Taking what may have seemed like a backward step turned out to be just the right route for Clayton Ferguson to build an ongoing and successful environmental management career.
Now a senior program manager with the U.S. Army Environmental Command, in 2018 Ferguson left a senior environmental (water) monitoring position with the City of Tulsa to become an intern with USAEC. The entry level role was designed to provide a broad range of experiences across the organization, and that appealed to Ferguson’s natural curiosity.
“I started as an intern in a position that essentially put me in a rotation across USAEC,” he said. “I got to see a little bit of everything that goes on. It’s been a big help in preparing me. I got quick introduction into the things that USAEC does — kind of a snapshot, not at a high level, but an idea of what is going on. And from that you can have a better idea about what it is you want to do. I love to learn new things, so it was a great experience.”
Ferguson now serves as the program manager for the National Defense Center for Energy and Environment known as NDCEE, a unique program under the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army, managed by USAEC. The NDCEE was created in 1991 to provide the DoD with the technology to serve real-world environmental and energy problems and engage multiple partners in creating solutions.
The NDCEE has helped develop innovative solutions with DoD and private sector partners, with an emphasis on environmental management and technological innovations. Recent successes include everything from robotics, lithium batteries and water purification to aerial refueling technology, micro-grid advancements to net zero lighting systems.
“The environmental field is pretty broad. It touches on many of the other sciences, as do many of the projects at NDCEE. That means I get to learn new things all the time. I like to learn a little bit about everything. I don’t consider myself a subject matter expert, but rather I have a broad knowledge set that can help get things done,” he said. “I’m willing to learn, and always have been willing to step out of my comfort zone and learn something new.”
Ferguson said that in addition to NDCEE’s original charge of addressing high-priority environmental issues, the unit has evolved to include safety, occupational health, installation resiliency and energy, and that has added new projects and ideas into the mix.
“At NDCEE I get to see all these new, innovative ideas out there — and all the problem solving that happens,” he said. “I get to be an outsider listening to these smart people, solving real problems. It starts with proof of concept, and we help take it from small scale and advance it to make it to a larger scale.”
Looking back at his start in Army environmental work, Ferguson said he was drawn to pollution prevention work, as that allowed him to study plans and documents and help identify ways to make the overall outcomes more effective.
“I really liked to look for ways that we could improve on things,” he said, adding that as part of that process, he learned about the importance of bringing in partners beyond the DoD units.
“Once we have the big picture in mind, I could go talk to local businesses and ask ‘Hey, will you take this waste?’ or see who could handle parts of the project. That makes for a broader perspective and mutually beneficial relationships.”
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