Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)

The Student Conservation Association, Community Networking, and Sailing Around the World with Matt Gray

December 09, 2022 Matt Gray Episode 96
Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)
The Student Conservation Association, Community Networking, and Sailing Around the World with Matt Gray
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

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 Matt Gray, Senior VP of Program for the Student Conservation Association about The Student Conservation Association, Community Networking, and Sailing Around the World.  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:
2:53  Nic & Laura discuss their college choices
8:19 Interview with Matt Gray starts
8:45  Student Conservation Association
18:08  Sailing around the world
22:17  Community networking

Please be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review.

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 Matt Gray at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgray80/

Guest Bio:
In March 2021, Matt began serving as Senior VP of Program for the Student Conservation Association, the U.S.’s oldest and largest climate corps. Before this position, he served as Chief of Sustainability for the City of Cleveland to create a thriving green city on a blue lake.

Prior experience includes a Fulbright Fellowship in Mauritius focused on climate adaptation and four years with the US Department of Energy, where he served as Chair of the Interagency Sustainability Working Group.

Matt has bachelor degrees in Industrial Engineering and Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and a Masters in Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

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Transcript is auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Laura 
just called March Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I discuss reflections on our college choices. We talked to Matt Gray about the Student Conservation Association, community networking and sailing around the world. And finally, the largest bet in the world is the Wingfoot vampire a flying foxes found in Southeast Asia with a wingspan of nearly six feet. Don't worry though, despite the name they eat only fruit and nectar from flowers and are therefore an important pollinator and distributor in the forest.

Nic
 
But if they did he plugged that right. Wow. Six foot like Monster coming at you. Yeah, I've

Laura 
seen them actually. Had you. I have seen them in a zoo. Okay, remember which one? They're pretty good. They do. Look vampires are very cool.

Nic 
Yeah, I mean, it's just absolutely incredible. It's another one of those like, just look up flying foxes and just look at their faces. They they look awesome. You can see their hands really well on the wings. Just

Laura 
clearly cool animal. All right, hit that music

[NAEP Event News]

Nic 
join me up for a webinar on ethics and technology for the environmental professional which will be held on December 15 2022 At noon Eastern nine Pacific. This presentation will start with a discussion on the various ethical requirements for attorneys engineers, planners in the NA P members. This will be followed by discussion about how those ethical requirements interplay with the increasing use of technology, including how to use technology to maintain privacy and ethical requirements. Webinar will finish with a discussion of practical pointers on how to make the most efficient and effective use of various tools and technologies professionals have come to rely on. Check it out@www.sap.org also fun note for the end of that is with our very own friend of the show Tim Perry so it'll be a really good webinar. It's worth worth checking out.

Laura  
Awesome. All right. Are you ready for today's fake sponsor?

Nic  
Yeah, sir. Okay, all right. Because it's time, okay. Go. Okay. Are you tired of drinking just regular juice. How about this? We got a new one for you guys. It's called acorn mill. That's right. It's acorns. That's it's it's so good. It tastes like dirt. Squirrels love it. So if you want to get your inner squirrel on, check out acorn milk are just fun to the

Laura  
show either like it would be great at your local farm store.

[Nic & Laura discuss their college choices]

Laura
Oh my gosh. I know like my whole college experience was just stupid. I didn't do right.

Nic 
Yeah. She was not even close.

Laura 
I went to school to my classes and went home I don't think I ever looked to see what other programs I didn't look see what other colleges like go to. I went where it was close.

Nic 
Yeah, I mean, I had to I didn't have a choice. It was too expensive. Otherwise.

Laura 
Well, yeah, that's why I didn't look, I think but at the same time, I may have been willing to incur some more student debt if I had realized what opportunities may have awaited me.

Nic 
Yeah. I still joke about it like so when I worked. I worked for Duke right? between colleges, so between grad school and undergrad, and after two years at Duke, working at Duke, I could get an 80% tuition reduction to go to Duke right. It would still be so two years longer. I have to wait two years and then it would still be more expensive than going to VCU right now. That was a choice that I made. Yeah, it was like $2,000 a semester more expensive. And even Virginia Tech had had an outreach program like I had no clue about it. I just heard about like, oh, that sounds like whatever. I didn't even know I like to travel that much when I mean I I should have but I just never thought of it. You know, I've seen as you do and other stuff, I guess I don't know. Being an emo kid.

