Young professionals learn about conservation far underground Environment binds together social and business networking group. By _Asher Price_ (mailto:[email protected]) AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, April 04, 2009 They are oil and gas specialists, bankers, retirement specialists and landscape designers — young professionals who have turned their white collars green as part of a group that's an offshoot of the Hill Country Conservancy, which conserves open space west of Austin. On a recent afternoon, as cars rumbled nearby on MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1), about 15 of them put on elbow and knee pads and helmets with headlamps and then lowered themselves into Whirlpool Cave Preserve, where they crawled like toddlers between layers of bony limestone and muddy clay 50 feet below Earth's surface. Cracking jokes was also part of the terrain, but their true mission was to learn about water quality and the Edwards Aquifer. The group, called Emerging Professionals in Conservation, was founded in early 2008 in part to encourage young professionals whose work touches on Hill Country development to take an interest in environmental issues. The goal of the group is to "bring this awareness of what's going on in the conservation world to a young professional group that may not have exposure," said Rob Shands, a 27-year-old banker who, when not squirming on his stomach through mud, works on the 12th floor of the Frost Bank Tower. As Shands and other group members slithered their way through the three-hour caving expedition, they teased one another about creepy-crawly salamanders and ribbed their guide, an expert caver named Julie Jenkins, about how far she would get if she relied solely on the glow from her wristwatch. In turn, Jenkins told them about the relationship between suburban development, chemical runoff and water quality in the Barton Springs portion of the aquifer. In the cool, moist darkness, they made their way, in a jumble of elbows and knees, into the low-ceilinged chamber where groundwater specialists dispensed dyes to find out how much time it takes water in that portion of the aquifer to travel to Barton Springs. They handled 40,000-year-old clay that's the consistency of Play-Doh. And, deep into the caves, they had a lights-out, no-sound couple of minutes that was almost suffocating in its lack of stimuli. Membership in the group starts at $20 a month or $200 a year. In exchange, members have gone on trips like the caving expedition, a grape harvest in the Hill Country, a bicycle ride through Blanco County and a kayak excursion on the San Marcos River. They also have occasional lunch-and-learn talks. Last year, Austin Mayor Will Wynn talked to the group about global warming. Another session involved ways to shrink one's carbon footprint. This summer includes a session on how to structure land conservation deals. "We're lining up the next group of people to be involved in conservation," said Will Powers, a 28-year-old who serves on the professional group's board and who runs an oil-and-gas drilling compliance consultancy. Many of these young professionals learned of the group through the Real Estate Council of Austin, one of the group's chief sponsors. More than 10 percent of the members are employees of Bury and Partners Inc., a civil engineering firm, and Land Design Partners Inc., according to Andrea Rado, who runs the young professionals group for Hill Country Conservancy. Hill Country Conservancy began as a joint effort by the Real Estate Council of Austin, the Save Our Springs Alliance and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. The idea, said Bill Bunch, executive director of the SOS Alliance, was to buy and preserve watershed protection land in the Hill Country. But the environmental group withdrew its support several years ago because it felt the conservancy's board and funding had become developer-dominated, Bunch said. Rado said members of the young professionals group are predisposed to think about the environment, which is why they join. But the activities have shifted members, many of whom are involved in real estate, away from conventional thinking on land-use patterns, said 30-year-old landscape designer Sara Partridge. Instead of investing in sprawling suburban projects, they are more likely to think of ways to set aside open space. That education leads to donations to the Hill Country Conservancy, which has preserved thousands of acres in the Hill Country, often on ranches that are prime for development. Last year, dues and donations from members netted $20,000. The members directed the money to pay for a staff position at the Hill Country Conservancy to organize a regional trail system in the Hill Country. The group now has 122 members ranging in age from their mid-20s to early 40s, said Rado. About 40 percent are married. "We didn't want it to be just another happy-hour networking group," Rado said. "People are building relationships with each other, but that's not the purpose." Will Genrich, a 31-year-old real estate investor, as he prepared to go into the cave preserve, said that the group is good for business networking and that he has landed at least one banking deal through the program. "What way is there to have a better time on a Thursday afternoon than to go into a cave and socialize with a wide variety of people?" Genrichasked. _http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ews/stories/local/04/04/0404caving.html_ (http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/04/0404caving.html) **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 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