How long have you been a member of SER, why did you join, and what is your best experience with SER far?

I’ve been a practicing limnologist/ecologist since 1981, primarily working in larger organizations with a primary focus in civil engineering.  I think I joined in 2003 just prior to attending the SERI Conference in Austin, Texas, which is still one of the best experiences/choices I’ve made in my professional career.  Prior to attending the Austin Conference, I was somewhat aware of, but not connected to, the community of restoration ecologists.  Austin changed that for me and sent me on a different trajectory.

I initially joined SER to be able to justify presenting a paper at a conference! I was working on an ecological restoration project at a SuperFund site, had collected a bunch of data on restoration success, and had gone back to my undergraduate roots looking at success via Diversity Indices (statistics nerd).  The opportunity to present at Austin came up, and there you have it. 

Mike Toohill

What does achieving the Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner (CERP) credential mean to you?

It means that a jury of my peers has convicted me of having the competence to serve as a proponent and manager of ecological restoration projects.

What motivated you to get certified?

I’ve been working on getting the SER Certification Program up and running since a large group of us met in San Francisco in May 2008 to kick around the idea. From that, the SER Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Certification was formed, and I was invited to be a member of that committee. It took many years and many many many person hours of volunteer time to get the program running. It was desperately needed because of the potential (and often realized) failure rate of ecological restoration projects not performed in a holistic manner.

How has certification helped your professional career?

The letters after my name have done little yet, but we hope that they will gain a broader audience and greater acceptance in the near future. The interaction with the community of CERPs has helped my professional career. As a CERP myself, I learn something each time I interact with other CERPs. I’ve been lucky enough to sit and talk with the likes of Andy Clewell, John Rieger, John Stanley, Keith Bowers, and with a fellow CERP Tein McDonald on ecological restoration concepts, the development of the SER Primer, Standards for the practice of ER, and some of the projects they’ve been involved in.

Mike Toohill beside Smokey the Bear

What is your current occupation?

I am a consultant, a mentor, a problem solver, and an educator.  I’ve taught graduate school classes, but I view my job as educating my clients, my colleagues, and staff, the regulatory community, the public, and myself.  By title, I am the Principal of Ecological Services and Permitting—a mouthful that still doesn’t describe what I do on a day-to-day basis.

Please tell us about your career trajectory in the field of ecological restoration?

It was a dark and stormy night… Actually, it was a beautiful sunny day when in my junior year as an undergraduate, I was doing field research on benthic macroinvertebrate communities as part of my undergraduate capstone project. I went back to my study site (a lovely stream in a state park) only to find that a gravel road had been pushed across the stream, basically destroying the community I had been studying. At the urging of my major professor, I kept going back over the next year and watched as the system recovered from the insult. That has been my career ever since—trying to help avoid impacts and when impact occurs helping manage (and mostly watch) recovery.

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

The interaction with young, bright, eager, and idealistic staff.  They keep me on my toes!

What projects are you working on right now?

On the ecological restoration side, I’m working on a couple of stream culvert replacements/stream continuity projects, a stream daylighting project, and several wetland enhancement/re-creation projects.

Stream culvert replacements/stream continuity projects

How does your work support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration?

What’s that old saw? “Think globally, act locally”? Globally, our climate is changing, and local restoration projects need to account for that. In the northeast, that has meant more extreme weather events leading to increased rainfall and seemingly milder winters, which will ultimately change the species mix as warmer weather plants and animals move further north.

What does ecological restoration mean to you?

It means integrating science, engineering, and economics into a holistic approach to solving ecological problems. Which is poetic justice, since we caused most of the problems anyway.

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

The tasks you get a chance to work on are so diverse, you literally learn something new every day (or at least every month) and no two projects are the same.  It keeps your mind challenged and engaged. Plus, you get to work outside a lot!

Mike Toohill hiking

What’s something about you (a fun fact) that not many people know?

I’m an avid hiker and amateur photographer, and hope to visit as many US National Parks and Monuments as possible while I can still hit the trail for hours on end.