of it?

David Corsar   
Yeah. So I was working for a really great organization, a great company. I had a great team. I really enjoyed the people that I was working with, but found the tasks to be kind of not exciting for me. It was you know, kind of a classic case of burnout, that I didn't have the terminology at the time to recognize I was just like, what's wrong with me? I have this great career. I like the people that I work with, but I'm not satisfied. And what I found out or what I realized was that I was getting a lot of excitement and feedback, positive feedback from the volunteerism that I was doing with an organization called, Water For People is an international development organization that works with about a dozen countries or at the time about a dozen countries on the ground, really great, sustainable model where all of the materials and work is done with in country nationals as opposed to flying in Americans who then disappear and, you know can't address issues as they come up. So I really enjoyed what I was doing there. And I said, Well, if I'm getting so much enjoyment out of this volunteerism, maybe I can start looking into careers that are more aligned with the type of mission and work that I was doing there.

Nic 
Yeah, and I mean, honestly, that makes a ton of sense. And, you know, we're talking about young people. It's so hard when you're younger to feel like you can do that. Because it's almost like an overwhelming expectation like, well, this is the job. This is how much money it makes things a lot or it's, you know, more than I was expecting, so I should be happy. Why am I not happy? You have to, that's really incredible that you can do that because you have that life experience. You can okay. No, you don't. So how do you kind of like expand that out to the people you work with?

David Corsar   
Oh, for sure. And this is something that I talked to my therapist about a few times. I fully endorse having a therapist and changing your career and shaking things up and shooting for the stars. So I think that a lot of it is just providing examples. So I've interviewed you know, dozens of eco professionals on various pathways, and organic career paths are just more than norm the expectation that you'll get your first professional job and then quote unquote climb the ladder at that one company in one field is just, it's not that it doesn't occur. It's just that it is a smaller and smaller percentage of folks who end up you know, looking back at their career, and that's what it looks like. So I think it's just about providing the examples and showing young people that the people that they look up to also likely tried something and failed or tried something and burnt out or tried something and were fine but saw something else and wanted to give that a shot and that there shouldn't be any sort of guilt or disappointment associated with that. And that's that's really tough sometimes when you're in that moment of saying I think I want to go in a different direction because you also have your family, your friends, your co workers, the fact that you may have spent, you know, an inordinate sum on a degree. And that's why last year at our Eco Cruise conference, Laura talked a lot about transferable skills because that's something that if you go into your career with the knowledge of transferable skills and what that means, and how that can prepare you to go in different directions, and that that's not a negation of the work and effort that you have put into your career already. I think that that's something that young people can really benefit from having advance understanding and knowledge.

Nic
Yeah, absolutely.

[Peace Corps]

Laura 
That conversation happens with people that I coach all the time. I think I talked to somebody two days ago, who's working who's burnout you know, he has a job it's it's not a bad job by his own description, but it isn't fulfilling him. And he's like, where I kind of know what I want to do. You know, where do I go? Where do I go now? And then he he thinks that all this work he's been doing the last couple years and this is not just him. All the other people I coach are like, Well, I feel like I wasted my time.  You haven't wasted any of your time. You know, and so we described how, in a new role, he has things he can bring to the table especially like Nic and I talked about before it with small companies, lots of skills that they might be able to use, not only in the role that they want to hire him for, but maybe for something else. And so he was able to say, Oh, I didn't really think of it that way. And that's really, you know, David, all our job is as a coach is really to help people think about things in a different sort of way. I'm not a failure. I haven't lost all my money as an investment. I know like and now I'm moving on to the next thing. So I love it. I love everything that and I just watched your Eco Leaders program grow. You know, I think when we first met you, it was just starting and you had just started there. And so it's really become something fantastic. So we'll talk more about that in a few minutes. We still want to focus on your career path for a minute because I also wanted to touch on you've been in the Peace Corps. And that's another question I hear a lot from people is like, Should I try the Peace Corps, you know, especially when they're, they've graduated, they can't find anything else. They gravitate towards the Peace Corps. And some have good experiences and some don't. So I was wondering what was your Peace Corps experience? Like where did you go did you get to decide? Did they tell you?

David Corsar   
Sure. Yeah, I'm happy. I'm always happy to talk about my Peace Corps experience. And it actually ties in with what I was saying. When I decided to go in a different direction and was thinking about my experience with Water for People. I said, okay, so international development. Let me look at what are the requirements, what are the pathways to get into that space and Peace Corps is obviously one that is pretty well known and is a launching off point for a lot of people seeking to go in that direction. So I did Peace Corps as part of a master's degree and it's a program that unfortunately, Peace Corps doesn't have any more. It's called Masters International. And so I went to school at George Mason University for a year and then did my two year service and then came back and had another semester so the sandwiched in a master's degree program which kind of gives it a different flavor than a lot of quote unquote, traditional Peace Corps volunteers that are coming out of a bachelor's degree and go straight into Peace Corps. I went to the Republic of Armenia, it was not a place that I will just be honest, I would not have been able to pinpoint it on the map. I would know the general area but I didn't know this. You know what the border looked like.

Laura 
I'm not going to lie. We may, or may not have gotten a map out before we asked these questions.

David Corsar   
Yeah. Yeah. And so I was in the community and youth development program in Armenia and every different Peace Corps country has a different set of programs that are appropriate for the goals of that country, that Peace Corps U.S. and that country's representative, kind of decide. And so in Armenia, we had teaching and we had community and youth development. And so for the first three months, you are in a training village and you are going to classes every single day, on or not the weekends, but every weekday on language and on cultural understanding. And so you spend those three months with other volunteers, a group of other volunteers, and then at the end of the three months, you all go to your different communities that you will be living in for two years. I was sent to, I was assigned to the town of Meghri, which is on the southern border of Armenia, so it's on the border with Iran. And I was going there after another volunteer had already served in that particular town, and that's common as well, especially in smaller Peace Corps countries that you're going somewhere that either volunteer has been or volunteer is down the street. And so for the first year, I had another volunteer who was a 10 minute drive away and then the second year because they stagger it, he left, and I was kind of alone in my region, which is almost a more traditional Peace Corps experience. And, and each of those experiences really, like had their pros and cons.

Laura 
That's awesome. Did you stay there the whole two years?

David Corsar   
I did. I did and I'm kind of I will brag a little bit. I try to be humble, but one of the things that I'll brag about is that they give you the option of leaving a month early and it still counts as your two years. And only a handful of us stayed for that last month. But I'm so glad I did because it was one of the most rewarding months out of my two years within the Peace Corps. I was working with a couple other volunteers with an organization that was putting on a leadership development camp for young men. And that was when they scheduled in [unintelligible 14:13] we were like well I guess we're staying for the last month. And it was such a such a fantastic experience both working with the youth in that particular camp as well as with the young adults that have found it and we're running this organization for the youth of Armenia.

Nic 
Wow. Yeah. And so we're an environmental show. And you know, I don't know much about the Armenian government, how they respond to environmental issues. Is it is more of a grassroots thing. Is it government down? How do they manage it?

David Corsar   
It's definitely a grassroots thing. So as a post Soviet nation, the non governmental organizations within Armenia are pretty young. You know, they've been around for a couple of decades. And so a lot of what they were bringing in students, or were bringing in Peace Corps volunteers for was to help them kind of with some Western norms and be able to apply for grants and basically get established as a grassroots organization. And the organizations that we worked with were, or that I worked with, were working on a variety of different projects. So while environmental projects were not at the core of my Peace Corps experience, it was something that we weren't able to blend in that background into different programs that I was working on. So we did some cleanup programs we did the education programs for youth usually incorporated some element of healthy living, respect, and environmental awareness.

Nic 
Yeah. Wow. That's really incredible. And so you know, the thread the theme of this interview is, you know, you're giving back to youth, where does that inspiration come from? Like, what are you, Why do you want to do that?

David Corsar  
So to be honest, when I went in and I was a assigned to community and youth development because I was doing this as part of the master's degree in public administration. I thought, Oh, my experience is going to be more on the community side more on the organizations and young adults as opposed to younger youth. And that ended up kind of going in a different direction. When I was just really inspired by and able to connect with the youth in the community that I lived in and in the projects that I was working on. And I came out of it more interested in working with youth then when I went into it, and so I kind of credit my Peace Corps experience with my passion for youth development, which I've carried through both in my career as well as in my personal life as well and my volunteerism here back in the state.

