Ah, the daily grind: An endless progression of dreary days with that pathetic guy in the next cubicle who spends half his time complaining and the other half in loud personal conversations for which the phrase “too much information” was invented. And that boss of yours? One shudders.

But fear not. You can remake your living and land a green job — all in one fell swoop. Here are some career-planning basics to get you started.

Got goals?

One-year periods are just about perfect for career planning. Annual plans are just long enough to accommodate multiple projects that require lots of individual action steps, but not so long that you’re required to make random guesses about the unpredictable future. It helps that the entire work-world runs on annual plans and budgets.

It’s been said that goals are “dreams with deadlines,” and that feels right to me. Knowing that you want to reach a particular goal someday is helpful. Deciding that you want to make it happen before Memorial Day this year really brings things into sharp relief.

So, what are your green career goals for this year? Where do you want to be this time next year? It’s a banal cliché to say that you can’t plan your journey if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s also true.

The vision thing

When you sit down tonight and set your annual goals (or perhaps you thought I was just kidding around?), the chances are good that you’ll quickly run into a bigger question: What is my eco-career all about? What am I really trying to accomplish for myself, for people, and for the planet through my paid work?

It’s been my experience that the happiest Earth Workers have found a way to align their annual work goals with a broader vision that keeps them inspired even on days of mind-numbing tedium or difficult setbacks.

Homework assignment: A career vision is a picture of “mission accomplished.” It’s a snapshot of an ideal future state. Take a few minutes to think about yours.

What’s my line?

What profession are you in? It used to be so easy. You could say: I’m a journalist. I’m a marine biologist. I’m a progressive, good-looking alternative-energy hedge-fund manager pulling down $20 million a year seeking a partner for a casual affair on Maui. (Editor’s note: Send phone number.)

Careers and career paths were once clear and you could follow in the footsteps of those who walked the trail ahead of you. Things aren’t quite so clear today, especially in sustainability work. Fewer people are defining themselves by their disciplinary specialty and more are using the language of results. So yesterday’s mechanical engineer is today’s wind energy specialist is tomorrow’s climate-change solutions professional.

This is not just playing with semantics. How you define your profession will affect most of the career decisions you make this year.

What’s going on?

No matter how you define your goals, vision, and profession, you need to stay up-to-date on leading-edge developments in your area of work. At the very least, you should know who the leading employers are, how the primary issues and opportunities are defined, and which technological, economic, regulatory, and social factors are currently creating (or destroying) employment opportunities for people like you.

Fortunately, you are blessed by the fact that you are living in the internet age, where high quality information on even the most arcane career areas is available online. If your favorite search engine doesn’t deliver, don’t despair. Simply find one or two people who are achieving success in “your field” and ask them what newsletters, journals, websites, blogs, meetings, and conferences they depend upon to get the information they need.

The skilled set

Here’s a secret that’s not so secret. No matter how skilled and knowledgeable you think you are, you’ve already fallen behind and you’re going to keep falling behind. That’s how quickly things are changing. There is already a fifth grader out there who is way better at “Guitar Hero” than you can ever hope to be.

Setting aside time and money for additional training and education is no longer optional. It’s essential. Technical and computer skills are obvious examples, but not the only ones. There are also new and important advances in “soft” skills like leadership, supervision, teamwork, negotiation, and stakeholder involvement.

Homework assignment: What’s on your training and education agenda for this year?

NetWork

Other than the quality of your skills, the quality of your network (or “practitioner community,” if you prefer) is your most important green-career asset.

You can measure the quality of your network in two ways: who’s in it (first) and how well you stay in touch with each other (second). Both are essential. Take a look at your Rolodex (aka Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pilot, database, little black book, etc.) with three questions in mind:

• Who’s in my network that I don’t stay in touch with nearly enough?
• Who’s in my network that I’m really not committed to staying in touch with?
• Who’s not in my network although I would like them to be?

Peter Drucker’s challenge

The management guru Peter Drucker once said: “There is nothing quite so meaningless as doing well that which need not be done at all.” Here is one of the great challenges for 21st century environmentalists. There are pressing threats to people and other species all around us and far too few of us to address them all effectively. We can’t afford to waste too much of our time, energy, passion, and money on “doing well that which need not be done at all.” As this new year begins, take an honest look at the projects and programs you’re working on and ask whether their successful completion will make a meaningful difference on the concerns that you care about.

