My first job says a lot about me. I studied topographic maps and then visited the most rugged and remote parts of north Georgia to examine the forests and map any old growth I encountered. Friends said they would hate the job due to the physical difficulty. I loved it. The forests themselves were a big part of that, but I realized later that the process of figuring out where to search meant just as much.I had the opportunity for that job because I started becoming a forest ecologist when I was six. I not only went camping and hiking with my dad as many kids did, but also learned how to identify tree species and, during the car rides, my multiplication tables.With that background, pursuing a masters in ecology was an easy choice. Research jobs that followed were how I learned I love travel. They toured me around the United States, introduced me to wonderful people, and provided satisfying work with data. I expected to stay in research for my career.Then contacts from that first job reached back out to me and invited me to be the Forest Ecologist for a small environmental non-profit, Georgia ForestWatch. Advocacy was a new world to me and didn’t come completely naturally. To do my job well, I studied not only government processes like the National Environmental Policy Act but also how to speak persuasively. Then I put those ideas into practice speaking to everyone from volunteers to other professionals who disagreed with me.Focusing on the human elements of the job rather than just the technical led to opportunities to manage people and support other organizations facing similar challenges. However, I found those opportunities also pulled me away from my original interests. Unlike some of my coworkers, my weekends weren’t going to rallies for other causes. Instead I spent processing LiDAR data to help plan hikes and listening to productivity podcasts on the way to those hikes.Analyzing the natural world to make predictions and then seeing if those predictions hold true is what I find rewarding. And I think it’s where I’ve made my greatest contributions. The data and maps I made in that first job looking at old-growth forests are still being used today to help plan forest management projects.