Laura  
Right, exactly. I was I was not the you know, academia type. So I really didn't picture myself doing extracurricular things. Or getting involved in any kind of way.

Nic 
Just finding okay. I remember like I grade at school, right, but I just didn't want to do anything else with it. I didn't want to stay there longer and do more stuff as like, I basically was forced to do marching bands and you know just to have a extracurricular activity, right. I showed it on track would have been a lot more fun for me. Not that I didn't like it and I appreciate you know, knowing how to play music that's fun and all that but just didn't enjoy that. So I'm like, if I hate this, why would I do other things but just such a, you know, teenager mentality?

Laura 
Yeah, well, I was, you know, I didn't go back to school for biology till I was in my late 20s. And so I was working and just needed the degree. I didn't think that I really was like, let me see what I can explore and check my future options. That's why mentoring is so important. I think young people need help realizing that there's more to getting involved in networking and doing stuff than just showing your face or grabbing a business card. It's about exploring what you might want your future to look like. I don't know.

Nic 
Yeah. And it's also like, there's more than one way to do it too. And I think a lot of times we when we're young think that there's only one path. There's only one way to go and there's only one thing we can do. And, you know, in a way that that held me back for sure. I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. But it's got to be this I guess, you know, and I could have used somebody who just kept telling me you know, as an undergrad, hey, I know you really enjoy psychology and you really find it very fascinating and you're a thinker. That's great. You should do biology as your as your undergrad degree, you should do that. I probably still would have gone to my masters, you know, but I would have had to, you know, probably would have met more people that that lined up with what I was looking for, you know, even friend wise if I had done something like that you know, which is what grad school was for me. I was like, Oh my gosh, all my friends are here, you know?

Laura  
Yeah, so true. I think I had a better handle on what I couldn't do than what my options would have been taking certain different tracks or something, or going to a different school or taking time off. I mean, I took time off so but it wasn't on purpose. It was just it happened.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I I do wish I could go back a little bit. That's the only real regret. I don't have a lot of regrets. I don't look back tons and be like, I wish I would have done that. Yeah. But it worked out you know, and I can say the joke still stands. I'm a biologist and knows how to talk to people. So you know, hey, I'll take it and ended up working out just fine. Again, that more than one way to go. But if I'd stayed I was there for an extra semester. Like I graduated early, and I could have left but I was dating a girl at the time. And so I was like, I just hang out. I should have just taken a few more classes and I would have had a double major. Like that's that's the it was right there. But, you know, I was 20 something I didn't want to say it's like, I don't want to grow up. It's basically what I was doing.

Laura 
Here. Yeah. I think that that's part of the problem though, is like you know, even if you don't take any intentional actions, your life still can turn out. Okay.

Nic 
Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have to. I mean, you just get there faster, right. I probably could have figured out a lot. A little sooner. Yeah, I was I spent like eight years kind of in the working world before I really figured out oh, this is what I want to do with my career. And what I think the term is basically like somewhere I remember reading this somewhere between four and 16 years is where you start really, in your career like going forward with it, like really taking off with it, you know, as far as responsibility and money and all that stuff goes and just the difference between those circumstances, almost always. So yeah. Some of that you make for yourself when you know, and that's what I had to do truthfully, as I was like, if I want to grow, I've got to go. Just a great catchphrase I just came up with

Laura 
and on that note, let's talk to Matt about his experiences because they're super awesome.

[Interview with Matt Gray starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today, we have Matt Gray, senior vice president of programs at the Student Conservation Association on the show. Welcome, Matt. Thanks for having me. Awesome. So glad to have you here. Before we launch into questions, more about you, why don't you tell us a little bit about the Student Conservation Association?

Matt Gray 
Yeah, certainly, you know, thanks again for having me, NASA Student Conservation Association or SCA. We are based in Arlington, Virginia, but we are a truly national organization. We are the oldest and first I guess that's the same thing. Conservation Corps or climate corps in the country. So we were founded about 65 years ago by Liz Putnam with recognition that at that time, our parks were being quote unquote, loved to death. You know, post World War Two everyone's coming back and are excited to get outside and use our parks and they were not being maintained. So it was a brilliant idea in her thesis to get youth and young adults to go out to help maintain those public lands and in the process, really have life changing experiences. So that's what I say responded on and so what we do, definitely we've marked over time, we still do a lot of work and national parks, national forests, and pretty much all 50 states, but we also do a lot of work in cities. So we're actually in 10 cities right now where we have active programming. So we're front country, back country, urban areas, and but really, you know, how do you transform lives through service to nature and that's, that's really the bread and butter for SCA.