Old, sick, and poor?

“Job security” seems like an oxymoron. Conventional pensions are becoming quaint anachronisms in many industries. Social Security is more than a bit shaky. Gambling on big increases in the value of your house or stock portfolio doesn’t appear to be such a smart bet. It sometimes seems like Lily Tomlin was right when she quipped that “We’re all in this alone.”

Financial planning for retirement (whether you’re 25 or 55) has to be a part of your green-career thinking. Good health, frugal living, strong community ties, close friends, and loving families will take you a long way, but you’re going to need money, too.

I’ve heard lots of hype about wind power jobs, but I don’t know what kind of jobs we’re talking about. Can you describe a few? Thanks for your help. (I love Grist.)

Amy K.
St. Louis

Dear Amy,

Grist loves you back. Your letter goes straight to the top.

The hype is very real. Reliable correspondents from the American Wind Energy Association’s massive June conference in Texas report that everyone was talking about a shortage of trained and experienced people. I believe that “we need people yesterday” was the exact phrase. So while “the answer” may not be blowing in the wind, a zephyr of new jobs is sweeping down the plains. Turbines are sprouting like wildflowers after rain in Texas, California, Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, and Oklahoma. Not to mention China.

Now that Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens has morphed into Texas wind billionaire T. Boone Pickens, growth is likely to pick up even more.

Current job total and growth potential

As the hype about “green” jobs has grown, the wind-energy industry has done a pretty good job of reporting accurately on their job creation. Industry analysts estimate that wind energy currently employs about 50,000 domestic workers, both on-site at wind farms and down the chain of products and services needed to build, transport, install, and operate all those turbines.

The number of jobs is growing quickly, however, and wind companies could support as many as 500,000 jobs 20 years from now. That’s according to a Department of Energy report that outlines a plan for the nation to get 20 percent of our electricity from wind power by 2030.

Think 20 percent by 2030 sounds far-fetched? The World Wind Power Association says that wind already provides 19 percent of electricity production in Denmark, 9 percent in Spain and Portugal, and 6 percent in Germany and Ireland. And they’re not just blowing … oh, never mind.

Wind energy technicians

The fastest growing job title in the wind-energy world might just be wind technician. Community colleges across windy states are gearing up to train big incoming classes. Programs can be found at Iowa Lakes Community College, Laramie County Community College in Wyoming, Highland Community College in Illinois, Columbia Gorge Community College in Washington, and Mesalands Community College in New Mexico. This last program won instant fame when GE agreed to hire all of its graduates — for the next three years.

Technicians perform a wide variety of tasks in the construction, operation, and maintenance of wind turbines. Requirements include a year of mechanical experience and a basic understanding of hydraulics and electrical systems. The job also requires comfort with heights and confined spaces because that’s where you’ll spend a lot of your time. And you must be willing to travel — it won’t be unusual to be on the road six weeks at a time.

Several hiring authorities told me that technician positions are great career development starting places for people eyeing this industry. After some experience in the field, technicians can veer off in several directions — some toward further education in technical/engineering fields, and others toward sales, marketing, management, finance, and regulation professions.

Manufacturing

Installation of wind farms throughout the country is ramping up on a steep slope, and that means the need for more domestic manufacturing is expanding. Currently, there are more than 100 turbine or turbine-component manufacturers operating in the U.S. Many of these facilities are owned by the foreign companies that dominate the industry. Of the top 12 global manufacturing companies, only two (GE Energy and Clipper Windpower) are U.S. owned. The rest are from Denmark, Spain, Germany, China, Japan, and India.

Welders who know their way around arc and gas welding equipment and who have “fit up” welding ability are in serious demand at manufacturing facilities. It’s a plus if you can offer header and heat exchanger experience. (Don’t know what any of that means? Don’t have any friends who know what that means? Now you understand why there’s a shortage of talent.)

Component manufacturers want machining operators with three to five years of experience. Being competitive for these jobs requires knowledge and proficiency with leading measurement software programs like PC-DMIS or those from MeasureMax. You’ll also need skill in gauge calibration, ability to read and interpret blueprints and engineering drawings, good math skills, and experience with the “production part approval process.”

Of course, manufacturing companies also need plenty of steelworkers, trades people, design and process engineers, and a full complement of people in sales, marketing, human resources, finance and accounting, general management, and environment/health/safety.

Finding and developing wind power sites

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows — just a wind resource assessment specialist. These professionals develop and use complex climatological computer models to assess sites for wind-power potential. The most senior resource assessment analysts need master’s degrees (and sometimes doctorates) in fields like meteorology, climatology, atmospheric science, statistics, mathematics, and engineering.

Wind project technical development managers perform some of the same duties, but often one or two steps closer to individual project sites. They may manage the wind-energy resource assessment process, which determines viability prior to construction and forecasts wind resources after commissioning. These techies assist with wind-farm layout and help assess environmental impacts, electromagnetic interference, interconnection issues, and estimates for energy yield.

Think you’ve found a decent place to put up those turbines? Time to bring on the project development manager, who moves a project from site identification through financial closing and start of construction. Technical ability is important, but people skills and political savvy are essential. This is the manager who builds effective relationships with elected officials, regulators, and community representatives; navigates the environmental study and permitting process; oversees the financial analysis and modeling; sees to the acquisition of land rights; and generally handles negotiations.

Developing a successful wind farm means linking up to a transmission grid — and jobs for transmission design engineers. These engineers need skills and experience in developing and reviewing high-voltage interconnection configurations and designs that include transmission lines, substations, and connection systems. You’ll also need to be good with people: It’s your job to negotiate with “interconnecting transmission entities” to reach design configurations that work for everyone. If you’re looking for job security, this is a great place to do it. Experienced professionals with these skills will soon be retiring in droves, and you’ll be there to take their job.

About those “interconnecting transmission entitites”? At least one of them is likely to be a utility company represented by a utility wind-program manager. No matter where you are in the nation, it’s likely your utility has one. This is the person who monitors the operation, technical challenges, performance, and organizational structure for a utility’s wind generation. The job involves tracking and analyzing generation data, identifying trends for planning and compliance verification, preparing regulatory data requests, and compiling performance data.

Construction

Turning a patch of prairie, part of a soybean farm, a long ridgeline, or part of the ocean into a wind-power facility is a big, specialized construction job. The massive towers that hold the equally huge propellers run 200-300 feet high (or more), and they need to be rock steady when the turbines are cookin’ in a strong wind.

Every wind-energy construction project requires electrical engineers, from initial conception and preconstruction through project close. There is a huge demand for people with electrical engineering degrees or (at least) some combination of training and experience. Firms are seeking people with electrical construction or electrical design experience and knowledge of National Electrical Code. (As an aside, utility companies, solar companies, energy-efficiency companies, and others are also seeking electrical engineers. Seems 2008 is a very good time to be an EE.)

To be sure that all is well before construction starts, pre-construction managers prepare construction plans and schedules, evaluate site conditions, coordinate detailed site investigation and engineering studies, and review “interconnection” requirements for linking to the transmission grid. Landing one of these jobs will take a degree in construction management or engineering, as well as knowledge of the permitting and licensing requirements for electrical facilities.

Who will you find working the actual construction sites? Laborers will be pouring the concrete pads that hold the towers in place, among other activities. Skilled crane operators will be driving piles, placing concrete with crane buckets, hoisting both materials and people, and conducting regular safety inspections. You’ll find Spiderman-like turbine installers setting up rigging cables and installing torquing bolts inside the towers.

Finally, these crews are led by construction managers, who are in serious demand. It’ll be your job to manage, well, everything, and that means being present 100 percent of the time while construction is going on. Among other things, you’ll ensure that all of the contractors comply with standards, the schedule, and quality-control requirements.

Recruiters and in-house HR departments tell me that the travel requirements of these jobs can be a real killer, and it’s one of the main problems in finding and retaining good people. It’s not unusual for some of the engineers and managers to travel as much as eight months of the year — usually to remote destinations for long periods of time.

Transportation

I was surprised to learn that transportation expenses are a big part of the cost of installing a wind farm. Two weeks ago, however, I was on the highway just east of Portland, Ore., and I saw just how big a truck needs to be to carry one wind turbine propeller blade to a wind farm site.

