For FLC senior, the Water Operations program opens doors to dream internship, career path

Valerie Ramirez, a senior majoring in environmental sciences at Fort Lewis College, clearly remembers when a high school lesson sparked her interest in how water gets from a river to the tap and back to the river.

After completing Fort Lewis College’s Fundamentals of Water Operations course this spring, Ramirez earned a paid summer internship in Mancos, gaining hands-on experience in a field that she wasn’t sure was a good fit. 

“I was a little bit like, I don’t belong here. But the operator course taught me that I could do it,” she said. “It’s a combination of the encouragement, the hands-on experience, and the course that made this career interest an actual reality for me.

"I already know operators in the area. I’ve already met them, talked with them, and built those relationships,” she said. “I feel like I know a lot of people in water operations now." 

Phelps Feeley, Director of Workforce and Strategic Partnerships, said Valerie’s story is exactly what they had hoped for when they started the program.

We wanted participants to leave with a deep understanding of the daily work, career potential, and connections with operators throughout our region. The internships and job placement support turned that into career pathways,” Feeley said.

From learning to doing

Ramirez said when FLC professor Carolyn Cummins talked this spring about an upcoming ‘Fundamentals of Water Operations’ program offered free of charge, her ears perked up.

“I’ve had an interest in water operations since I was in high school. It’s actually the reason I got into environmental science,” she said. “I just remember thinking it was so cool, and it stayed in my mind ever since.”

Funded by Project Rural Upskilling Network (Project RUN), the Fundamentals of Water Operations training was held each Thursday in May. The program resulted from a years-long partnership between Project RUN, FLC@Work, the Four Corners Water Center, the City of Durango, and the La Plata Economic Development Alliance. 

In all, 23 participants successfully finished the program. By late summer, four had participated in internships, and four, including two of the interns, were employed in utilities in Durango, Mancos, and Glacier Club.

For Ramirez, getting to walk and experience the system she’d been fascinated with since high school was enlightening.

“It was just so cool to go outside and be at all these different locations and see the treatment process up close and get to network. It’s been cool to dip my toes into networking,” she said.

Choosing FLC

After transferring from Pikes Peak State College (the name has since changed), Ramirez, who is from Colorado Springs, found that the combination of hands-on learning and Fort Lewis College’s location helped confirm that she had made the right choice.

“I thought Fort Lewis College had a great location and also seemed to have a really big environmental program, which is true. It’s been really good so far, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

“I feel like there’s been such a focus on going outside and actually getting hands-on experience, which I did not have at my community college. And that’s been, it’s been so great.”

“The decision was easy. I was like, this just makes sense for me. It’s beautiful here, and I really want to study science, and I want to be outdoors. And Fort Lewis offered all those things. It just made sense."

Water Ops up close

That training quickly evolved into real-world experience. In Mancos, Ramirez worked at both the water treatment and the wastewater plants.

“We run state-mandated testing every day, and it’s like 8 clipboards worth of data to collect, checking the systems, making sure the water’s flowing, that the filters aren’t backed up, and doing lab testing, like with pH probes and stuff…it’s science-y, and it’s cool to get to be a scientist sometimes.”

“Then we would go down to the wastewater plant, and it’s basically a lot of cleaning, and just like rinsing off all the things that get gunked up, you know, because it’s wastewater.” 

Ramirez said this is her last semester at FLC. And while she’s focusing on finishing her degree, she sees lots of opportunities ahead.

“Before this, high school me thought, ‘Wow, this water treatment stuff is pretty cool, but I could never do that.’Getting from there to actually working in a water plant would not have been possible without the course and the internship.”

“Valerie’s story is exactly what we hoped for when we planned this training in coordination with a consortium of water system partners,” Feeley said. “We wanted participants to leave with a deep understanding of the daily work, career potential, and connections with operators throughout our region. The internships and job placement support turned that into career pathways.”