Laura 

That's really cool. How many students do you work with?

Matt Gray 
We have over 2000 what we call members each year, fees are paid youth paid young adults, mostly between the ages of 16 and 30. And then we have a lot more volunteers, and a lot more folks engaged through our work, but in terms of who we hire, essentially, to do all this. It's about 2000 a year. And then the Conservation Corps world it's a little over 20,000 Total each year in a variety of courses now exist around the country.

[ Student Conservation Association]


Laura 
Yeah, awesome. And that my next question is, the cores are all over the country. Do people know that they're associated with the SCA? They have different names like how do students is it always students or is also like graduates, how do people know that the opportunities exist?

Matt Gray 
Yeah, our name isn't the best these days. It's not the most appropriate because it's not, you know, Student Conservation Association. It's not just students. In fact, it's mostly not current students. We don't just do conservation. We certainly do a lot of conservation but we also do a lot of climate work and and we're not really an association. We are you know, are nonprofit run in a way like a business right? And we're not an association of other cores. There is an association called the core network that we're a part of, and they bring together 130 Plus cores around the country, but our members, yes, very associated with us. We run teams, so there's a lot of like team based work where you'll have two leaders eight members out there from anywhere from six weeks to a full year and anywhere from the back country of Alaska, fending off bears doing trail work to again working in urban areas. And then we also have a lot of interns. So these are more of those folks who are in this career. They're interested in environment, they're interested in conservation, and they get we have like 1000 interns every year that are placed everywhere doing all sorts of different things. So that's kind of a different model. They're individually placed in the partner organization, the Park Service, the Forest Service, a local land management agency will host them and we don't have staff on the ground. But all the team based stuff we have staff on the ground to support that.

Laura 
Okay, cool. What are the current priority objectives for the SCA, our current priority,

Matt Gray 

certainly more and more into climate and climate resilience. We've always been in climate resilience even before we as a country as a globe really began focusing more and more on climate. So certainly auto restoration, a lot of shoreline resilience, a lot of tree canopy work, and it does vary by again, location. So a lot of our urban area work is certainly getting that, you know, historically marginalized communities is a priority aligns really well with what the national Justice Party initiative that's most of our program is structured. around that. Yeah. So there's a wide variety. We also get into areas that you wouldn't necessarily think of like a core which is things like historic preservation. So one example in Massachusetts we have a great historic preservation program, with 100% placement out of that program into the trade of historic preservation. Wow. So we're getting more and like what like wildfire too, we all know, right? Like, fire wildfires is more more of an issue. It's gonna continue that way. So we're creating a wildfire Academy where we will prepare our members over a six month period both in team based and individual place positions, to learn what they need to know about wildfire management's fuels reduction, getting certifications. So if they then want to fight fires, they they're ready to do that and the Forest Service is ready to hire them. If they don't, then they could do something else. Great. But that's kind of where we're headed. More and more of getting that workforce development piece where we're not only having these really transformative experiences on the ground, but also preparing them for a career if they want to go on that route.

Nic 
And you mentioned, you know, working with agencies, is that part of the program too, then is it you know, working for a service or you know, any other national groups like working with state ship I was for example for for preservation. Is that also part of what you guys do?

Matt Gray 
Yeah, we we have over 500 partners, so we don't do anything alone. Everything we do in the field is with land management partner or some other partners. So yes, that's a huge piece of it. We have a whole partnership division that is great at that. So that that's one wonderful piece of this work is that it truly is a partnership in terms of the work that we do and all the people we collaborate with.

Laura  
Just cool. Do you still get to go out in the field? Are you stuck in office?

Matt Gray 
Stuck in the office more than I want to be? We are getting more and more back into the field. But I think it's all about it's just it is a slow transition and we get new we've gotten in these habits right that may work in my you know windowless basement. So no, we're definitely traveling more and it's just critical to get out there too. And not just for me, but all staff. It's one of these jobs where you can talk about it and talk about it and it's wonderful, but until you actually experience and you actually talk to someone in the field who's doing it. It's their first job. Yeah, and they're having this incredible experience. It just, it's never going to fully translate. So that's what we really try to do with partners as well as there's get out in the field as much as we can and really experience it firsthand.

Nic  
I think what does that it's like it's one thing to say, you know, I you're gonna be working in a smart saltmarsh, right and it's the only other thing to be there all day long. Being like,

Matt Gray  
Why did I say Yeah,

Laura 
exactly. Well, speaking your first jobs your first job was with this SCA, right?

Matt Gray 
Yeah, it's pretty full circle for me. I was. I mean, I grew up pretty much a city kid and Cleveland entering suburb of Cleveland Heights. And yeah, never went camping as far as I remember when I was growing up and then a 17 Maybe just to go to Cleveland for a summer. Like all sign up for this SDA thing I get to like go someplace else for five weeks. But it was great. Yeah, I went again, never camped I did went to Indiana for five weeks. Exotic, lovely Indiana, and built trail and camp for five weeks and showered every fourth day and we put color on meals and just really learned so much one about just being outside and being comfortable in nature. And of course the conservation work building trails, things like that, but also just meeting other kids from around the country sharing that experience. So it really was life changing for me. And then four years later then led some crews when I was 21. In Georgia and Pennsylvania, and then did a bunch of other stuff for 20 years. Yeah, they came back to us a little less than two years ago. Yeah, no, that first experience always stuck with me. I think it was always somewhere in my head that oh would be cool if I had an opportunity at some point in my life to come back to sca and I was very lucky to

Nic 
have oh, that's, that's really cool. And you know, but it begs the question, because one of the things I'm about to ask you about is your time at the University of Pittsburgh. So I got this right. You grew up in Cleveland, and then moved to Pittsburgh for four years. So what was that like? Did you get I mean, I actually remember being in Pittsburgh and walking in and I'm like, Well, you're not from here. Are you from Cleveland? I'm like what? You get that a lot.

Matt Gray
 
Yeah, I mean, I love Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is an incredible city a great place to go to school. Hate the sports teams. So there's always that balance right. So that never really left and is still with me today. But well, I'm going I'm going to pin and spending time there.

Nic 
So Laura, should I tell him that I'm a Steelers fan or not is that

Matt Gray
 
well neither one of us are having an especially good years. Now, you're out in Oregon, like shared misery.

[Sailing around the world]

Nic 
There you go. Yeah, and 100% but if you can forgive me for that. I think a lot of what you did. Yeah. Why? Don't you do it? University. Pittsburgh is pretty cool. How did your semester Yellowstone and your Semester at Sea go? I think both of those are really unique and cool experiences. And did those things also end up contributing to your outlook on your

Matt Gray 
career? Yeah, excellent question. So I went to Pitt for engineering. When I was doing industrial engineering, which was fine. But I definitely as I got you know, more in the program definitely wanted more and also really is interested in traveling. And I was very lucky at the time. This program called Semester at Sea was actually run out of University of Pittsburgh. Randomly, there's no see next to Pittsburgh. I have no idea why. But you know, so if you wanted to go in the single semester, so you actually technically had to transfer to Pitt for that semester. And there was two, you know, students from 200 different universities were on this thing. So when I just knew about it through that, but also it was just easier my my financial aid carried over so it was just made life easy, and that the trip was amazing. So it's 100 days, you circumnavigate the globe, 50 days and 50 days at sea, visit nine countries, you know, four or five days per country as a you know, a 20 year old it's like my first big travel experience kind of a preview of the world. So I was very lucky to have a chance to do that. And yeah, so it really I mean, that definitely has shaped me I met my future wife trip just as friends. But yeah, seven years later.

Nic 
Seven years later, the rest is history.

Matt Gray 
But then I added anthropology as a second degree, I think partially because of that trip and just exposure to all those cultures, I think will change anyone and so I got a dual degree and I think that eventually got into my Autumn my other career experiences this certainly an environmental focus and sustainability but connecting really to the people side of things. And I think even more so with my current job. Yeah.

Nic
 
Oh, wow. I mean, you got to circumnavigate the globe. What were you doing? What was the actual like? Stuff that you did you know, because that sounds amazing but there has to be some some work involved in there to

Laura  
making my college choice.

Nic 
So mad honestly, I don't want to say it but I'm so jealous that is Yeah, but like what were you actually doing when you when you were on the trip? Like what was the purpose I guess?

Matt Gray
 
You can go back and when it was a road rules, maybe from the show road. TV there was

Laura 
no idea what you're talking about.

