Why Carl Wants To Serve
I can trace my desire to serve back to my grade school years. Whether it was participating in canned food drives, visiting elderly church members at nursing homes, or scores of fund-raisers through school, it always made me feel good to give back to my community. Service to your community is the same as investing in your community. You get back what you put in, and more often than not you get back more than what you put in. Service to others makes up a large part of who I am as an individual. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered a more focused approach to my service.
I was fortunate enough to spend a year serving for the AmeriCorps St. Louis Emergency Response Team. This is where I found my true passion for environmental stewardship. It enabled me to take my love for the outdoors and apply it in a way that could enact positive change in my community. With so many threats to our environment, whether it be overpopulation and the struggle of feeding nearly nine billion people, the ever increasing scarcity of clean water, or the over arching reality of climate change, every small action can make a difference. If you stack all of these small actions on top of each other, you create a formidable defense against the threats facing our natural world. As a member of AmeriCorps St. Louis, I was given excellent education and training to help be a part of that defense. We worked as Wildland firefighters, emergency responders, and environmental conservationists. But my education and training aren’t over yet.
There are many reasons why I want to join the Texas Conservation Corps. I want an adventure, a truly unforgettable experience. I want to learn a new set of skills that I can carry with me for the rest of my life. I want to meet new, excited, like-minded people who all share a common goal. One of the strongest reasons is also one of the most simple. Texas pride. As a native Texan and Austinite, I feel it’s my duty to help make this great state even better. But my most compelling motivation is to enact a positive change in my world. I want to invest in my world, because that’s the only way anything gets better. I have the talent, skills, creativity, and dedication that will make me a powerful asset to the Texas Conservation Corps.
Characteristics
Analytic, Flexible, Leader, Outgoing, Problem solver
Qualifications or Certifications
US Department of Agriculture Forest Service: Level “B” chainsaw felling/bucking certification, Level “B” crosscut felling/bucking certification. National Wildfire Coordinating Group: S-130 Firefighter Training, S-190 Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior, L-180 Human Factors on the Fireline, S-212 Wildland Fire Chain Saws. Missouri Department of Conservation: Level 1 Missouri Fire Management, Fire Ecology. FEMA: IS-00100.b Introduction to Incident Command System, ICS-100, IS-00200.b ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Incident, ICS 200, IS-00700.a National Incident Management System (NIMS). American Heart Association: Heartsaver First Aid and CPR. Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association: The Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle E-Course
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish