Future Leaders Spotlight: Florida Sunshine Chapter Part 3

The SWANA/Hickman Future Leaders program was created to answer the question, “Where will future leaders of the solid waste and materials management industry come from?” These SWANA chapters have the answer! Let’s take a look to see how they created dialogue and partnerships with the universities, community colleges, and institutes in their areas.

Chapter Contributors: Wei Liu - CDM Smith, Nathan Mayer - Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach Co, William Gendusa – CDM Smith, and Keith Howard – HDR, Inc.

Part 3

Q: What are some of the accomplishments or results that you’ve seen from partnering with academia?

A: The partnership with academia has resulted in immense benefits for both SWANA and for academia.

The Florida SWANA Sunshine Chapter was able to give back to the local community financially by providing scholarships and direct travel assistances to students. From the beginning of 2015 to date, the Sunshine Chapter was able to give away $25,000 in scholarship funds and $7,000 in travel assistance to the students competing in SWANA National’s student design competition. This financial assistance bridges the transition between the academic life and the eventual working life of the student.

The partnership immediately benefited the solid waste professionals by having academia provide the in-depth research into solid waste issues.  Academia benefited by having an open forum to connect with working solid waste professionals. This open forum allows for academia to listen to the current issues, solicit the most relevant topics, focus their research, collaborate and then disseminate research results.

The SWANA Florida Sunshine chapter is able to have leading researchers at universities across the state come and speak at our conferences to share their findings with industry professionals. Students are able to present their research and get involved with student design competitions. This provides an intimate opportunity for students to network with professionals.

Q: What advice do you have for other SWANA Chapters who are looking to do the same?

A: For the SWANA Chapters who wish to engage academia in their state, we would offer this: find a champion for the cause. At SWANA Florida Sunshine chapter, at the core of each involvement, one person initiated and spearheaded the movement. This person is noted to be passionate about the cause is and committed to see it come to fruition.

The support characters are just as important. None of the accomplishments that SWANA Florida Sunshine Chapter experience were the results of one person’s efforts. It took a team. Engage the membership, throw the idea out there and see who is willing to help. If there are no responses, feel free to volunteer people. We firmly people that most people want to be involved, want to contribute, want to be active, but they do not know how. So many people joined SWANA because a SWANA member they know promoted the organization. Volunteering someone to do something as simple as contacting one person at a university can sow the seeds of a partnership.

Any other info you would like to share about your chapter’s journey with academia?

A: The Sunshine Chapter has the unique situation of solid waste professionals faced with implementing environmentally-sound solid waste management, a government-sponsored solid waste organization anchored at a university, and the Chapter ready to provide a public forum to connect both.

Your chapter’s journey is unlikely to look the same. Do not measure your success by comparing your chapter to other SWANA chapter’s accomplishments, but by what you’ve provided to your membership.