Matt Gray 
But there was a road it was actually a semester See, I think this semester before we went randomly. You can get a sense of how crazy it was. But yeah, you took four classes on the ship. And then some of those classes you would have in country experiences related work related to that. So I took you know, an art class and I then went to go visit museums or whatever, or especially whatever.

History of East Asia, so we visited Japan, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, so that was really cool to connect the history to those. So that was kind of what it was like. Like, it's so crazy to think about back then. Like I don't even know how we figured out how we like what to do when those countries. We weren't using the internet as far as I remember very much even though at that point, so I don't even have we figured out what to do. But somehow we have these great four or five day adventures.

Laura 
You didn't have Google Translate. Exactly. That's very cool. That's yeah, all right. I'm done with this interview. I can't hear anything

Nic 

else. Yeah, no more of this because there's more cool stuff.

[Community Networking]

Laura 
No, that's awesome. But let's talk about Ohio some more because I that's more on my level. from Lima. So I'm all about Cincinnati, and Cleveland area there. We just had Carly Johnson on the show who was in Cincinnati doing awesome things and she was telling us a lot of cool stuff that you wouldn't expect from Ohio and you were Chief of sustainability in Cleveland for eight years. So you facilitated a community based Climate Action Plan centered on equity. So we're just curious what was the outcome of that and then what kind of skills go into putting something like that together?

Matt Gray 
Yeah. I was really fortunate to get this position. I was doing international work and came back to Cleveland, living in my parents basement at age 30. And like figuring out what to do next, and I really want to get into urban sustainability at that point. And I was lucky that include one actually at the time already had a pretty strong initiative called Sustainable Cleveland through the mayor's office. So I just networked met people locally, just talk to as many human beings that possibly could understand what's going on. I met the at that time the current chief and we connected and eventually got a job with the city. It was great. I worked there eight years for the director to the chief and then four years as chief, but halfway through, it was amazing. I mean, especially in that decade, so much growth and innovation around urban sustainability, almost in any topic right? From transportation, to energy, land use whatever it is and sort of be not only in Cleveland doing that work, but also working with the Cincinnati's of the world who'd Cincinnatus is doing incredible work on urban sustainability, but also nationally, you know about there's this urban sustainability directors network, which is the best professional network I've ever been in. And it says, very member driven by 100 plus people like me just trying to figure out what his job is and how do we advance sustainability, especially with an equity focus. And in Cleveland, that was especially important. Cleveland is now by some metrics the poorest city in the country and still 30 plus percent poverty rate and then holding an industrial city, right, just like Pittsburgh, and definitely parts of Cincinnati. So how do you do sustainability work climate work in a city where that is the context. So I learned a ton through that, especially with tons and tons of local stakeholders that have been really doing this type of work for decades. I think we have definitely made some some good progress over the time.

Nic 
And you know, it actually sparks a question for me like Pittsburgh, Azzam was almost like the model for how to transition from one industry to another right, a total shift in the way that city was run. And so Cleveland caught up and I was catching up, I think, to that, that model as well. But like when you're talking about sustainability, in a city that's, you know, on the poor side, right, you're doing all these other challenges. Do you have to frame it in terms of cost cutting and saving? Is that what is driving the conversation? Or is there still just a recognition and need for sustainability? Regardless of that fact? Yes, it does save you money, but it's also very important, or it can save you money doesn't always sometimes it costs a lot to do, but like, what is that? Is there a specific I guess maybe like the cultural phenomenon happening there that maybe is unique to those rust belt cities that you saw? Yeah,

