- EPA needs people to communicate those end of pipeline results out to stakeholders and they need people to run the business models behind the scenes and do the administrative work that keeps the teams on track. - So you're gonna find everything from looking for people with toxicology experience over to people with communications experience to people with website experience. Back to the other side with data modeling and computer science, engineering, chemistry. I mean, you name it. It's a laundry list of opportunities that we have. - [Narrator] You're listening to Further Together, the ORAU podcast. Join Michael Holtz and his guests for conversations about all things ORAU. They'll talk about ORAU storied history, our impact on an ever-changing world, our innovative scientific and technical solutions for our customers, and our commitment to the communities where we do business. Welcome to Further Together, the ORAU podcast. - Happy Wednesday and welcome to another episode of Further Together, the ORAU podcast. I'm your host, Michael Holtz, as always, from the communications and marketing department here at ORAU. And today I'm excited to talk about a program that doesn't get a whole heck of a lot of attention but is really exciting and really important to us. It's the EPA National Student Services contract, where we put people to work for the Environmental Protection Agency. And the guests that I have with me today are the experts and project managers extraordinaire for the EPA National Services contract. Karen Cleveland and Geri Philpott, welcome to Further Together, the ORAU Podcast. - Hi Michael. - Thank you Michael. - Great to have you. Karen and Geri, if you would, tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do for ORAU. Karen, I'll start with you. - Okay, thank you, Michael. I'll give you a few thumbnails otherwise we'll be here all day. And I'll give you the view from 40,000 feet. Out of college, I started with a major US airline working in customer service on the front lines. There is no better way to learn customer service than in the airline industry. - Absolutely. - Love that. Love that. Saw the world, moved over to work for a land-grant university, , and if you didn't catch that call out. I worked for the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Worked in the president's office and around campus learned the administrative roles, loved the vibe of university life but was poached away by someone at ORAU. There was an open position to work with a federal customer of ORAU who's embedded at their site. And I worked with about 300 postdocs did a little bit of recruiting, coordinating, and became the face of ORAU at that facility. Really loved it. Got tapped to start a new piece of business at ORAU-1 in 2015, the National Student Services contract with EPA. So I've been working on the contract since 2015. We've had just an upward trajectory since day one and I'm excited to tell you a little bit more about it in a few minutes. - Awesome, Geri. - Okay, so I started out my career actually as a psychology major but I did a lot of animal behavior work and then I moved on and worked everywhere from Disney's Animal Kingdom to the Smithsonian Institution. - Oh my gosh. - And I ended up getting a master's in environmental science. And from there, I actually moved more into the professional development realm managing international professional development programs and then a professional development program for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. And then I moved around a little bit more and I ended up at the University of Kentucky. So sorry Karen, it's a little bit of competition with there. But ended up at the University of Kentucky for almost eight years, teaching some environmental science classes and advising environmental science students. From there I moved on to ORAU. I've been with the company about four years. And a little more than a year ago, I started working with Karen on the EPAs National Student Services contract and I work on several other of our tech staffing programs. So I was really happy to move over to the environmental side and I'm really happy to be working with Karen. She's amazing with this program. - Hey, ditto. - Awesome. Well, I think you're both awesome and I'm glad that we're here to talk about the EPA, National Student Services contract. Let's start with, what the heck is this? When we talk about the EPA National Student Services contract, what are we talking about? - Well, I can give you the elevator pitch and then I'll let Geri unpack it. Sorry to put you on the stop, Geri. Just kidding. Let me tell you what our elevator pitch is and then we can talk about it. So, ORAU recruits and hires long-term temporary contractors to work onsite at the US Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development under the National Student Services Contracting Authority. So there it is, Michael, you asked. - All the . It's right there. - And just basically, we ORAU does the recruiting, relationship building finds the perfect candidate proposes them to the EPA project team. They accept the candidate, and we do all of the onboarding and the lifecycle maintenance for that individual. So that's at a high level. - Awesome. So on a day-to-day level, I mean, basically we're putting people to work for the EPA at various of their facilities doing really interesting work. So talk about what some of that is like, some of the kinds of positions and opportunities that you all help fill for the EPA. - Well, I could take part of that one. I think Karen could give some really good specific examples but some of the big overlying things that qualify somebody for the program is that we're looking for the people within two years of graduation. - Okay. - And that with graduating with a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, or even a PhD. And we do actually have some positions that are for current students who are currently pursuing a degree, but each of our different jobs is unique and they each have their own qualifications that are needed for it. - And we're talking about young scientists, early career scientists but also professionals because not all of the roles are scientific in nature, right? - You did your homework, Michael, that's not on. Yeah. So aside from the hardcore science degrees and disciplines that we recruit, there's also need for supporting