22 Mar A new adventure! February and March.

Hi everyone! My name is Joey Garcia and I am part of EFTA’s batch of winter interns in RAP cohort number 6! I started in early February and have already had some fantastic experiences. I work from home here in Michigan, and my work location is the region 3 office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The past two months I have been working on training primarily followed by a new life zone tour PowerPoint for my RO. They would use this when they have guests visiting who may want to get out and explore everything that the region has to offer. I have also attended many webinars in the past month and am very excited for the ones still to come such as the series I just started on vernal pools last night.

Transitioning from a fast paced job in fast food to a position where they encourage you to do things in a way that takes thought and consideration has been a refreshing, yet difficult, transition. It also poses new problems such as my wife getting snowed in, but myself not needing to leave the house for work. See picture below for our intense snowstorm a few weeks ago.

My mentors and EFTA staff have all been amazing in helping me find new opportunities. My mentor has already found me a week’s worth of work in a national forest near me doing rattlesnake surveys in May. Stay tuned for pictures from that adventure, and many more I am sure!