There are many things that I enjoy about my position here at G&K Services. I enjoy managing and coaching the environmental engineers here.
The people that I manage, if you boil it right down, they are more important to the company than I am.
But I’m here to help them succeed, and by doing that, I’m successful.
My name is Scott Schuler and I am the Environmental Compliance Manager at G&K Services.
G&K Services provides professional laundry services, uniform rental, and sales
to all different kinds of industries across the U.S. and Canada, and we bring those textiles back to our laundry plants.
We professionally clean those and dry those textiles and ship those materials back to our customers.
My position here is primarily a management position,
managing other people to ensure environmental regulatory compliance at our 53 industrial laundries.
I’m being judged on not so much as to what I do or what I produce,
as to what the people I manage do and what they produce and how effective they are.
A typical day in the life of the G&K Environmental Compliance Manager involves arriving around 6:30 or 7am in the morning
and leaving around 6:30 or 7pm in the evening.
It’s hard work, but to me it’s stimulating and it’s challenging, and that excites me and it makes it fun.
People entering the environmental field are typically required to have a bachelor of science,
a bachelor’s degree in environmental or civil engineering.
In college I majored in zoology and minored chemistry, and upon graduation I really used my minor in chemistry as a way to get started.
Someone with an advanced degree, a master’s degree or professional engineer’s license or environmental certification,
like Certified Hazardous Material Manager, can help jump start their career.
You need to sometimes be creative at your problem solving approach.
Innovative in original thinking, working with teams, managing people, helping them become successful…
Getting things done through other people is really what managing is about.
It’s your basic office work environment with a laptop computer.
I spend a lot of time on the telephone, working at developing spreadsheets to send to the plants.
I spend most days in meetings, talking to the folks that I and work with on our teams and cross departmental teams.
Your most important tool is your brain and your effectiveness at communicating to all levels of staff in the organization.
What we do here is we’re trying to do everything in our power to conserve the natural resources, whether it be energy, whether it be water.
The business itself is inherently green. We professionally clean and
send reused garments to our customers instead of them doing it themselves,
and or using disposable textiles that may end up in a landfill, which would potentially contaminate ground water.
We are preventing that from occurring.
When you think about the hard sciences, you think about predominately male dominated type of educational environment,
which leads to predominately a male work environment.
You’re seeing more and more women entering the field every day which is great because we need that diversity in the workforce.
They bring a whole different set of skills and abilities to the table that’s needed to keep going down that road of
continuous environmental management improvement.
So I guess that’s the most common perception is that it’s a male dominate workforce in environmental management
and that’s been true more so in the past than it is today.
Don’t be afraid to start out at the bottom and work your way up. Take on progressive more responsibilities.
Then start working on your management and coaching skills.
I mean it all comes into play when developing those skills… and you’re having fun at the same time, and doing good in your community.
Keep working hard and find a position that you love.
Find an organization that you love to work with that gives you the opportunities to grow in your profession,
and take it as far as you care to take it, and don’t give up trying.