The Left Coast
Vancouver, B.C., is arguably the world's most beautiful city, and the five years I spent there among my most rewarding. Project Seahorse, an international marine conservation organization based at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, hired me as its first communications coordinator in 2003.
I was already familiar with the UBC campus — where I had obtained a degree in marine biology two years earlier — and the centre, which also hosts the North Pacific Marine Mammal Research Consortium, for which I managed publications during my studies.
By the time I left Vancouver I had refined a considerable arsenal of skills relevant to running communications for non-profit organizations — managing websites, producing annual reports and newsletters, assembling presentations, organizing events and coordinating internal dialog.
The city and its scientific community also supplied the source material for several freelanced magazine features, including the pieces that appeared in New Scientist, Equinox, This Magazine, and the Vancouver Sun.