Outdoor Enthusiast Finds Calling as Garrison Intern

By Kelley Lane-Sivley, Redstone Rocket StaffApril 2, 2009

Biologist
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

The journey that has brought Christine Easterwood to the Garrison Intern Program has taken her far from where she thought she'd be. But she has loved it every step of the way.

She is a native of Madrid, N.Y., a small upstate town close to the Canadian border. When Easterwood graduated from Clarkson University in 2002 with a bachelor's in biology, she thought she knew where she was headed professionally. She began applying for graduate programs in oceanography.

Meanwhile, she took a job with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service as a way to work in a similar field. Instead, she found herself changing plans.

"It started as just a summer job," she said. "It turned into a permanent position and opened the door for grad school. It changed me from a lab biologist into a field biologist."

She became a part of a project dealing with raccoons while working in the Wildlife Services division. That experience led to an offer to work with a similar project in Alabama.

"They were doing a study on raccoon rabies," she said. "I came here in 2004 for that. It was an ecology update of raccoons and how the disease was spreading in the state. We live trapped them, sedated them and took different samples."

Easterwood took the opportunity to pursue a master's from Auburn University while she was here. She received her degree in wildlife biology in 2007. Her intention was never really to stay in Alabama. Cupid had other ideas, however.

"I fell in love and the rest is history," she said laughing. "I met an Alabama man and was doomed from the start. My husband, Judd, is a wildlife biologist with the state, so we share a lot of interests. We were married in June."

Easterwood began working in the Directorate of Public Works in 2007 as a contractor wildlife biologist. Her job has focused largely on policy and procedure. Her time in the Garrison Intern Program will transition her to a different role.

"It will be more of a wildlife biologist role," she said. "The policy work here in the office is a big change from what I'm used to. With the intern transition, we won't spend a lot of time in the field. It will be more, though. There will be more resource management, which is right up my alley. It will allow for a lot more growth in my career."

In her free time, Easterwood enjoys reading and knitting. Easterwood spends time with nature. She is an avid hunter. She enjoys the different experience that it provides her.

"I just like being outdoors. When you're hunting, it's quiet time in the woods," she said. "There are things in the woods you wouldn't normally see crashing through the trees. When you are sitting still and quiet, you see more. It's a lot different."

Easterwood is excited about the new perspective and opportunity that the Garrison Intern Program is offering her -- even if it is a thousand miles away from where she thought she was headed.

"I thought I wanted to be a vet," she said. "I'd still like to be a vet someday, everybody needs a dream. But I like where this path is taking me."