Members in Action: Melissa Curran, Stantec

Melissa Curran is an Environmental Scientist/Botanist at Stantec. We reached out to to learn more about some of her current projects, and her experience in the field of ecological restoration.

What’s your current job?

I work for a global environmental consulting firm, Stantec Consulting Services Inc (Stantec). While my title at Stantec is botanist and project manager, I’ve been given the liberty to carve my own path at the firm. My current focus is on securing grant funding for Stantec’s public and private sector clients to design, manage, and monitor ecosystem restoration projects throughout the Upper Midwest.

What projects are you working on right now?

Recently, myself and members of Stantec’s environmental services grant-funding team recently submitted applications for more than $12.6 million in local, state, and federal funding to complete numerous projects that focus on creating more resilient ecological communities along the western side of Lake Michigan, including habitat restoration, water quality improvements, and community enhancement. An example project includes habitat restoration, green infrastructure, and educational interpretive signage for an 80-acre Mishicot School District parcel located on one-mile of shoreline along the Manitowoc River. What I love the most about these types of projects is that you get to be involved and see the benefits from beginning to end–from successfully securing funding, through planning, design, implementation, and monitoring.

One of the long-term projects I am most passionate about is my work in orchid conservation. Riveredge Nature Center (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Stantec continue to lead a Wisconsin-based orchid conservation project with an applied focus on establishing orchids in natural environments. While 2020 was challenging for everyone, the team forged ahead on networking with local and regional partners, collaborating with local university students to develop a map of orchid occurrences in southeast Wisconsin, pollinating select orchid populations, caring for orchids in the Riveredge shade house, and continuing a monitoring program established in 2019. The goal of the monitoring program is to evaluate how groups and individual orchid populations are changing over time to inform management strategies and the future selection of outplanting sites. The project relies on the generosity of regional partners like the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and North American Orchid Conservation Center who provide orchid propagation and fungal partner identification.

Another exciting and collaborative project I am working on right now includes a very ambitious invasive species management effort. In partnership with five counties in western Wisconsin, we’re working to control the non-native, invasive species, Phragmites (Phragmites australis subsp. australis). We are also in the process of securing grant funds to expand this program to four additional counties. For the original five counties, we have implemented control actions in three and completed mapping in two. With pending grant funds, we will be controlling Phragmites across five counties in 2021. As you can imagine, a project like this is complex and requires significant coordination. To gain a better understanding of the spatial distribution of invasive species in the area, educate the public, and protect biodiversity, our team developed a GIS-based Invasive Species Reporting Application. Using this tool, any member of the public can take part in helping identify invasive species populations to better inform management.

What do you find most rewarding about working for your organization?

The thing I love the most about working in the consulting field and for a company like Stantec is that I get to create the projects I want to work on. Stantec’s Greenlight fund, part of our Creativity and Innovation Program, supports our people’s great ideas and benefits the clients and communities we serve. A big part of why I can pursue my work on orchids is because of this program. To learn more, watch this video, Greenlight on Orchids.

What do I find most rewarding about my job? Helping my clients bring projects to reality and seeing the landscape change for the better is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

How long have you been a member of SER? What’s your best experience thus far?

Since 2018, Stantec has been a corporate business member of SER. However, prior to that, many of our staff had been involved with local SER chapters throughout the country. I know our practitioners have really benefited from SER’s networking and educational events. I think our best and most recent experience thus far has been the opportunity to sponsor and exhibit at the last SER World Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

What was your childhood dream job?

Ever since college, I always thought it would be cool to get paid to look at plants so I set out to find a career where I could do just that! When I was in school, I took a lot of botany-related courses, including plant identification in forested landscapes. And here I am, a botanist who is getting paid to look at plants. I think I found my niche!

What’s your favorite moment of your career so far?

There are so many! Of course, it’s always very rewarding when I am able to help successfully secure grant funding for our clients, bringing their project visions to life. However, I think my favorite moment in my career so far is the very first, large scale orchid outplanting we did in 2015. It was the first time anyone had ever done anything like this. To show support, 10 to 15 of my Stantec colleagues showed up to help. I was really touched by that. Over the course of two years, we planted more than 1,500 state-threatened orchids at a nature preserve in Door County.

Why would you encourage others, particularly young people, to get involved in this field?

With natural disasters on the rise, a changing climate, and increasing biodiversity and habitat loss, there has never been a more important time to prioritize ecosystem restoration. It’s OUR decade to shine! There are so many wonderful opportunities in this market from consulting, to academia, research, and on-the-ground restoration. If you decide to pursue consulting, it can really be a self-made career where the sky is the limit. What you put in from a passion and experience standpoint, you get back in return.

Guilty pleasure: What can you not live without?

Chocolate! And I can’t forget my Border Collie, Neah. She is my garden companion, a place where I spend most of my days when I am not working in the office or in the field. My goal is to eventually convert our entire two acres of lawn into native gardens.