Matt Gray 
great question. Part of it, I would say is the process for getting things done in a city like Cleveland, especially then, I mean, there just was so little money to do anything and the tax base has been reduced, especially in a state like Ohio, where the state government is also not supportive of climate action. Where's the money coming from? So the part of it was okay, if we're gonna get things done in a city like Cleveland and in a region like Northeast Ohio, it needs to be collaborative. So anything we did have to be very collaborative in nature. unfortunates the way to do things anyway. Yeah. It sort of forces that issue because the only way you're gonna get enough funding like cobbled together to do something transformative is through that. So I think that and that's pretty much true across all topics of sustainability, I would say. And we also really focused again, than having a lot of money on engagement, and especially community engagement. So we are one of the first cities to have a big community wide summit where we bring together 500 plus people every year and then with smaller events throughout the year, just to generate ideas. See how we as a city government can support neighborhoods, small businesses, nonprofits, are truly collaborative, I'd say to to get things done. That's like one I'd say that's one piece versus some of the really just wealthier cities in the country that can kind of do it more, go alone. A little more. Because they just have some more resources to invest. That's changed a little bit I'd say with with the current bills, inflation Reduction Act, infrastructure act, I think it's definitely provided an unprecedent amount of resources for local government that I wish I had when I was there. Yeah. So it's a really exciting opportunity for especially for cities like Cleveland to actually be able to make big, big investments now. And then the other piece is like, how do you not often lead with climate and sustainability? So when I'm talking with the other department heads in the city, government and county government, we have our climate action plan for sure. And we worked on that with the community but it's often not leading with climate. So when we would go and work with neighbor neighborhoods, we would we would always focus on what works in your neighborhood. What do you want to improve on what are the assets? What is your family interested in doing more of a local really place based nonprofits and then from there based on those assets? And those needs, then connect that to solutions that address climate, but climate sort of comes at the end versus upfront. And so I think that was really our approach in Cleveland.
__________
Matt Gray 
So I think that was really our approach

Nic 
in Cleveland. And it's, you know, it's brilliant. I love the idea. So we're talking about being collaborative, right? You already mentioned that you had to do a little bit of networking and honestly, that those have to go hand in hand, right? Like you, you don't, you're not allowed to be collaborative if you don't network, right. And how you approach it is a really unique and interesting thing too. So you're saying, you know, like, you don't start with the big thing. You work your way towards the big thing, right? What advice would you have for people maybe starting out that process, you know, they're, they want to start you know, working collaboratively. With the community. So I think it's great. You're going out there and asking specific questions. But how do you even start that like what what advice would you give to people who are trying to maybe build up their network or like, establish something really collaborative with the community?

Matt Gray 
Yeah, in most cities, there are those volunteer opportunities to engage in many different areas. So for example, we had ambassadors in Cleveland, I know a lot of cities have where you can just be an ambassador, some are paid I think some aren't but that's a great way to engage places like me development corporations like CDCs very neighborhood based organizations that can have huge impact in those neighborhoods. And that gives you a real good sense. One, what the work is like on the ground, but also as a platform to engage city wide. Things like the summit, tons of engagement events, I would never that's why I would say just get out there in a place. Especially like Cleveland, isn't that big, you're really able able to get a sense of the landscape pretty quickly if you're committed to getting out there. I know it's easier for some people than others. Yeah, so definitely don't hesitate to network and build that especially local government, and just any any local sustainability effort in that then people often ask me like what skills are required for my job back then are working in a sustainability office? And certainly the technical skills were there. It definitely is an advantage to have something you can point to that this is an interest area, but at the end of the day, it is that collaboration, the ability to work with groups to get things done, in many ways was the most important factor to consider when we were thinking about hiring. So it is actually one of those quotes, soft skills, which I don't like that term, but that really, that really is critical.

Nic 
And it is a funny title, isn't it? Soft skills. It's, here's the most important let's call it what do we have a term for that? What do we call it? We'll call it soft. That's the most important okay, cool,

Matt Gray 
foundational critical. It's called soft, soft.

Laura  
That's because it was invented back in a time where leadership were men were men and you got to be strong. Just the soft skills shaking hands.

Nic 
Yeah, even though Yeah, yeah, exactly. But anyway, just in case we haven't made our listeners jealous enough of your your travel experiences here. Like say we'd like we do love talking about hobbies on the show, and it does seem to be one of yours, which you know, Laura and I both love to travel to so the longest trip I ever took was actually three weeks and you know, I got to go to the Galapagos. So I understand being on a boat for several days in a row and what that was like and absolutely wonderful but but you've done you far longer trips than this. You and your family spent for four months traveling ended up in Portugal during the pandemics. I don't even know where to start. I'm obviously you weren't planning to be there when that happened. Did it I did end up cutting your travel short.

