THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505030217
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Smile when you call Mike Whitley a tree hugger. Whitley, a 26-year-old environmental technology student in Tidewater Community College's protective services program, is an environmentalist but he is also a practical man looking for a solid career.
Whitley is one of seven environmental technology students who have worked this semester as volunteer interns at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth.
The TCC environmental protection program is not about defending cute little creatures but focuses instead on the grittier realities of hazardous materials, industrial waste, government regulations and technical reports.
More than 500 TCC students are enrolled in some aspect of environmental studies. The intern program was launched in January as a cooperative effort between TCC and the shipyard to provide practical, hands-on experience for students who had completed at least 15 credits of environmental academics.
``I think it would be great to go out and swim with the whales but you don't make any money doing that,'' Whitley said. ``Environmental protection is a new field just opening up with plenty of jobs in the future.''
A wide open career field is important to Whitley, a former wood crafter, as well as to fellow intern, Jeffrey Fillion, 29, and a former outside machinist. Both men are Portsmouth natives who had hoped the shipyard apprentice program would guarantee them a secure future. When an October 1993 reduction in force cost Whitley and Fillion their jobs, both took advantage of grant money pay for retraining in new occupations.
``I feel that this is the career field of the future like computers were to the last generation,'' Whitley said.
Through their 16 weeks in the shipyard, the interns worked alongside shipyard personnel and rotated between desk assignments, involving regulatory reports and practical field assignments including environmental monitoring and hazardous waste duties.
The field assignments especially helped make textbook lessons come alive. ``I had spent three years learning regulations and acronymns and had not a clue what a plating process looked like or what a smelter was,'' Jeanette Rice said. ``As an intern I put on a hard hat and steel toed shoes and opened drums and crawled into bins.''
Rice, 42 and a Norfolk resident, has been a medical laboratory technician for 22 years. After she graduates from TCC this summer with an associate's degree in protective services, Rice hopes to somehow combine her medical lab experience with environmental protection work, perhaps as a liaison between industry and government environmental agencies.
Suffolk resident Vicki Goldthwaite ran her own business as a painting contractor until recently when she decided to finish her college education and enrolled in the environmental program at TCC. Her internship at the shipyard opened her eyes to the validity as well as the scope of environmental protection regulations and has pointed her in the direction of community education. ``I might even like to someday serve on a city council,'' she said. ``Somewhere where I can have a say on environmental issues.''
Compliance and education are critical to environmental protection according to another intern Leslie Jones. A Southside Portsmouth resident, the 48-year-old Jones had worked in the chemical cleaning industry until he was disabled. ``During that time I saw a lot of things that didn't add up to what I thought were safe practices and that were probably damaging the environment but I did not know,'' Jones said.``The internship program has given me a chance to see compliance working at its best.''
The interns spent eight hours a week actually on the job and another two hours in a seminar class led by the TCC academic adviser and program developer Bill Apperson and shipyard training specialist Angel Coyle.
Not only has the internship program provided practical experience and marketable skills for the students, it also has benefitted the shipyard with the services of trained environmental personnel without any manpower cost.
``Now we have supervisors asking for interns from the next group,'' Coyle said. ``And we have students standing in line waiting to get into the next program,'' Apperson added. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
TCC Environmental Technology students monitor drinking water.
by CNB