Environmental Field Technician

Environmental Field Technicians work on-site excavating materials for Environmental Engineers and Environmental Engineering Technicians. You have the most physical duties in the environmental engineering field. Therefore, you better be willing to get your hands dirty. Luckily, your sweat won’t be going to waste, because your labor leads to greener pastures and less pollution for future generations.

Sometimes, your assignments as an Environmental Field Technician will take you to locations that have already been cleaned up. These are the easy jobs. Pop your container into a clear, running stream, make sure it fills to the amount specified by the Engineer, and you’re back in your truck on your way to the next location, which very likely could be contaminated with toxins.

Collecting samples from polluted locations requires that you take extra precautions. It’s essential to have knowledge of proper hazardous materials management and transportation techniques developed by government agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It’s also important to know how to react and who to call in case of an accidental spill.

Your daily duties as an Environmental Field Technician will consist almost entirely of travel. You commute from one location to another to collect air, soil, and water samples for testing. So it’s imperative that you be a self-motivated worker with superior accountability skills, because you won’t have a Manager or Supervisor watching your every move.

You may also get to use equipment specific to environmental engineering, like sediment corers and geophysical instruments. So if you love gadgets, this position is right up your alley.