the scientists in roles of business and communications and policies. So, things that are done in the laboratories and the data crunching and so forth, EPA needs people to communicate those end of pipeline results out to stakeholders and they need people to run the business models behind the scenes and do the administrative work that keeps the teams on track. - Right. - Yeah. So you're gonna find everything from looking for people with toxicology experience over to people with communications experience, to people with website experience, back to the other side with data modeling and computer science, engineering, chemistry. I mean, you name it, it's a laundry list of opportunities that we have. - And there are always opportunities, right? I mean, there always seems like there are opportunities at the EPA through the National Student Services Program. - Well, think about the environment. I mean, every time you turn around there's a new concern. And you're right, Michael, the positions are plentiful because the work is always expanding. And it's a thrill for us and our team to look for those candidates that can collaborate at EPA and help on these problems that we're faced with. And the candidates that we bring on board, the intrinsic ability to pick up and add to these problems and to see their work make a difference is amazing. - When you all are looking for folks to fill these opportunities, what are you looking for? - I think a lot of that, it depends on the actual opportunity. And you mentioned us having a variety of opportunities. We get new ones all the time and usually what happens as soon as EPA tells us that they have a need, we get it posted and our recruiting team starts to work on it immediately and we're going after exactly the skills and experience and the education from what EPA is looking for. So we're looking for a little of everything depending on the job but I think some of really important things are soft skills and things that translate well through the interview process, making sure that people are just checking the website all the time to see when we have new opportunities up. And then following through 'cause our recruiters are go-getters and we are trying to find those people for EPA and get them on board as soon as possible. So whereas some jobs you may hear, I didn't hear back from them for three months, four months, five months. We're looking at a very short turnaround time where you will hear back from our recruiters if you are qualified for the position. - I was just gonna ask that. I know that the turnaround time is short so you have to be aware of who's in the pool, right? So you're always recruiting folks to be in the wider pool because when those specific opportunities come along and they say, we have a specific need for somebody to be with X, you need to go fishing as quickly as possible, right? - Right, and and the great thing about our team and ORAU managing this contract for EPA for so long, is that we know the project teams around the country. We know what kind of, like Geri mentioned those soft skills. We know the candidates that will fit well and we're also constantly building relationships with candidates that may have missed maybe a first round cut. We may keep them around on the front burner for positions we know are gonna come up in the short-term. It's all about relationship building and making that perfect match on behalf of our customer. And I think we do an extremely good job at that. Michael, I'm gonna pat our team on the back because here's what happens so many times, either the candidate that we place into a position on a team turns to a federal EPA employee, that means EPA a snatches them because they see the value in the individual and they work so well with the team or our hires go on to other government jobs or industry jobs and they're setting the pace for research going forward at other entities, so it's very rewarding. - Wow, and you're constantly filling, which of course is a huge part of our overall mission as an organization to be building that scientific pipeline for the country. To keep scientists and other professionals coming into you. - Yeah. - Not only the EPA but other organizations. - One of our leadership at ORAU shared an interesting statistics just this week, it was the federal workforce's age composition. Right now for the age group of say 20 to 30, that age group only comprises 15% of the overall federal population. - Wow. - Tiny, tiny. So you're right, we're trying to grow that number so that the legacy scientists have somebody coming up behind them to pick up the ball and keep the research going. - It has to be really exciting and fulfilling work for both of you and for the recruiting team to see that success. Talk about that, just some of the successes that you have. - I think one thing I can think of, it's always the team of us. We're in a group chat and we're always talking to each other and working together. And it seems to be weekly, we get emails from somebody saying, "I was just hired here, or I was just hired there "or I just published a paper." And they're in publications, they're working on policy, they're working in the labs, they're working with those renowned scientists at EPA and the policy makers at EPA. So it seems to be all the time we're getting those good feeling emails coming in from our employees just saying what a difference this experience meant to them and how much it helped build their resume and get their foot in the door to get some experience in a federal agency - That is so awesome and that has to make all of you feel so good, right, about the work that you're doing and hearing and reading those kind of messages that, people are succeeding and doing great things, once they get that foot in the door. - We check in with the mentors 30, 60, 90 days after we hire in someone onto a project team. And the mentors overwhelmingly tell us that we hit the target. We found the perfect person to match the skills that were needed and to exceed expectations and that is so rewarding. We know that we're hitting the right candidates, mark, we're hitting the right mark, to hit the right person into the job, into the pipeline, and help these teams in their collaborations. - And you talked about mentors. I think it's important for folks to know these are mentored experiences. You're not just going blindly into an experience. You have