[Eco Leaders]

Nic 
Yeah, which is a great segue to my next question. So we've mentioned Eco Leaders a little bit earlier. We teased it what is the program?

David Corsar     
It grew out of the National Wildlife Federation's work within colleges and higher education as a whole. And particularly with the students, undergraduate and graduate student fellows that we were supporting that were doing sustainability projects on their campuses. And we talked to those fellows, we had focus groups talking about how can we scale this? How can we support more college students across the country in summer in the way that we were supporting youth? And so from that group, the Eco Leaders program and it is a leadership development program. It's an online community. It's a place to go to get ideas for sustainability projects. A lot of the youth, or much of the youth that we work with are passionate about the environment but don't know what they necessarily want to do. And then another portion are absolutely certain what they want to do, especially for the folks that aren't quite sure, they go to the Eco leaders community and they can browse through successful projects with previous Eco Leaders and fellows and get inspiration for the types of projects that they might want to do. The philosophy of eco leaders very much is rooted in project based learning. And we have in addition to the previous projects, we also have a number of project design and management tools and resources available on the Eco Leaders site.

Nic
Yeah, so what kind of projects can people do?

David Corsar
It really runs like, it's, we sort them into eco topics. They have a dozen eco topics, from environmental justice, to waste, to water, to climate change, and the passion of the student really guides the shape of the project that they end up going on. So a lot of them are education oriented. So it's sponsoring a day of education around transportation alternatives, or how to recycle correctly, and compost your waste. Some of it is focused on school policies. So it has been encompassed starting to green fee to fund other sustainability projects on campus. Sometimes it's really technical. We have deer counting, you know, we have something that is tied in with habitat and wildlife conservation within the region that they live in. So it kind of it depends on the passions of the student as well as what they're studying. A lot of the students that are participating and benefiting from Eco Leaders are doing this as part of classes that they're already taking.

Nic  
Oh, nice. And so how do they get involved then?

David Corsar   
They find out about it in various ways. A lot of it is through our network with colleges and universities, historically, as well as currently our big campus greening program now is called Campus Race to Zero Waste. And so we work with faculty and staff at hundreds of colleges across the country in the month of February to reduce their waste that goes to landfill from a variety of methods, recycling, reducing purchasing, donations to local organizations, and they track and count all of that to a really specific degree over the month of February. And it's a friendly competition between colleges universities for who can reduce their waste the most who can compost the most of their organic waste and it's a really exciting opportunity. And it's one of the ways that those colleges universities are able to spread the word about our Eco Leaders and eco careers programs directly to their students as well.

Nic 
Yeah, so it's a really cool program. I'm really glad to hear a lot about it. I know Laura knows some. So it's a bit it's a learning for me. So I appreciate you walking me through that. There's also an upcoming conference, which is a great opportunity for career seekers. So when is that event and what can people expect from it?

David Corsar   
Awesome. So that is called the Eco Careers conference. It's an annual conference, two days this year. It is April 6, and seventh. So it's coming up next week. And each year we feature a number of different sectors of the economy. So this year, we have we put together panels of professionals to talk about their career paths and their advice to young people who may be interested in similar career paths. And this year, we're focusing on environmental justice, health and wellness, environmental education, and urban and municipal planning. But whether you're interested in those specific career sectors or not, we also have a number of workshops on career planning. We have sessions dedicated to artists and creative professionals, entrepreneurs, as well as keynote speakers that are delivering more inspirational messages as well. We also have this year we started last year having separate tracts for the high school students and the college students in the audience to do some more hands on workshops with them that is more tailored to their interests. So this year, we have for the college students kind of job applications and for the high school students, college application, but of course we don't prescribe it so anyone can attend any session that they want.