Matt Gray
 
It did. Probably my cold months. Yeah, folks. Sometimes feel bad for us to our trip got cut short. Like we got four months of amazing traveling. I know a lot of people had entire arm chips completely canceled. Right. So yeah, we had a unique opportunity in December. Everyone has a timeline December 2019, where I was at the end of my position in Cleveland. Found my wife's and theater and she kind of had a natural break. And we have at the time our daughter was to kind of before school instead of okay, let's This is the time like over the next 15 years. This is the time to do a big trip. So we we traveled for four months got to like New Zealand, Australia. Dubai, Hawaii, and then we're in Portugal in Yeah, like like February 2020. there for a couple of weeks and Lisbon and then pandemic hit and we sort of hunker down and we're all Portugal for two weeks. Late March and then we're like alright, we can either stay in Airbnb is pyramidal broke for an indefinite amount of time or somehow they get back to the state. So we were scampered back. Got one of the last flights like March Yeah.

Nic  
Oh, man. Yeah, well, I mean, okay, so So prior to that, though, you know, you're in the same New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and then Europe. I don't know if you know, those are far apart. But like, how did you plan that out? Like, what do you you know, we see that a lot in Europe, right? You're, they'll say people will take six months to go travel Asia or go travel, Africa or wherever they want to go? They just go for six months. It's very rare to see in the US. So how do you plan out? You know, four months of travel. It sounds so long. I mean, it is how do you how do you manage that? Yeah, well,

Matt Gray 
we actually bought one way tickets, we put our replays on the market, and then we didn't know when if we're going to come back to the States at the time. So we'd only travel we only planned it through the Y in Australia. And then the rest we're just going to fly by the seat of our pants which was a little scary with a two year old. But yeah, you know, it is daunting, especially with a two year old but I for folks who are adventurous it's it's actually a great time to travel with a kid that young and in our approaches. We like to stay in places for multiple weeks at a time just to get to know him. It's easier logistically and yeah, and go from there. My other big travel experience was in Mauritius, which I highly recommend that anyone even remotely considering a Fulbright scholarship Fulbright there for Taiwan's to do climate research decade ago and it was just so great if you're looking for like a career just to just to shake things up and kind of want to go in a slightly different direction. Fulbright is great for that because you have a lot of time to do independent research. And I was doing a lot of climate work for the federal government at the time, but not I was really interested in resilience work and I wasn't, it was gonna be hard to get through that with my job. And so I kind of have this slight shift to do resilience work in Mauritius on this Fulbright. So yeah, for anyone's kind of considering that I would just highly recommend

Nic 
looking into it. And you know, we're here like talking through the Fulbright process. How did you get because that's really competitive. It's really, really competitive to try to get something like that. So how did you get that and what advice would you give people trying to wanting to do this?

Matt Gray 

One thing I would mention is that there's kind of a misnomer that you have to be early 20s or out of college to do it at any age. Now you can apply for a Fulbright. That's one thing to note. There are different types, I believe still definitely more late. Late. Late career folks can still do it. There is some strategic theory to it. I chose a you know, some countries you apply to a specific country on a specific topic. The only way to be eligible essentially, is to get a host letter of support from an institution in the country you're applying to. Okay? But some countries, as you might imagine, are more competitive than others. France is going to be more competitive than other countries. That was looking around I like one of the one of my sweet spots like my friend was okay, but not good enough. So as I needed like a country where English is still the official language, I need a country that's interested in climate research, a place I want to be and at the time, I was fascinated by this idea of living on the islands. Then when I go crazy, you know? Like, oh, and I was really interested in having traveled to Africa. So Mauritius sort of hit all those buckets. And the thing is, like, not that many people apply there. Yeah. So it's just actually easier to get in than some of these other other countries. So, so yeah, that all adds up and yeah, so it sounds like competitive but you guys gotta give it a shot. Sure,

Laura 
that's great. That's really good advice to always gotta love some good strategic Yeah. That was one of my favorite words. I use it on my folders in my in my planning folders and people will say is that a real world? And I'm like, yeah, it's a real word. George Bush made it up.

Matt Gray 
I love how you actually say you spell it out.

Laura
 
Um, thank you. There's no verb like, otherwise you have to say I'm doing strategy. No, I'm just, I'm doing strategically. I think it's perfect. It's just a lot more fun. And in all endeavors, as Nick knows, that's the important thing is having some fun. That is

Nic 
true. And you survived your island experience, by the way, you didn't go completely crazy. I hope it seems to seem normal. So it was great. What

Matt Gray 
an incredible country. Mauritius like so dynamic 440 by 20s square mile island in the middle of Indian Ocean. Yeah, I feel really lucky to have gotten to spend time there.

Laura 
That's neat. Also, I saw that the banner on your LinkedIn is some sort of HobbyTown looking place. And now that you've said you've been to New Zealand, I'm very curious if you actually took that photo from a real Hobbit like place.