It takes a lot of runs to get these huge pieces of metal to their destination. That’s why there is a growing demand for large-load transportation specialists who can cart towers and propellers around the countryside without taking out a Prius two lanes over.

Finding wind energy jobs

You can find jobs like these all over the country at AWEA’s careers site. It has a good list of currently available (and well described) jobs and links to companies and a host of other resources.

I like Green VC quite a bit. It’s updated all the time and generally has helpful content. Spend some time there over a few days and you’ll feel like part of the community.

Over at Bootstrapper, there’s a list of 100 green entrepreneur resources.

As always, I’d love to hear your stories, questions, and advice to others here at Grist. Log on and speak your piece.

And why not? When I turn on NPR in the morning, I’m often greeted by an ad (I mean, an “underwriting announcement”) for the Kauffman Foundation, celebrating “the entrepreneurs who start businesses and change the world.” Such is the power of the entrepreneurial idea. Hard to imagine a foundation buying air time to celebrate “the people who take jobs at the DEP and process your water quality permit.”

No, it’s the entrepreneurs who get the publicity, the glamour, and (when it works) the money. That’s probably why I hear from so many people who want to start businesses and nonprofits in sustainability consulting, carbon offsets, home energy audits, biofuels, wind power, organic food, and almost anything you can prefix with the word “green.”

Many are people with modest ambitions, for whom “start my own business” means “make a living for myself and maybe a friend or two.” But there are also would-be entrepreneurs like the members of the MIT Energy Club I spoke with a couple of months ago. Their plans are on a whole different level; they need serious venture capital, not a loan from Mom and Dad. They are the people who will receive checks from the Kauffman Foundation.

However, if the successful business and nonprofit leaders I’ve been speaking with are any indication, the core advice to would-be entrepreneurs is much the same whether you want to build websites in your back bedroom or capture the world algae-to-energy market before you’re 30. Below, 10 entrepreneurial lessons to get you started:

Lesson One: What’s the big idea?

OK, we’re listening. What’s your idea for a business or nonprofit enterprise?

This is where the whole thing starts — with an idea. I’ve been told there are only two reasons to start your own enterprise: because you’ve got a new idea, or because you’ve got a unique twist on an existing idea. Since most of us aren’t bringing something revolutionary into the world, I’m guessing your enterprise is going to be in the second category.

So, what is that unique twist? Is your outfit just going to be better? Cheaper? New to the territory? More fun? More reliable? Bigger? Targeted to a different audience?

Lesson Two: What’s in it for us?

Ask yourself, Why do I want to start my own enterprise? If your answers form a list of personal, psychological, and financial benefits that rebound exclusively to yourself, think again. People don’t buy a service, support a cause, or invest in a business to help you get the life you want. From day one, your focus should be on how other people are going to be better off because you’re in business/service.

Those benefits have to be real, and they have to be verified (eventually) with credible information from prospective customers, clients, members, or donors. Sometimes, it’s possible to generate that data through research and through the example of others who have done the same type of thing under similar circumstances. Other times, the only way to find out if people want something is to begin to offer it and measure the results.

Either way, the measure of your success will come from whether others feel you’re serving their needs.

Lesson Three: Why you?

Well, sure, you’re brilliant, green-as-all-get-out, and fabulously good looking, but what do you bring to this business? Many of the people I’ve worked with said their greatest asset is passion for their idea. What they lack in skill, experience, knowledge, contacts, money, and credentials (I’m told) they more than make up for in desire to succeed and the ability to learn quickly at the always-expensive School of Hard Knocks.

And you know what? That is sometimes enough. The number of people who are running enterprises that they could never get hired to run are legion. So congratulate yourself for having one of the things you need to get started. Now, get to work on the rest of that list. Because the first time you sell yourself to a client, they’re going to want a compelling case for selecting you, and passion alone won’t cut it.

Lesson Four: Where’s the plan, man?

Every would-be entrepreneur is sternly instructed that they must have a multi-year business plan. By “business plan,” advisors usually mean a document that would pass muster in a banker’s office if you went for a loan. Such a plan makes a case for the business need, outlines its mission and goals, details expected costs and revenues on a quarterly or monthly basis, shows where money is going to come from to cover cash-flow gaps, describes the advantages the proposed enterprise has over identified competitors, and provides information about you and/or your partners in the new outfit.

Does this mean that every great new enterprise started with a great business plan? The sound of laughter you hear is coming from small business and nonprofit start-ups all over the world that never had a business plan and are doing just fine, thank you very much.

So, that means you don’t need one, right? Sorry, Charlie; you do. If your enterprise is worth launching, it’s worth planning for. And the tried-and-true structure of the standard, take-it-to-the-banker business plan template is a disciplined and effective way to plan.

Lesson Five: Are you the right person for the job?

Launching your own enterprise, either alone or with partners, is not for the faint of heart. Although I’m not as quick as some to lay out a strict entrepreneurial type, there do seem to be some common qualities. Can you handle the anxiety that comes with making decisions and taking risks? Do you deal well with a mix of failures and successes — not getting too low from the former or too cocky from the latter? Are you responsible? Can you see reality fairly clearly, without unreasonable optimism or gloom? Can you deal with the inevitable ups and downs of a financial life without a paycheck? Are you willing and able to do “whatever at takes” at critical times, especially when it seems like the enterprise is running you instead of the other way around?

These are just some of the personal questions you might ask yourself. One more: Does this sound like fun? It’s supposed to be fun. Otherwise, why do it?

Lesson Six: Get started.

The poet Goethe famously wrote: “Whatever you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” If you’ve got an idea you believe in and a desire to try the entrepreneurial adventure, there’s eventually only one way to find out if it’s going to work. You have to try it.

Lesson Seven: Measure success by the “triple bottom line.”

It’s oh-so-easy to lecture other business and nonprofit leaders on the need to achieve high standards of environmental quality, social justice, and economic security. And we should be setting the bar high for all entrepreneurs. Ah, but now you must walk the proverbial talk in front of others, even (or especially) when third-quarter revenues are looking bleak.

Lesson Eight: Get support and help from other entrepreneurs.

People who start new enterprises learn really quickly that they are always in way over their heads in one way or another. All entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes. So they turn to each other (in person, through lectures, via books) for assistance and learning. One of the surest ways to run your new venture into the ground is to pretend (especially to yourself) that you always know what you’re doing.

Lesson Nine: You don’t have to quit your day job just yet.

It’s becoming more and more common to find out that your coworker in the next cube is also an entrepreneur, launching a new enterprise while still enjoying the security of a regular salary, paid health insurance, and some kind of retirement plan. If the pressure of long hours from two jobs is preferable to the pressure of unpredictable revenue from a single new venture, this can be a great way to go.

Lesson Ten: It might not work out.

Enterprises go out of business every day. They were started with great promise and high hopes, but somewhere along the line, they sputtered and died. And the entrepreneurs are still suffering from entrepreneurial PTSD, right? Depressed, skittish, nearly suicidal? Well, there may be stories like that out there, but I didn’t find them. Some of the so-called failures had returned to regular jobs; some had started one or more additional enterprises since the failure; some (OK, one) sold out at bargain price just before the fall.

But here’s the thing. None of them were sorry that they gave the entrepreneurial life a whirl.

Kevin Doyle is the president of Green Economy, a Boston-based firm offering consulting, training, facilitation, and strategic planning help to the public and private institutions building a more sustainable economy. He is the co-author of The ECO Guide to Careers That Make a Difference: Environmental Work for a Sustainable World, and is at work on a new book about climate change careers. He welcomes your green career questions here or directly to kevinldoyle@gmail.com.

Listen live (or later) here.

Last week, I attended the Ceres conference in Boston. My table was sitting down to lunch when the person next to me whispered, “It’s Al Gore!”

Cool, sez I! We were already pretty excited about the prospect of hearing from Van Jones (president, Green for All), Theodore Roosevelt IV (managing director, Lehman Brothers), and Michael Eckhart (president, American Council on Renewable Energy). Having the Goracle drop in unannounced seemed like a perfect way for Ceres President Mindy Lubber to cap off an already great event.

Alas, it was not to be. The should-have-been-President was actually just Grist’s own Chip Giller in a cheap Halloween mask. What a letdown! My feelings were not unlike those of Dorothy when she discovered the little man behind the curtain.

This crushing disappointment aside, the Ceres conference was an exceptional event:

The Ceres tagline is “Investors and environmentalists for sustainable prosperity,” and the audience reflected that idea. At the event were nearly 800 people from more than 350 different banks, investment houses, pension funds, environmental organizations, utilities, consulting firms, universities, property management companies, and other businesses.

I was there to gather advice for job-seekers from employers in fields like carbon measurement/verification/management, clean energy production, energy efficiency, water management, social responsibility, green investing, and sustainability management.

As a green careers guy, the job titles of participants were as informative as the speeches and PowerPoints in the sessions. “Sustainability” was a popular adjective, prefixing titles like strategist, analyst, manager, director, and VP. There were similar numbers of corporate social responsibility folks. Climate change and carbon-control researchers, analysts, and strategists were roaming the halls in fair numbers as well. Green-minded communications, public relations, and marketing types also made appearances.

I had two questions for the people I met: “Are you hiring?” and “Who are you looking for?” I’m compiling the answers now and will post them as a full article in a future Remake a Living feature.

The short answers, however, were revealing. Although nearly all of the banks, investment houses, and consultants said they were hiring in titles related to sustainability, carbon management, CSR, and the like, the numbers were usually very small — sometimes as few as one or two, hardly ever as many as 10. In addition, several employers noted that they planned to add training and responsibilities to the jobs of existing employees rather than (or perhaps in addition to) hiring new people.

It’s clear that job growth in the world of green investing and corporate sustainability will often be a case of cumulative impacts that emerge from small additions at many firms.

Beyond gathering green careers information, I attended some intriguing sessions in Boston last week. Some of the 700-plus people who came to town are still talking about the charged climate change policy debate among Jim Rogers (chairman, Duke Energy), Ralph Izzo (chairman, PSEG), and David Doniger (climate center policy director, NRDC). If you have a few minutes, you can grab some popcorn and watch it yourself in two installments.

There was a nice moment on the event’s first night when Ceres announced the creation of an award for “building sustainability into the capital markets,” named after responsible investing pioneer/heroine Joan Bavaria from Trillium Asset Management. One of the winners was Bainbridge Graduate Institute, the creative, sustainability-focused business school in Washington state (which also won high marks from students in the 2008 Net Impact surveys). You can find details about the awards here.

The awards for “sustainability reporting” also drew my attention. Ford Motor Company and Timberland took top honors, but the selection process, the list of other nominees, and the “report of the judges” are at least as interesting from a job-seekers’ point of view. Sustainability reporting has become a flourishing niche industry and those interested in launching a career in the field can learn some valuable lessons by studying the criteria used to judge results and the names of those who receive good grades for their reports.

Finally, as someone who tends toward vegetarianism and attends a lot of conferences, I can tell you the food was particularly good. All “green” conference-goers should be so lucky. Congrats to event planner Marilyn Castriotta, who (I’m informed) had a lot to do with the choices.

For more information about the conference program, speakers, and attendees, check out the Ceres website.

Kevin Doyle writes Remake a Living, Grist’s monthly green careers feature, and is bringing his green jobs campus workshops to colleges and universities this fall as part of Grist U. Visit the Grist job board to learn more.

Another Earth Day has come around, and that means college graduations are just a few weeks away. Soon-to-be alumni throughout the nation are dusting off résumés, poring over job listings, and then moving back into their old bedrooms at home “for a little while.” I predict a progression of messages from dear old Dad. (Welcome back. Clean the garage. Don’t get too comfortable. Get a job already.)

With so many aspiring eco-job-seekers entering the world of gainful employment, it seems like a good time to take the temperature of the environmental-management job market. To find out what’s going on, we talked to the career services directors at four leading environmental graduate schools. Collectively, these schools are sending 340 master’s-level students into the world of work this year. Our tour guides to the 2008 green job market are:

• Karen Kirchof, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University
• David Parker, Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara
• Lisa Yee-Litzenberg, School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan
• Peter Otis, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Strength of the job market

The green-career experts rated the ’08 job scene on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 was: “super hot — the best ever” and 1 was: “weak — we’re worried.” All four felt that the current market was north of “3″ (average) and might even be “4″ (very good). And they pointed out that even an “average” year for them would be considered “excellent” in some fields. Almost all of the grads are expected to land a job they want. So even if 2008 only remains steady, students at these schools are in pretty good shape.

The current recession is not going unnoticed, but the impact seems fairly small. “It’s true that we are seeing some tough economic times,” said Yee-Litzenberg, “but we have not seen a correlating shortage of job opportunities in the environmental management fields.”

Parker agrees. “While I have heard of some firms cutting back,” he said, “most firms are in desperate need of strong entry level to mid-level employees. There are more recruiters this year, and I don’t see things slowing down, even with talk of a recession.” Parker added that “more Bren students were placed before March than ever before.”

It’s a good year for these job seekers to be job seeking.

Who’s hiring?

Where will these students be going to work? The chart below reflects 2008 estimates (Yale and UCSB) and previous year’s grads (Michigan and Duke).

Master’s Graduates Employment, By Sector
Employment Sector	Duke	UCSB	Michigan	Yale
U.S. federal government	29%	12%	15%	15%
U.S. state and local gov’t	10%	8%	6%	14%
Consulting firms	29%	40%	24%	20%
Other corporations	2%	16%	16%	20%
Universities/research	10%	5%	2%	7%
Nonprofits/NGOs	20%	14%	27%	16%
Other	0%	5%	10%	5%

Trend talk

All four university reps have noticed some 2008 trends: Kirchof says that consulting employment is on the rise among her graduates, and that the consultants coming to campus often have large government client portfolios, especially from federal government agencies. She also notes that Uncle Sam himself is still a big employer of environmental professionals. Agencies looking for talent have expanded the use of “direct hire” methods to overcome the byzantine federal hiring process that defeats so many would-be public servants.

Yee-Litzenberg agreed. She notes that federal agencies like the USDA Forest Service are doing more direct outreach to universities to fill choice positions that feed into management-track opportunities. The nation’s forest agency nabbed an “Innovations in Government” Award for the program to recruit future environmental leaders.

If there is a small downer in the 2008 market, it might be in the nonprofit sector. “A slow economy hits fundraising hard, and that can mean both more people staying in their current jobs, and fewer dollars for new hires,” Kirchof says. On the up side, she notes an increase in the number of nonprofit opportunities on “the business side,” including job listings for more development officers, operations managers, and finance-related managers. Although many of Kirchof’s students continue to have an interest in a nonprofit career, she has seen a slight fall-off in job offer acceptances. She names the cause: debt. “Higher education can be pretty expensive, and some of our students are understandably drawn to places with higher salaries to pay off student loans.”

There’s also a bit of panic among employers as they compete with one another for the best people. “The big issue across the board is the shortage of talented environmental professionals and the anticipated large number of retirements taking place in the next 3-5 years,” Parker says. In-demand skill sets include air and water quality management, life cycle assessment, alternative energy, water supply demand, and green investments.

One of the most sought-after jobs for Otis’ grads is that of sustainability director for a major corporation, university, or municipality. The 21st century sustainability leaders would be as likely to take classes in the School of Business as they would in the “environment” master’s program, he says, and eventually the lines among the schools will be even more permeable than they are today. Additionally, he says, climate-related careers are on the rise. “We are receiving a lot of jobs related to climate change and energy in general; it is way up from five years ago when the field wasn’t a household word as it is becoming today.”

Yee-Litzenberg points to a surge of interest in clean technology investing. “Those who couple strong finance skills with deep sustainability knowledge are sought after by private equity, venture capital and investment banking firms.”

It’s not all about global warming, though, as Yee-Litzenberg notes that landscape architecture and environmental policy jobs are also on the rise. And Parker notes that environmental media career opportunities are hitting the big time at UCSB. “Film, video, webcasting, website design, and related fields are all in demand,” he says. “There is a huge need for creativity in getting the message out in a way that really counts.”

Mixed messages about international careers

We live in a global economy. No doubt about that. All four of the schools have significant numbers of international students. In addition, many of the U.S.-born students want a job that will take them to other parts of the world.

That doesn’t mean that it’s easy to land an international job right out of graduate school. “There’s language skills, the need for in-country experience and cultural knowledge,” Kirchof says. “People need to have high quality technical skills in their area of interest, and they need a more international network of job contacts.”

The upside, of course, is that a smart aspiring professional can find ways to gain the needed knowledge, experience, and networks through intentional choices about classes, professors, internships, fellowships, and study abroad options.

Is a “professional” master’s program for you?

All four of the schools surveyed are “professional” or “career-focused” environmental science and management degree programs. That may be one reason that employers are eager to hire their graduates — in good times and bad. Programs like these are designed to train people for real world environmental problem solving in targeted areas like coastal environmental management, sustainability planning, corporate environmental management, water science, policy and management, and global environmental change.

The practical approach aims to graduate environmental management professionals who have the right mix of scientific, policy, finance, and management knowledge needed to address the issue at hand. At the same time, students learn core competencies that will allow them to be quick learners if and when their interests — or the issues around them — start to change.

That’s the idea, anyway, and employers seem to be buying it. If you’re considering graduate school, you might want to think about investing in a master’s program like the ones here. There are lots of other great programs to choose from as well. Googling a phrase like “professional environmental management graduate program” can get you started.

How does the job market look to you?

Are you a student facing graduation, an employer looking for talent, or a career services director watching the market for green grads? We’d love to hear your stories and questions. Log on now and tell us how things look where you are!

Kevin Doyle is the president of Green Economy, a Boston-based firm offering consulting, training, facilitation, and strategic planning help to the public and private institutions building a more sustainable economy. He is the co-author of The ECO Guide to Careers That Make a Difference: Environmental Work for a Sustainable World, and is at work on a new book about climate change careers. He welcomes your green career questions here or directly to kevinldoyle@gmail.com.

In a word: politics. In the dim past (1970-1999), it was generally agreed that government action was needed to generate environmental protection and conservation. And we learned along the way that creative public policies, regulations, and investments aimed at air quality, water quality, conservation, and better control of toxic materials generated all sorts of economic benefits in the form of new technologies and lots and lots of “environmental” jobs.

Sometime in the last few years, the idea started to take hold that the financial advantages of “sustainability” were so obvious that “the market” alone would become the primary driver for a whole boatload of new green jobs at every level of the workforce. Certainly, logical people would see, for example, that massive investment in retrofitting buildings to be dramatically more energy efficient would produce a great return on investment in just a few short years. Get out of the way and let market-based environmentalism do its thing in a more unfettered world.

Not so fast, grasshopper.

For the promise of green jobs to really take off, we need innovative government policies, incentives, investments, regulations, and direct programs aimed at fueling private-sector investment and job creation. The “green economy” won’t spring up like weeds after rain — even with the rising cost of a barrel of oil.

Demanding government action to create the right conditions for green job creation isn’t a rap on the green jobs movement. It’s a sign that it’s realistic. You think that Big Oil, Big Coal, and big Bear Stearns brokerage bailout bankers haven’t figured out that government support is absolutely essential to the health of their industries? Read David Roberts’ excellent posts from the ECO:nomics conference for your answer to that one.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t lots of new green jobs being created all over the country in solar energy, wind power, green buildings, organics, mass transit, and related fields. And it doesn’t mean that there aren’t tens of thousands of current jobs that are being reshaped with new “green” training and certification requirements. Of course there are, and I’ll have lots of stories to tell about them as the year goes on.

It does mean, however, that the main thrust of the green jobs movement right now is political, and that’s just as it should be. Government action is still one of the primary drivers in our efforts to become more carbon-neutral, and government action comes out of big, strong coalitions of organized voters.

The green jobs folks, with their focus on an economy that deals effectively with climate change and also provides good jobs for lower-income people with “more than high school but less than a four-year degree,” are testing the validity of the sustainability idea right now in the real world.

They’re asking whether we really mean it when we say that there’s a new kind of world possible that generates economic security and ecological health and social justice at the same time. Or whether we’ll jettison the social justice of the sustainability equation along the way, just as we have so many times in the past.

It’s no wonder that they get a little annoyed by people who keep asking for evidence of a massive green jobs payoff right now. Work with us, they say, to get local, state, and federal government leaders who want to innovate and invest in partnership with business, unions, universities, and activists.

That’s a necessary prerequisite to a new kind of green economy, and the lack of it is the central barrier to success.