|
Elisha McVay, another graduate of the University of Maine’s College of Engineering, began working at Georgia-Pacific in Old Town in 2002.
“I previously had worked for Maine DEP as an environmental engineer, and was hired to be the wastewater engineer [at Georgia-Pacific’s] waste treatment plant,”
she says.
“I was very excited to get back into pulp and paper because I had really been interested by the process.”
What did her job entail, exactly?
“I would usually start by going out to the treatment plant, find out how things were running out there, find any issues or problems that we had.
We would have a nine o’clock production meeting…and any environmental job tends to have a lot of paper work.”
In addition, Elisha’s days consisted of supervising a crew of five waste treatment plant operators, and very often, troubleshooting when problems arose.
About nine months after starting at Georgia-Pacific, Elisha was transferred to a position as the mill’s air engineer.
“Air [regulations] tend to be a little more technical than the water regulations.
And I think water quality is tangible to most people and air quality isn’t,”
both of which made her new position more difficult.
Since Georgia-Pacific closed its doors, Elisha has secured a position at Eastern Maine Medical Center’s medical records department.
If the mill doesn’t re-open, she will look into retraining for a new career.
“I was hoping to go to school for nursing,”
she says. What advice does Elisha have for up-and-coming engineering students?
“If they really wanted to get into the pulp and paper field they should count on leaving the state of Maine.”
July 27, 2006 Interview with Elisha McVay
|
