by Pat Avery
Our life journey is seldom along a straight road. Like many of us, Kate has meandered some side roads, stopped to rest a bit and then continued forward, finding new and different paths along the way.
Raised mostly in upstate New York, she attended schools throughout the east. When she earned her Bachelors in Psychology and Art, she didn’t have a defined career path.
She joined AmeriCorps, the civilian volunteer program that provides public service work in communities. Her first program was with the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), lasting ten months. Kate served on a team in the southeastern states that addressed issues like environmental stewardship, education, housing and natural disasters.
Two of the projects impacted her future goals – one in Pickett State Park in Tennessee and the other with Habitat for Humanity in Jupiter, Florida. She realized how much she enjoyed hands-on work that meaningfully connected with the community.
When her tenure ended, she spent a few years working odd jobs in Boston and New York City. Kate found herself looking to a future that included community service and learning about life west of the Mississippi River.
In 2003, she again joined AmeriCorps, this time working for Habitat for Humanity in Austin, Texas. Following her tenure there, she worked odd remodeling and carpentry jobs before spending eight years at the Bullock Texas State History Museum. Hired to build exhibits, those years gave her the opportunity to combine her hands-on work with an emphasis on education.
Those years cemented her future focus and she applied for graduate school at TAMU, where she studied urban planning. This allowed her to combine all the areas she had learned to love from the AmeriCorps-NCCC program.
Kate served an assistantship with Texas Sea Grant and she graduated in 2017 shortly before Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast. Texas Sea Grant hired her as a full-time employee and she has worked with them since.
The position presented the opportunity to wear many hats. Her work involves community planning, hazards, and environmental stewardship.
I work directly with communities to develop Comprehensive plans and Hazard Mitigation plans. Planning helps communities build, rebuild, and grow in a smart and resilient manner. It improves the quality of life for people, conserves the environment, and prepares and protects communities for disasters.
I partner with coworkers or other organizations to create tools and resources to help people make better decisions. For example, we are creating a series of webinars, that will come out this spring and summer, focused on wind and flood insurance and better building codes.
Her work involves organizing and presenting at conferences, like the Texas Plastic Pollution Symposium and the Coastal Bend Hurricane Conference. This summer, she will be working to improve the Monofilament Recovery and Recycling Program in the Rio Grande Valley.
All of Kate’s diverse career meanderings have converged in her desire to further serve communities. She joined the 2021 class of the RGV Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist because she sees it as a natural expansion of her love of hands-on involvement with people and the environment.
For relaxation, Kate enjoys sewing and ‘upcycling’ clothes. That hobby seems like a perfect fit!
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