People & Culture
Philosophy
Initiatives
- Rebooted Instagram and LinkedIn Programming
- Next Early Career Meetups: 8/12, 9/9, and 10/14 @ 12pm (every second Tuesday)
- First Rural Connex Meetup: 8/14 @ 12pm
- Student Engagement Program in Development
- AEP Storytelling Project — Coming Soon!
- AEP EJ Fellowship — Launching in 2025!
- Monthly People & Culture Committee meetings
If you are a current member interested in the history of People & Culture at AEP, contact us through our membership email address and we can share more.
An Update from the President
A Mid-Year Update.
We like to celebrate the small wins, too. At the halfway point into 2025, we have all covered so much ground, and navigated so much of life, that being here is something to cheer for — you made it!
As we continue with our new practice of sharing occasional updates from the People & Culture Committee at AEP, let’s dive into our ongoing work and where we hope to go from here.
Meetups.
For much of 2024, we worked hard to come up with a framework that would work for AEP and our members. How do we nurture connections, and let those connections be the base of support for our members across different backgrounds? We decided that we would elevate the unique experiences of our members within a set of commonalities. “Individuals with a shared humanity” is one way to put it. “Life Experience” and “Career Stage” are the approach to connection that we aligned on
Through July, we have held FIVE(!) virtual convenings of our inaugural group, the Early Career Meetup. This is for members who are new to their careers, or soon to graduate. The experience of being new to a field is something we all know; these meetups create an opportunity for these members to organically share their stories, connect over commonalities, and bridge the gaps between the unique ways they navigate this moment in their lives and careers. With 20-30 members attending each meetup so far, we have already seen the many ways these unstructured sessions are able to nurture engagement and provide support to any member of the early career cohort.
Coming soon, we’ll announce two more meetups: a Rural Meetup for those coming from or working outside of California’s large metros, and Seasoned Professionals for environmental professionals over 50.
Elements.
What is an environmental professional? How do we connect our members with each other, and connect our members with the communities we serve?
Meet Elements. This is a thematic storytelling campaign from AEP that seeks to explain our work, empower our members, and reach the people who live and thrive where our work is carried out.
In Elements, we can imagine any AEP member as a wielder of magic, someone with a superpower that connects to a single, specific aspect of the world: Air, Earth, Water, Time, Space, & Connection. Think about traffic planning and how their work can influence the time it takes to get from one point to another — that’s a wielder of Time. Agencies that manage zoning? That’s Space.
Since our 2,500 members not only work within one Element but also come to their Element from a multitude of job roles and experiences, this is a brilliant way to tell stories that connect with the end-user: the people we serve across California.
For more Elements, follow us on LinkedIn, click Like and Subscribe on our Podcast (on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube), and across all of AEP’s communication channels.
Keeping Up with the Changing Laws.
We are all struggling to keep up with many changes to local, state, and federal laws. AEP is constantly working behind the scenes to talk with elected officials and their teams in an effort to convey what environmental professionals do and what makes sense in practice. But as we all know, many changes still occur in haste. Our active members are constantly evaluating and discussing how to interpret and implement those changes. If you haven’t been in those discussions yet, we invite you! Starting with a free CEQA reform lunchtime webinar on July 31st, come participate and share your thoughts and practitioner experiences.
Register at the AEP website.
Support in 2025.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge what many of our members and those in our field have experienced over the first half of the year. Many of us are concerned; some of us have watched our jobs and prospects disappear. What you have collectively experienced isn’t easy, and this time in our lives and careers deserves recognition, care, and support.
To be clear, our work at AEP continues the same as it always has: with dedication to our members, to CEQA, and to our organization. Our mission is not dependent on headlines in the news. We have continued our work through 50 years of economic expansion and recession; population growth and demographic change; civil unrest and civil rights movements; foreign wars & domestic tragedies; natural disasters and a global pandemic; the advancement of science & technological revolutions; and a multitude of diverging and overlapping political debates.
Every path ahead will still require the expertise of our members: planning, legal review and consultation, impact study, agency coordination, and more. Our commitment is unchanged; our commitment remains as it has always been: to serve and support each of you, so that you can care for yourselves, your loved ones, and your communities. And that work continues as long as we have the strength to stand firm — not in support or opposition to the winds of history, but to the North Star of caring for our 2,000 members now and into the future.
As someone once said, “It is a sign of strength to ask for help.” Whether you ask for help, need help, or are simply comforted by knowing you are not alone in this, we are here for you.
We have meetups and activities at the state and chapter levels where you can find support.
We have resources available, and an ongoing culture of learning and teaching.
We have help with resumes and job searches; we maintain job boards; we know how to meet the moment.
Thank you for trusting me with the opportunity to serve. I’m right here with you, and I’ll be right here with you, with 50 years of legacy guiding me, and offering the dedication you deserve.
In community,
Mindy Fogg
AEP President
Previous blog updates from the President