UNITY — Freshman Caitlyn Connolly said that while touring Unity College’s 2015 Environmental Career Fair, she was surprised to learn about the range of recruiters offering environmental jobs and internships.

“There’s more variety than I thought,” she said. “I didn’t think there would be so many camps here. Now I’m really thinking about camp.”

The annual environmental career recruitment event hosted about 60 recruiters who came to the event, which in past years has attracted 50 to 80 hiring employers, said Nicole Collins, director of career services for Unity College.

Collins said the job market has been diversifying as more major corporations are showing interest in going “green” and hiring people such as Unity graduates with an environmentally geared education.

“It’s no longer just the struggling nonprofit,” she said.

In 2011, the production of “green goods and services,” as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor, accounted for 2.6 percent of jobs in the country or 3.4 million jobs. Out of those jobs, which produce goods and provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources, 2.5 million were private sector and 886,080 were public sector.

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Recruiters at the event are often Unity alumni, Collins said.

Alumna Kelly Maloney, of Burnham, said she and her husband, Alvah, were at the fair hoping to recruit new people to their guide service company, Maine Kayak.

“We know they’re good stock,” she said.

Alvah Maloney said they felt positive about the students they had talked to and said that about 20 gave them information.

Across the gymnasium, Becky Traylor, assistant farm manager for Johnny’s Selected Seeds, said the Winslow-based company was looking for a handful of people to work in marketing and other positions, and she was hoping to connect with future employees at the fair.

Traylor, also a Unity alumna, said her company was interested in attending the fair because of Unity’s environmental programs.

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“We’re hoping to tap into the sustainable ag folks at Unity,” she said.

Unity alumnus Hauns Bassett, now a specialist with Jobs for Maine Graduates, was at the job fair Tuesday with 13 Erskine Academy students. Bassett said each year he takes Erskine students to the event to visit the campus and show them examples of environmental careers.

“They get to see this is why we do all this work. This is why we learned all that biology,” Bassett said.

One of the students who attended, Kelly Leary, said she is interested in wildlife biology and learned about the range of opportunities available, with employers including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Maine Warden Service hiring people who specialized in her field.

“There’s so many different jobs than just going and playing with animals,” she said.

Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252

kschroeder@centralmaine.com


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