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Career Center (CC): What field are you in and what is your current position?

Bernadette Del Chiaro (BDC): I work in the field of environmental advocacy and organizing as the Clean Energy Advocate for the nonprofit, nonpartisan group, Environment California. I have held this position since 2002 and have become a leading energy advocate in California. My most recent achievement is the launch of the widely-known Million Solar Roofs initiative that has received broad support from opinion leaders and organizations from across the country as well as international attention.

CC: What are your main job responsibilities?

BDC: My job is to pass state and local policies that shift California away from dirty energy resources and practices and that move us toward greater conservation, efficiency and use of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power. For example, in 2003-2004 I worked with a coalition of groups in Los Angeles to pass the nation's strongest, municipal, renewable energy standard at the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP). As a result, LADWP must now generate at least twenty percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2017. This significant campaign was won through a combination of research, lobbying, coalition building, media coverage, and grassroots mobilization.

CC: What was your major and when did you graduate?

BDC: From 1990-1994, I studied environmental science and policy as a Conservation and Resource Studies Major (CRS), an interdisciplinary studies program within the College of Natural Resources. I combined natural science with political science and public policy courses to give myself a solid foundation upon which, through on-the-job trainings, I learned the skills and strategies needed to turn good ideas on protecting public health and the environment into laws and policies.

CC: In what ways did your undergraduate degree prepare you for your current job?

BDC: There are three ways in which my CRS degree prepared me for my current career:

1. Basic understanding of environmental issues including the body of scientific knowledge quantifying and qualifying the most pressing problems facing society today;
2. A basic understanding of the power dynamics and politics between those most responsible for our most pressing environmental problems, those impacted by them, and those empowered to do something about them;
3. Basic writing and research skills.

CC: What other experiences/training were important in getting you to where you are in your career?

BDC: While my undergraduate degree gave me a basic knowledge of environmental problems on both a scientific and political level, a college education is inherently limited in its ability to provide real-life knowledge and experience in what it takes to initiate the changes in our society. In other words, college is limited in providing many of the skills and strategies needed to pass policies, initiative programs, and/or in other ways bring about quantifiable, on-the-ground changes in the way we use and interact with our environment and natural resources.

CC: Tell us about your Green Corps and other post-college career training.

BDC: Since graduating from UCB with a degree in Conservation and Resource Studies in 1994, I have benefited greatly from my year with Green Corps and then, in seven years since Green Corps, from my continuing on-the-job training with the State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) and Environment California.

Green Corps was a terrific entry into my career in environmental advocacy and organizing. After I graduated from UC Berkeley, I spent a year working with a coalition of groups fighting a proposed radioactive waste dump in Ward Valley, California. I worked with Native American tribes in this desert region as well as environmental groups like Greenpeace to persuade local governments, Chambers of Commerce, and other local groups that opposing the proposed dump was in their best interest. While a terrific experience (the dump was officially stopped two years later), I was operating by instincts, given no training or direct supervision. Green Corps, in contrast, gave me not only the basic skills and strategies needed to be effective at solving environmental problems but also gave me the same hands-on experience of working concurrently on exciting, urgent campaigns. During my year with Green Corps, for example, I launched a campaign in Connecticut to clean up five coal and oil burning power plants that were, at the time, exempt from the Clean Air Act.

CC: What are some drawbacks to a career in environmental advocacy work?

BDC: Philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) once said, "No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that, as a thinker, it is one's first duty to follow one's intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead." A certain drawback to a career in environmental advocacy is that the more you learn and the more you think about what is happening with regards to the environment and what it will take to solve our most pressing problems, the more that is required of you to be an effectual environmental leader. In other words, truly effectual environmental advocates and organizers require long-term commitment; the work is too unique and difficult to master in just a few years.

Secondly, environmental advocacy and organizing also requires a willingness to work long-hours as well as a willingness to go against the grain and if necessary stand up to powerful special interest opposition.

Finally, the environmental movement, as with many fields, is tight-knit and dominated by people two to three times the age of the average college graduate. It can be a daunting field to enter as a recent college graduate and to excel within the first few years after college. Green Corps and other organizations, such as the state PIRGs and Environment California, are exceptions to the rule, hiring hundreds of young college graduates and giving the next generation of environmental leaders a leg-up in the ongoing effort to protect our environment and live more sustainably.

CC: Do you have any tips regarding what Cal undergraduates can do to prepare to apply for a Green Corps fellowship or other environmental advocacy jobs?

BDC: The best way to prepare for Green Corps or any other environmental advocacy job is to:

• Get good grades;
• Build a track record of hard, committed work through school and other non-academic activities;
• Develop your leadership skills in whatever way interests you. This could be becoming the leader of your class rugby team or it could be hustling down an internship with your favorite organization.

CC: Other comments or suggestions?

BDC: Check out the Green Corps website for more information including available positions. Environment California also offers substantial information including entry-level career positions as well as ongoing campaigns on their website.

Additional Resources

Career Field - Environment

What Can I Do With a Major In - Conservation & Resource Studies