Matt Gray 
Yes. How but yes. I mean, you can't go to New Zealand without

Nic 
Alright, interviews over I can't take it anymore.

Laura 
Again, the interview is over. That's enough.

Matt Gray 

It was a good trip. Yeah. It's so hard to get there. You know, it's just it's so far away. If you're gonna go to, like dedicated three weeks is the recommendation.

Laura  
Are there like a ton of Americans like making that pilgrimage?

Nic  
No, no or fly? Like no matter what,

Matt Gray 
it's awful. Yeah, yeah. Now there aren't that many. I mean, there's certainly some Americans there but not not too many. Okay, cool.

Laura 
Still on the list. And then another thing in your hobbies you long distance cycle so I'm very curious. What's the furthest you've gone?

Matt Gray 
I would say the farthest I'm one trip was about 1000 miles. Wow.

Nic 
Wow, what? A day.

Laura 
The question is over how much time

Nic 
passed lie or now right up until now.

Matt Gray 
I would have liked to average around 60 miles per day, which kind of gets you if you're saying 10 miles an hour. Yeah, it can get you into wherever you're going to stay that night. earliest time. Yeah. So I'd say three, four weeks at 60 miles a day. Something that's about 1000 at Northern France and then like what like that? Ireland, Scotland Wales was a really cool trip. That was a long time ago. So I haven't done one of these in about a decade. Did I miss it? But

Laura 
okay, I don't recall them having a lot of bike lanes on the roads that you're probably on. So is it I'm afraid to ride my bike here my neighborhoods so like, how do you avoid getting hits or have you had any scares are like, you know, terrifying to me. It really does.

Matt Gray  
Yeah, there were some tears definitely terrifying moments. Most of the roads I was on pretty sparse and idle a lot of like rural in northern France. No one really around rose. No, but it's still I mean, I feel very lucky and knock on wood. It's been. I've been lucky. I haven't had any incredibly harrowing experiences. But you do have to be super alert, which is hard when you're making six seven hours a day. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty exhausting. But the speed at which you travel cycling I just have always found is the best way to see the world. But it's fast enough where you can get some distance but you can also stop easily. You're outside. It's just a great speed to really see the world so I recommended books for sure.

Laura 
What is like something that you come across that you wouldn't have seen? If you were in a car, like a different way? It's just

Matt Gray 
you know, the, any of these like roadside shops that you kind of can see passing by a car but you're just not going to actually stop it just so much easier to actually stop pause and just see what's going on. Going up these huge mountains and in Scotland and this the the feeling of that and getting to the top is super special. So those those kinds of moments are really great. You can also enter these meditative zones cycling if you kind of get in that groove. I like to have that word for like an hour and go by and you don't even realize that you aren't even even know what you were thinking about. So those are it's just it's just a great way to spend a day while exhausting. Yeah,

Nic 
well. It's funny that like, that's one of my favorite things about doing that kind of exercise is like, you know, the middle like the middle of five hours goes by like nothing but the last 10 minutes you're like, I mean, one minute, I can't believe this. That's the joy of it. Honestly. It's amazing how our brains work.

Laura 
That's great. All right. Well, we are running out of time. Is there anything else that you would like to chat about today?

Matt Gray  
No, it's been great. Yeah, great chatting. Yeah, I guess the longest lasting I'd say like my my career has been. There's definitely a through line of Sustainability and Environment and Climate but definitely going in different jerk like a swervy line going through and I just that's really worked for me to both build on what I've done, but also keep it super fresh. And so every five to 10 years I feel like I will try something at least somewhat new and exciting and it's been great. It's been great for me so working on that approach with the blacks for folks who that comes out. Oh, for sure.

Laura 

Yeah. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing your future adventures. So before we let you go, tell us where people can get in touch with you.

Matt Gray 
Yeah, probably LinkedIn is the best Matt grey at mA TT gra y H zero. So that's, that's probably the best, but also don't hesitate. you can email me as well. Greg MGR. a y at the sca.org also works.

Laura 
Awesome. thanks, Matt.

Matt Gray 
Thank you so much.

[Outro]

Laura  
That's our show. Thank you, Matt for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye.

Nic
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai


Nic & Laura discuss their college choices
Interview with Matt Gray starts
Student Conservation Association
Sailing around the world
Community networking