Introduction

Hi. My name is Dustin Welch. I am 32, married with one child, and I live in Texas. I grew up in the Seattle area for most of my life. I joined the Marine Corps in 2006 to help cover my college expenses and spent 9 years in the service. I have since joined the Texsa National Guard to continue to serve. My early career goals were to become an attorney, as I focused my first BA in Law & Society. That changed as I was nearing the end of my military obligations and I ended up as a logistics & Project manager for a company that builds stadiums and bleachers. I love my job and all the perks that come along with it. As an avid sports fan, I get to be hands on with numerous projects and talk sports with customers. This course is not required for my current degree, International Relations, but I have always been interested in human impact on the environment. In my line of work we have to work within regulations set by various environmental agencies.

One thing I hope to learn more about in the course is sustainability. Before moving to Texas, I was stationed in Twentynine Palms, CA. When I left California in 2014, they were in the one of the worst droughts in many decades. Water was, and still is a premium commodity. To do their part, the base I was stationed on recycled water to use for irrigation. Although it was not potable and smelled terribly, it reduced the amount of water waste, while also keeping everything green. Although this is a small example, I feel like communities could implement something similar to allow homeowners to use recycled water to water lawns (my HOA requires our grass to be green even though we were under water restrictions until 2 months ago).

2 thoughts on “Introduction

  1. Hi Dustin. Thank you for your continuing service. You seem to have had a long road to your current career, but it sounds like a very cool job with a lot of solid perks. I spent this past summer in Venice Beach, California, and I chose to write about my experiences with the drought as well, which is posted here: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/25/getting-to-know-you-james-sharer/. I think the idea of recycling the water to be reused for irrigation is a great idea – in Venice Beach, people were advised to stop watering their lawns, which resulted in many yellow-lawned neighborhoods.

  2. Hi Dustin,
    Thank you for your service to our country.

    I am big on sustainability as well. Plus I like your thought of introduction of recycled water in your community. It’s a great idea and possible could you share the specifics of how to recycle water. If you don’t mind I would like to do something similar in my community.

    Please check my blog entry:
    http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/23/getting-to-know-maureen-awitty/

    Best,
    Maureen

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