a mentor that you're working with. Talk about the value and the importance of mentorship in these experiences. - Geri, you wanna ? - I can take it. I think it's extremely important. So these are ORAU employees, so technically they report to Karen and they're doing all of the HR stuff on our side but they're doing that day-to-day work located at an EPA office. And it's everywhere from Research Triangle Park North Carolina to Rhode Island to Florida out to Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio, Minnesota, all across the United States. - Right. - And in each of those locations, the one constant is that mentorship. Is that they have a task leader at the EPA, who is responsible for their day-to-day work as far as giving them that work, checking in with them, making sure that they are learning and growing while also kind of providing that service to the EPA and really helping them in their research or in their policy or in their communications. Whatever the job may be, they're working one-on-one with those mentors at EPA. - And most of the mentors are in a leadership position on these projects. So that's very desirable when we're talking to candidates because I'll tell them, you're not gonna be working with somebody down the hall and around the corner and never be involved in what's happening holistically on the project. You're gonna be involved in everything. You're gonna see a global view. Your mentor is going to be, like I said, in a leadership position. They're going to take your collaboration very seriously. And more times than not, well, number one, you have to volunteer to be a mentor, right? You have to want to do this. - Yeah, absolutely. - That takes a special quality of person who wants to share and remembers when they were in that part of their career first, coming out of their university and learning. And so, the mentors that we work with and Geri and I and our team talk to them daily, they're just wonderful people. I can't say enough about it. I think that makes my job easy because I know when we let go of our new hires onto these teams, we know they're gonna be taken care of and we take an exit interview from everyone that leaves the contract, and I would say we're very, very high 90 percentile in the overwhelmingly positive remarks about the teams, the mentors, and the collaboration. - That is great news. That's really exciting. So you're hitting the mark not only for the mentors, but for the students and the employees as well? - Right. - Yeah, and Michael, you were mentioning the success stories earlier. We have a lot of former employees that were in this NSSC program that have gone on to become mentors. - Oh, that's awesome. - So to start off in the program, they get hired as a federal employee at the EPA and then eventually they become a mentor themselves. So it's kind of full cycle. - And that speaks to the quality of the program. If you were a student and an employee and now you're mentoring the next generation or the next round of student employees coming through there, so... - Definitely. - ...that's exciting too. So man, it just sounds like such a great program and I'm glad we have the opportunity to talk about it. Is there anything I haven't asked you that we haven't talked about that you wanna make sure that we talk about? - I think-- - Well, go ahead Geri. - Okay. One thing that I believe a lot of people ask us and it's almost an immediate question that a lot of just job seekers are looking right now, is that the first thing they ask us is, are these remote positions? Can I work from home full-time? And that's not a case with these. There is some flexibility, it totally depends on the individual job. Obviously if your job tasks are to work in a lab, you're gonna be in that lab five days a week. - Absolutely. - But there are some positions that our folks get to go into the office a couple of days a week and are at home working from home the rest of the days a week. But everybody's located within commuting distance to their assigned location. Okay. - Yeah, but it does have some flexibility. So that's a great thing for folks who are just graduating and don't quite wanna be in an office maybe five days a week or for the ones who do wanna be in the office, they know if they're getting one of those lab positions they are gonna be there with those scientists every day. - Absolutely. Anything else? - Oh, I was just gonna say in closing that, if you love the EPA, you love the environment you wanna work with the best group of collaborators and communicators, we can help you find a position at EPA under this contract. We'd be happy to talk to anyone who has that in their DNA. That's what we're looking for. - Awesome, and I'll put a link to y'all's webpage in the show notes for this episode so that folks can find you if they're listening and they decide, Hey, I wanna give that a try. As again, let's underscore the point. There are opportunities available right now. We want folks to to go work for the EPA under this contract? - Absolutely. And one of the things when people go to that job list, say they're not graduating till May, we generally have a job posting out there that's just a general posting for people who are graduating in the future. - Okay. - So you can apply now, have your name on our list, so that we will go back to you when you graduate and say, Hey look, we have a job available. So that way it hits it from both sides. We're reminding you and then you can also check back and look at jobs monthly to see what new ones are posted. - Awesome. It sounds like a great opportunity. If you're out there and you're looking and you wanna go to work for the EPA, as Karen said, this is a great opportunity to do it. So check out the webpage in the show notes. Karen Cleveland and Geri Philpott, thank you so much for joining me and for talking about the EPA, National Student Services contract. I really appreciate it. - Thank you, Michael. - Been a pleasure, thank you. - [Narrator] Thank you for listening to Further Together, the ORAU podcast. To learn more about any of the topics discussed by our experts, visit www.orau.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn @ORAU and on Instagram @ORAUTogether. If you like Further Together, the ORAU podcast, we would appreciate you giving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your reviews will help more people find the podcast.