Get career advice related to environmental policy and planning fields from professionals—including SU alumni—at Austin Resource Recovery, City of Austin Water, TCEQ,  Environmental Defense Fund and more. Co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies program and Career Services. Refreshments provided.

 

Panelists include:

A graduate of Southwestern University, Charlotte Huskey has worked in three departments in the City of Austin: Austin Energy, Economic Development, and Austin Resource Recovery. Her tenure with the COA emphasizes event management, bilingual community outreach, and ordinance development and implementation. Some of her projects include organizing three City-related SXSW events, showcasing 40+ local creative industries, spearheading the “20 Years, 20 Stories” Anniversary Exhibit of Austin Energy Green Building program, and coordinating the first multifamily waste audit in the City’s history. Charlotte currently works as Waste Diversion Planner Senior with the Strategic Initiatives Division of Austin Resource Recovery, focusing on Zero Waste initiatives in Austin.

David Wolfe is Director of Conservation Strategies with Environmental Defense Fund.  Mr. Wolfe began his conservation career as a field ecologist with The Nature Conservancy in 1992 and he has since held a variety of conservation science, stewardship and management positions.  He joined EDF in 2000 and began developing and implementing incentives to encourage private landowners to participate in endangered species conservation. He is currently taking a leadership role in the development of regional habitat exchanges for the lesser prairie chicken and greater sage grouse.

As a Senior Biologist at the City of Austin, Matt McCaw leads watershed restoration, land management, and research projects on approximately 10,000 acres of the City’s Water Quality Protection Lands, which are managed to protect and improve both the quality and volume of water recharging the Edwards Aquifer. Matt is also a graduate of Southwestern.

As a Water Quality Attorney, Michael Parr II provides legal counsel and support to the TCEQ Executive Director’s Office of Water and the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program to ensure permitting decisions and authorizations are lawful, development of agency rules comply with statutory authority or directives, and that the Executive Director is represented in contested permitting matters.  His environmental interests stem from 12th grade physics when they calculated that the average 4-bedroom house uses enough electricity to burn roughly 1 ton of coal a year. 

Paige Najvar has served as a Fish and Wildlife Biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Austin Ecological Services Field Office since 2001. She primarily works on issues pertaining to the Endangered Species Act, and is the lead biologist for three endangered species: the Houston toad, Barton Springs salamander, and the newly listed Austin blind salamander.