35 Students Get Hands-On Experience in GEC Program
To date, 280 interns have gotten a new perspective on environmental
careers
Intern Shows
Unusual Integrity
Returns signed blank
check, $2500 in cash
While the Illinois EPA views all the interns in the Governor's Environmental Corps as
outstanding young people, an incident last summer spotlighted intern Kate Boersma as
noteworthy even among the outstanding.
Kate, who served her internship in the Chicago regional office, found a checkbook on
the train platform in Homewood one morning. Information in the checkbook showed it
belonged to a Tinley Park couple, and contained a signed blank check as well as $2,250 in
cash.
After some investigative work, Kate contacted the owner at his office in Chicago and
was able to tell him she had found a wallet he hadn't yet realized he'd lost. He called at
the regional office to claim his property. Obviously impressed by Kate's honesty, he
rewarded her with $100 cash. |
 On July 30, 1998,
the latest class of Governor's Environmental Corps interns wrapped up a 10 week tour of
duty with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency as guests at a
"graduation" lunch at the executive mansion in Springfield. The 35 college
students brought to 280 the number of young people who have been given a chance, over the
program's seven year history, to get hands-on experience with environmental careers while
promoting awareness and education.
Begun in 1992 with a class of 32 high school seniors and college students, the unusual
program is funded completely by contributions from private sector sponsors. The 1998
sponsors included Abbott Laboratories, Amoco, Archer Daniels Midland, Clark Refining and
Marketing, Commonwealth Edison, Motorola, Navistar, Shell Wood River Refining, and
Sundstrand.
Interns are assigned either to the Agency's Springfield headquarters or to regional
offices around the state. Under the tutelage of Agency mentors, they work on projects
ranging from permitting and field inspections to legal case preparation. They end each
week with a field trip to give them first-hand looks at environmental activities at sites
in central Illinois.
Each year, part of the group chooses to focus their internships on environmental
education by working with six to 12 year-olds at central Illinois youth camps.
Interns' comments at the end of previous programs have repeatedly praised the program
for providing an actual work experience with often complex environmental issues and
problems, and an opportunity for a "real life" view of state government.
Interns in the GEC program spent two days at Springfield's Lincoln Memorial
Garden, a participant in the federal Section 319 grant program administered by the Agency.
They planted more than 2,000 aquatic and prairie plants and provided services to the
Garden valued at more than $1,2000 toward meeting its Section 319 project goals. |
Discarded tires form a backdrop as Illinois EPA staffer Ken Mensing (in
cap) and members of the Governor's Environmental Corps tour the Waste Recovery Inc.
facility at Dupo in southern Illinois. Some five million waste tires are shredded at the
site each year to create tire derived fuel that is combined with coal and burned at the
Illinois Power plant at Baldwin, Ill. |
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