December 2011

Over the course of the last year, I’ve seen many fisheries folks retire. A lot of them are people that I’ve been fortunate to work alongside on a variety of projects. And those are some of the folks I’ve really looked up to throughout my career. At some point, I’m sure they noticed that they were in the “advanced” group of biologists and they probably wondered who would follow them? Who would be the folks to finish the work that they started? Who would look out for Missouri’s aquatic resources when they retired?

Well, I passed the 20 -year mark with MDC this past September and I realized that I’m probably officially past the mid-point of tenure for a fish squeezer in Missouri. When did that happen?! I realized that the people who will eventually replace me were born after I started working for MDC!

Actually, working to better prepare tomorrow’s biologists is something I’ve always believed was a responsibility of my job. I’ve always looked long-term and tried to help prepare the folks who may force me to move up, or move on. As a matter of fact, I helped mentor my first intern almost a dozen years ago. Let me introduce him.

Description: Dr. Daniel E. Shoup Many of you may have met Kris Bodine at the Catfish Symposium that was in Missouri last year. After he left us as a high school intern in Northeast Missouri, he went on to work for Kevin Sullivan on a catfish project. He attended grad school at Oklahoma State and started working in Oklahoma as a management biologist. He now works for Texas Parks and Wildlife as a Fisheries Research Biologist. Although he’s a long way from Hannibal, MO these days, Kris is the perfect example of how we as professionals can direct these young folks toward productive careers in this field.

There have been quite a few interns come through here over the years. To be honest, I’ve lost count. Some were true interns, some were hourly employees. But many of them still work in this field. Besides Kris, our former staff and interns now work for MDC, Missouri DNR, two districts of the Corps of Engineers, and in the private natural resources field.

Yes, in order to be a mentor, it takes extra time. And, yes, it is more work. But, here are a few of the bonuses for putting in the extra effort.

One of my mentors was Jack Robinson. Jack was MDC’s commercial fishing and catfish research biologist. One day he told me a story about why he had hired so many inexperienced hourly staff over the years. He said simply “You can train them the way you want them.”
Another reason to mentor an intern or hourly employee is that it is an opportunity to pass on the tradition and knowledge that was passed on to you. Teach them where we’ve been and why we do it this way. Remember, those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.
Have you ever seen an employee hired that made you scratch your head and wonder how the heck they even got an interview? Do you wonder who had, or had not, trained them before you met them? Then did you ask yourself if YOU had taken the time to train someone? If the next generation of professional is “sub-par,” you could be partially to blame. If YOU train them, you KNOW they got off to a good start. And if YOU don’t do it, who will?
And finally, you can instill the passion that you have for this field. Teach them the fun stuff, the obscure, and the “gee-whiz” things about the critters we study. Get them interested, get them hooked, and put them to work!

And do all of us one final favor: Don’t make them sit and watch! Get their hands wet and make their muscles ache. Anytime someone wants to go to the field with me, my response is always the same: I have no room in my boat for dead weight. Everyone works. At the end of the day, you may be tired and sore, but you will also say “I had fun!”

If you give them a task and they don’t do it right, make them do it again. My mentors were firm believers in hands-on training and if I didn’t do it right, I did it over. To them, I say “Thanks!”

So the next time you are approached about mentoring a high school or college intern for a day, a week, a summer, or even a school year, jump at the chance. After all, you’re not getting any younger!

Travis Moore

MOAFS President