Before setting out on a tracking expedition across the forested campus of Haywood Community College last week, Kasey Straganac warned fellow classmates about the danger of being misled by signals bouncing off rock faces and bluffs when using radio tracking devices in the wild. The brick buildings on campus could act the same way, she said.

Alan Foster, the one holding the radio antennae and monitor, had picked up a signal and was off and running, the rest of the team trailing behind him imploring him to triangulate first. When Foster’s signal suddenly dropped to faint blip, he plunged down a ravine before heeding his teammates’ advice.

“It won’t help you to go down there if you can’t get a signal up here,” Straganac called after him from the ridge.

Foster retreated, and the team regrouped around the radio meter before striking out again, this time with the intention of triangulating — taking signals from two points and charting where the lines intersect. But the strategy again fell apart as the students took off after the radio signal.

Rick Lindsay, a wildlife instructor at HCC who teaches radio telemetry, said it’s all part of the lesson. By the end of the course, the students will be able to pinpoint and locate the radio collars across campus in a matter of minutes.

The technology students used in radio telemetry is the same technology used to track and study elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — or any wildlife under observation for that matter.

“You can put them on bears, dear, snakes, birds, fish, turtles, anything,” said Straganac.

Haywood Community College, known for its hands-on education, is training the next generation of natural resource managers. HCC graduates are known in the natural resource field for their ability to hit the ground running their first day on the job, earning them work in every natural resources agency across the country — the national park and national forest service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, N.C. Wildlife Commission, state parks, and the Bureau of Land Management to name a few.

“They want our field technicians,” said Bob Pinkston, a forestry instructor. “They didn’t come out of a four-year school reading books. They aren’t afraid of green briar patches and snakes.”

Zach McTaggart, a 20-year-old HCC wildlife student, already has his foot in the door with the National Park Service by working maintenance jobs in the Great Smokies Park over the summer. McTaggart, along with dozens of HCC natural resources students, are eyeing the predicted rash of openings with state and federal agencies as baby boomers retire from their long-held jobs in coming years.

“There’s going to be a lot of jobs opening up in the next five years,” said Dave Dudeck, an HCC wildlife instructor. “A lot of people are hitting their 30-year mark.”

Shannon Rabby, a new forestry instructor at HCC, said the natural resources field has been stacked with babyboomers since the 1970s who simply haven’t been budging — until now.

“They are getting ready to retire, and we need new people,” Rabby said.

Enter HCC natural resources program.

“We train technicians to do the work that needs to be done in the rivers, the lakes and the forests,” Rabby said. “Our pride here is our hands-on practical approach.”

HCC students will be among some of the most desirable to fill those slots. They haven’t just read about conducting surveys, assessing timber stands or using a GPS — they’ve done it.

From aerial photography to GIS

Back inside the halls of the natural resources department at HCC, another group of students were studying pelts, skulls, paws, claws and the occasional hardened animal dropping in a mammalogy lab. The class teaches students how to tell the age of a badger or sex of a muskrat, as well as the typical rundown on animals’ foraging patterns, mating instincts, nesting preferences, habitat, life span and other fun facts that might come in handy one day.

It’s a favorite class of Gina Smith, who wants to start her own rehabilitation clinic for wild animals with a focus on large predators.

“I’m concerned with wildlife and the preservation of it,” Smith said. “A lot of predators are misunderstood. Take the grey wolves, for example. They’ve been hunted ruthlessly over the years.”

Just down the hall, students with 3D glasses pored over images in an aerial photography lab. With calculators in reach, students analyzed the lay of the land and calculated acres of forest, which weren’t shaped in neat squares or triangles with handy formulas.

“It’s a lot of math,” said Bob Pinkston, the instructor. “It’s a major part of our industry. Students who come in here thinking they’re going to hunt and fish get a rude awakening.”

Aerial photography analysis is used in nearly every natural resources field, Pinkston said.

Loggers use aerial photography to estimate the amount of wood they can get off a tract and where the land’s too steep for logging roads.

Forest firefighters study aerial photos to predict a fire’s likely path and plan strategic fire breaks.

Wildlife technicians use aerial photos to analyze habitat. Is there an adequate mix of old growth forests for bears, brushy thickets for ruffed grouse and grassy clearings for white-tail deer?

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is tracking outbreaks of hemlock woolly adelgid from the air. Meanwhile, aerial photos are gold mines to environmental groups, whether making a case for protecting forests or water quality. Pinkston held up an aerial photo of Lake Junaluska that revealed a dark plume swirling through the lake, like the shadow of a billowing volcanic eruption cast over the lake.

“All this is topsoil that’s moved from the landscape and dumping into Lake Junaluska from Richland Creek,” Pinkston said.

Pinkston also teaches surveying, conducted in the field at two learning forests owned by Haywood Community College Foundation in the Balsam area.

During an off-campus lab, horticulture students — another specialty within the natural resources program — are designing and installing a historic landscape plan at the Shook-Smathers House in Clyde, an early 1800s home being turned into a museum. Next month students will tackle the tough technique of building dry-stack stonewalls by hand that use only placement and gravity to stay in place.

In other labs, the horticulture students use tissue cultures to propagate orchids and grow vegetables in a crop lab on campus.

Back inside, students plug away at GIS programs, turning data into maps using computer software. Josh Pressley, an HCC student, is using GIS software to analyze the impact of building development on mountain streams. The application is limitless, however. GIS is used by to track the discovery of new species in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park or to analyze the disappearing habitat of a rare woodpecker, said Pete Kennedy, a new GIS instructor.

“Anyone applying for a job who has experience with GIS will have a much better chance than someone who doesn’t,” said Kennedy.

The Next Generation

The future careers of HCC graduates extend beyond the state and federal agencies that manage natural resources on public lands. They’ll also be running state and federal monitoring agencies in environmental fields. The technicians that monitor water quality and sediment in creeks and survey for endangered species before highways are built will also be HCC grads.

Dave Dudeck, a wildlife instructor at HCC for 20 years, remembers when the majority of students were the sons and daughters of farmers who grew up hunting and fishing and sought out a career field in the outdoors. Now a new breed of student is emerging — those drawn to the natural resources field out of concern for the environment. Among them is Martin Vinson, an HCC wildlife student from Buncombe County.

“To show the public the value of wildlife and show the public how important it is not to be discarded or thrown away like it was useless,” Vinson said.

Juan Bravo shared a similar desire to inspire others. He initially wanted to be a zookeeper, but now he wants to couple his wildlife degree from HCC with a teaching degree from Western Carolina University to be a middle school science teacher.

“That’s when I fell in love with science,” Bravo said. He instills an awareness of the “global environmental problems, such as habitat loss for species.”

If there’s one thing that ties the natural resources students together it’s their love for the outdoors and dislike of offices.

“I just want to be outside,” said 23-year-old David McKinney from Marion. After working three years at Rockwell Automotive, McKinney sold his boat and his motorcycle and took out a student loan to get his natural resources degree at HCC.

Jeremy Howell from Waynesville wants to start his own outdoor guide company to take people fishing, hunting and camping.

“I didn’t want to be working in an office somewhere,” Howell said.