Environmental Progress - Autumn 1996

33 Interns Make Up Fifth Class of Governor’s Environmental Corps

Twelve corporate sponsors underwrote the $80,000 cost of giving students hands-on experience in Illinois EPA’s day-to-day activities

From checking out hydroponically grown lettuce to scaling to the top of the nation's largest drag line, 33 interns in the fifth annual Governor's Environmental Corps (GEC) program this summer got an eye-opening different view of what the Illinois EPA does..

The interns were selected from 202 who applied for the program, underwritten by contributions from 12 corporate sponsors. The students, paid $6 an hour, spent four days each week between June 10 and Aug. 2, 1996, working alongside employee-mentors in assorted Illinois EPA disciplines. On the fifth day they made field trips. Those trips let them get close-up looks at a coal mine, landfill, refinery, sewage treatment plant, tire reclamation facility, and a mixed bag of other private and public sector operations. During their tour of the ADM facility at Decatur, they inspected salad makings grown in hydroponic tanks rather than farm fields, and at Freeman United Coal Co.'s mine at Industry, Ill., they donned hard harts and clambered up ladders to look down from the massive drag line at a coal seam being worked.

Four days in the office, one day in the field

During their four day office work week the interns assisted full-time employee-mentors in jobs ranging from the permit process to field inspections to legal case preparation. A dozen of them elected to work in the Junior Governor's Environmental Corps program promoting environmental education activities at nine youth camps in central Illinois for youngsters six to 12 years old.

Eleven of the GEC interns worked in the Illinois EPA's regional offices in Rockford, Peoria, Champaign, Collinsville and Marion. The rest were based in Springfield.

A new program element this year was a Career Day, when interns questioned Agency staff members, lab-coated for anonymity, then had to deduce what their jobs were in the Illinois EPA. Staffers with varying educational and professional backgrounds and degrees then talked with the interns about their work, followed by representatives of five of the sponsoring companies who gave overviews of their firms' environmental programs. Possible job openings, and the skills needed to fill them, were discussed.

The eight week experience was capped with a luncheon at the Executive Mansion in Springfield.

"This is without a doubt the best and most thorough (internership) I have participated in...."

What did the interns think of their eight weeks as unofficial pollution fighters? Students are asked to submit exit evaluations when the program ends, and one young man wrote "...even though I had some suggestions to improve the internship, I thought it was excellent. I have been involved in a variety of internships and leadership programs that involve the assigning of mentors and projects to interns over the last four years. This is without a doubt the best and most thorough I have participated in, and I know many of the other interns feel the same way..."

Sponsors for the 1996 GEC program were Abbott Laboratories, Amoco Corp., Browning-Ferris Industries, Clark Refining, Commonwealth Edison, DOW Chemical, General Motors, Monsanto, Motorola, Navistar International, Shell Wood River Refining, and Sundstrand.

[Photo caption: Using their heads, interns in the Governor's Environmental Corps examine the packaging on lettuce grown hydroponically at the ADM plant in Decatur.]