Erica began her environmental career early on with an interest in science in elementary school. Later as she became aware of the earth鈥檚 dire environmental crisis, she began to encourage friends in school to recycle and decided that she would study the environment in college. While attending 51爆料 she was able to gain an invaluable environmental education, study a semester abroad in Madagascar and gain hands on environmental experience via interning. During the summer of 1996, she interned at Waste Management鈥檚 Bradley Landfill where she worked on reporting VOCs for air emission reports and conducted ground water sampling. In the summer of 1997 she interned at Hughes Aircraft鈥檚 Opto-Mechanical Division, where she used an Infra-Red scanner to produce emission spectra while analyzing chemical components to determine levels of adhesiveness.
Happily, soon after graduation, in December 1998, she began working on her environmental career with the City of Los Angeles at the Environmental Affairs Department where she wrote articles and researched topics for the Greening Guide and provided information for the Environmental Information Center. Erica became an Environmental Specialist with the City of Los Angeles in June 1999 and in 2008 an Environmental Supervisor. Throughout her career, Erica has had the opportunity to work for various city departments on many environmental issues including water quality, water conservation, water supply, energy, policy, planning (CEQA/NEPA), air quality, storm water and hazardous substance management.
Erica pursued her Master鈥檚 degree while working full time and participating in the city鈥檚 tuition re-imbursement program. In 2005, she received her Master鈥檚 Degree in Environmental and Occupational Health with honors from California State University - Northridge and became a Registered Environmental Health Specialist with the state of California. Erica has been a regular speaker and presenter for students of all ages advocating careers in science and the environment. Erica鈥檚 current area of focus is Sustainability.
Erica currently works as an Environmental Affairs Officer with the City of Los Angeles in the Board of Public Works. In this capacity, she is responsible for overseeing the Environmental Affairs and Community Engagement portion of the Office of Petroleum and Natural Gas Administration and Safety. Her primary work is community engagement and policy analysis related to oil and gas issues, liabilities related to thousands of improperly abandoned oil wells across the City, and numerous oil spills and volatile organic compound emissions from oil drill sites in South LA, West LA, and in Wilmington.
Before this she worked on (recycling, solar power, green energy, electric vehicle charging, green building, sustainable purchases, water conservation and energy conservation) and wildlife issues at the LAX/ the City of Los Angeles Department of Airports /. As part of LAX鈥檚 sustainability initiatives, she was responsible for green building initiatives and environmentally preferred products at LAX.
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