Nic 
Yeah, which you know, it makes me think when you're talking with students, you're kind of helping guide them it's always really hard for me, you know, when I was, you know, going into college and coming out of college, I'm the kid that didn't know what he wanted to do. And even the guidance you get doesn't always end up being what you do. Right. And that's what happened in my case, but I really wish I had something like that when I was younger. So how do you manage expectations? Because I feel like everybody, like what I would have wanted is, oh, you should just go do you're going to be a turtle biologist. That's your thing. Go, you know, I'm like, Okay, I guess this is what I do. That's not really how life works. So how do you kind of help guide but not shove? You know what I mean?

David Corsar   
Yeah, and that's really the balance. That is, we're always as career professionals, we're always trying to manage that not to over prescribe, but also not to be so general that the advice is, is kind of useless. So a lot of it is writing it out. I'm someone who tries to journal every once in a while and completely fails. But when it comes to career planning, I really believe that the more you write out, the better it is for you to be able to kind of sort through your thoughts. So we follow a pretty traditional career planning process where we start with self reflection, we move into career exploration, we started putting some of those pieces together. We encourage folks to try things and not put too much pressure on them. So that's another one of the reasons that the Eco Leaders Program really encourages students while they're still students to work on projects. You may be really passionate about food and sustainable agriculture when you're reading about it on blogs. And then you get into the garden and you get your hands in the dirt and you said, Wow, this is really not for me. So the more varied experiences that you can expose yourself to as a young person as a student. The better equipped you'll be for figuring out what you're not interested in for a lot of us who don't have that one shining example of what it is that they want to pursue, figuring out what they don't want to do is the best way to identifying and pursuing a rewarding career path.

Nic
Heck Yes.

Laura 
Yeah. And that's just directly to the point. That was my experience. I I went to school for biology because I wanted to work outdoors. I was going to be a park ranger, and then I I volunteered to be a park ranger, but I was like, hell no, I'm not doing this. You know, I think that's super important. So it's a great program, all of you career seekers from any stage in your your life. This is a great event and it's happening next week, so be sure to check that out. But let's switch gears now. We always like to hear about what our guests do for fun and not that your career development and your job is not fun, especially with the title of NWF. That's very respectable. But what do you do for fun David?

David Corsar   
These days, I am spending a lot of time trying different crafts. I've always enjoyed trying crafts and then not getting to expertise level and moving on to a new one. That's my M.O., but I just I signed up for a quilting class with with a company called Three Little Birds in Hyattsville, Maryland. And I'm, I'm enjoying that. So that's that's my new craft that I'm doing and then with spring around the corner and having bought a house in September, completely revamping the landscape is is on my agenda and I'm I'm learning patience through this because I'm not new to gardening, but I'm certainly new to gardening and an entire lot and so I want to replace lawn I want to tear out invasives and non natives and replace them with native plants. And so I've been trying to educate myself and learn a lot about Native Plant landscaping and so that's that's what I'm spending a lot of my time on. Outside of Eco Leaders and Eco Careers at the National Wildlife Federation.

Laura 
Cool. Wow. I see some pictures at the end of summer. All of your your goodies that you're growing.

Nic 
All of two thirds of the goodies that he's growing Right?

David Corsar
Exactly.

Nic
I hate to say that we're out, but we're running out of time, but you know we are and before we let you go we always love to ask is there anything else that you want to mention that we haven't covered?

David Corsar   
I think that about covers it but I just want to encourage everyone to register for the conference, the Eco Careers conference. Next week. Registration is free if you want it to be and what that means is if you create a profile on the NWF Eco Leaders community, which is also free, then you will be able to access a free ticket to the conference. We don't want costs to be a barrier for any young person seeking to plan their career and that is that NWFecoleaders.org.

Nic
 That's incredible. That's great. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Before we let you go, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

David Corsar   
Two ways. So you are free to email me, at Corsard@NWF.org. That's C-O-R-S-A-R-D-N-W-F.org. Or look me up on LinkedIn.

Nic 
Perfect. Thank you so much for being here, David.

Laura
Thanks, David.

David Corsar  
Thanks for having me.

[Outro]

Laura 
That's our show. Thanks, David for joining us today. Always a pleasure learning more about what NWF and Eco Leaders are doing. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye.

Nic
See you  everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai