Gary Peresta
Environmental engineer
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater
Salary --$70,000
Age --49
Years on the job --17
How he got started --With a degree in agricultural engineering, Peresta joined the Peace Corps, which assigned him to Jamaica, where he ran a fruit-canning factory. Afterward he took a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a physical science technician studying the impact of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) on cotton. When a similar job became available at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, a 3,000-acre research facility on the shores of the Rhode River and Muddy Creek in Edgewater, he jumped at the opportunity.
Typical day --Peresta spends his days at a field research station along a saltwater marsh overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. He serves as the engineer behind the world's longest-running study analyzing the impact of elevated CO2 on plants and ecosystems. His job is to oversee the data coming into the field station and to make sure the machinery that records the data is functioning properly. "To have good data you have to really look at it as it comes in and see that it's correct. Then you have to go out and trouble-shoot if something is wrong."
The site operates 30 chambers that measure different levels of CO2 on plants. Data are generated every seven minutes during the 200 days of the annual growing season. Peresta collects the data and turns them over to the scientists who interpret them. "I have the luxury of not making conclusions. I like that. I can be very objective in what I'm doing."
Rodent control --Mice were constantly eating through plastic tubing at the site, so when a cat showed up at the door he reluctantly took her in to see if she could control the rodents. That was 10 years ago and since then "Ras" - short for rodent abatement system - has remained at the site. "She's not a very friendly cat; it's more of a working relationship."
The good --"Just being out here," Peresta said. "I told my kids that all I ever wanted to do when I was a kid was play in the woods and now I'm getting paid for it."
The bad --Once a year he must take a sub-sample of the plants he collects data on and weigh them. It's a time-consuming process that takes place in July and early August.
Alone in the marsh --Most of the time Peresta is by himself. However, because the site is so valued, scientists and students from all over the world come to study and work there. He also gives tours to a variety of visitors, from schoolchildren to senators.
Spider tales --The site can become flooded, and when this happens he must move all of the equipment to safe storage. One time, as water was quickly approaching, he failed to notice that spiders were heading for higher ground, meaning the 30 chambers at the site. When he was finished moving the last chamber, Peresta was completely covered with hundreds of spiders. "I took the next day off and had bad dreams the next couple of days."
Philosophy on the job --"You can't rush science."
Nancy Jones-Bonbrest Special to The Sun