Weather or air quality jobs

by Holly
(Canada)

Consulting the weather chart

How should I decide between weather or air quality jobs? I was wondering about your consulting job. HOw did you get into that, and did you enjoy it? I am deciding between being a weather girl or consultant myself. Any advice would be appreciated, as i am not sure who even to ask about this. I have been talking to the Josh Classen of CFRN CTV Edmonton news, he is the main weather man there. Again, any advice or knowledge would be apprciated.

Barry's Response - I take it you are a student in meteorology or some similar field, coming at a crossroads of some sort and not sure what to go with.

When I finished my studies in the early '90's, jobs of any kind were scarce enough that I worked in completly non-scientific fields (such as 7-Eleven) for a couple of years and jumped at the very first relevant job that came my way.

This was with a consulting company named Jacques Whitford who has a large air quality group in their Calgary office. It meant moving down from Edmonton myself and setting up here. I guess you could say I sort of fell into it. This company is quite good for the fresh graduate as they get plenty of varied experience needed to make intelligent career decisions. I understand they are hiring again.

Expect to work long hours at times.

I eventually left this position to pursue an operational career in meteorology with Environment Canada, after their 10-year hiring freeze was lifted. It turned out not my bag.

There have been times when I wished I had gone the TV weather person route. Any established station will want you to have credentials such as a degree in communications, with meteorology coming in second, so it seems. I found this out from Claire Martin, a former classmate of mine who has been doing weather on Global.

She and I were "fans" of Bill Matheson, who had the post way back then.

I guess what I'm really saying is, nobody but you can find your direction, but you probably knew that already. It took me several air quality jobs and such, and I still don't know if I'm there yet.

Reassuring? I doubt it, but good luck anyway. The adventure is worth it.

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