Career Advice: Dr. Thomas French

Dr. Thomas French gets to work with “natural history of all forms” and as the Assistant Director of MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, French specializes in protecting organisms most at risk of extinction. Having worked in this position for 33 years, French plans to retire in two years and offered up advice for those looking to fill his shoes. French attributes a lot of his success to luck, but after being able to sit down with him to talk about his accomplishments of being a zoologist, author of numerous scientific papers, and member of various scientific committees, it’s not hard to tell that having a positive attitude and staying true to what he loves have contributed greatly to his success.

Hannah Uebele: Can you tell me how you got interested in this career and how you got started?

Thomas French: I grew up interested in the outdoors and animals from as long back as I can remember and so I automatically went into biology programs in college. I had kind of tunnel vision for wildlife issues and so I went through Georgia State University for a bachelor’s (B.S. in Biology), Auburn University for a master’s (M.S. in Zoology), Indiana University for a a Ph.D, (in Ecology and Systematics), and Cornell for a post doc, and then started looking for work.

French explained how he was faced with the same problem that many people have when finishing up so much schooling: deciding whether to go into academia or fieldwork. He explained how in hindsight he’s fortunate that a career in academia didn’t work out, since it led him to the career he has today.

French: It was a classic dichotomy, teaching vs something in the field. My first big interview was a teaching faculty position and I look back and think, thank God I failed it (laughing). Then I got into the Nature Conservancy actually… and I had already worked for National Audubon in the summers and so Nature Conservancy was my first job to be essentially a zoologist, all vertebrate animals and natural history and that’s what I was good at anyway. I worked there for two years before this (current) job came up. This job never existed before it came up, I’m the first person to be in this position, to run the state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program and I’ve been here 33 years. The part I love about it is the diversity. Natural history of all forms, and so we deal with rare mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, plants and invertebrates. Then we get into the stuff that’s not so fun with the regulatory reviews and a lot of GIS stuff that is over my head, and a lot of politics and legislation which is not particularly fun for me. (Also) of course a lot of personnel issues, because I have 29 staff. We have 30 counting myself so we’re a big program particularly the size state we are, but we are one of the most progressive states in the North East as well so it’s very rewarding, we’ve got good staff and we accomplish a lot.

Uebele: You spoke about what you majored in and got advanced degrees in – would you recommend that students trying to emulate your career do the same?

French: Well the question always is graduate school or no graduate school and it depends on what you want to do. If you want to work in academia you have to have a Ph.D pretty much, but often times a Ph.D is almost an impediment…and so I don’t necessarily push for people to get graduate degrees. I usually think a master’s is a good level to go if you’re working or want to work for an agency like ours. We clearly do give a preference for someone with a master’s over just a BS but that’s just to kind of get your foot in the door, then you’ve got to do an interview and impress us. I’ve interviewed and hired a lot of people and I think the thing that people who come in and apply for us fail (to do) most often is they’re not doing their homework.

French compared going in for an interview like taking an exam – you have to do your homework beforehand.

French: You should know about the organization and I interview a scary number of people selected out of a big pool that come in and they haven’t looked up anything about us, they don’t know anything about us in particular. Others of course have really done their homework and it shows, so somebody looking for work take it as an example, do your homework.

Uebele: Is there something special that a person must have to become successful in this field of work or, in other words, is there a secret to your success?

French: Well part of it with mine is getting in on the ground floor because I’ve kept (this career) for 30 years (laughing). By the way I’m (retiring) in 2 years, so go for it. Yeah, being in the right place at the right time, a lot of it is dumb luck. There’s a lot of jobs out there but some of the best ones are filled for long stretches of time… so a lot of it is unfortunately out of people’s control. My daughter just finished a master’s degree and she’s looking for work and I’m trying to help her with the same thoughts. Nowadays it’s just a lot more difficult I think it was when I was doing it, a lot of competition. Part of it is that you need to follow your heart, but part of you needs to strategize and think, ‘Okay once I follow my heart what am I going to do with what I’ve got? Can I get work?’

French explained how in his case he was able to follow his heart but in the case of his daughter and new graduates today, it’s much harder to do so and be able to support yourself.

Uebele: Can you tell me about a moment in your life, or a decision that you made in your life, that was crucial in getting you to be where you are in your career today?

French: Well I actually had big breaks by mentors. I mean literally my first big break was entering the science fair in the 6th grade and my music teacher being active in the local bird club and saying I needed to start going (birding). So I had a mentor take me under her wing in 6th grade and then started taking me places I could never have gotten – I’m from Georgia so the Okefenokee Swamp and Jekyll Island and places I could never have gone. Then I had other mentors along the way so that’s important. I had some (other) lucky breaks – I naively applied for some things and didn’t realize what an underdog I was and got them anyway so I got lucky.

Uebele: Looking back is there anything you would do differently that you would want students now to be aware of?

French: I wouldn’t, I mean I grew up knowing the kind of field I wanted to be in when I was in elementary school. But there are a lot of directions I could have taken, there’s no one right or wrong way.

French explained how you have to make the best of what life hands you in whichever way it leads you.

Life is just a lot of strange decisions and there’s no right or wrong way to live it, it’s a lot of dumb luck (laughing). But you need to be able to try to recognize the opportunities and be prepared for them. So in my field I would say a master’s is probably the minimum requirement and doing your homework before interviews is the minimum requirement, and frankly do what you have personal interest in. I have 29 staff and I can see which ones are doing what they enjoy as a career versus which ones have a job and it really makes a difference, and I’m sure it makes a difference for their personal enrichment and enjoyment too. Sometimes I can’t separate the job from the hobbies.

Uebele: Any final advice you have for students wishing to pursue a career similar to yours?

French: Working in the environment is both rewarding and frustrating and it’s so much driven by people’s personal background and attitudes. Frankly one of the things that scares me a little bit is that we’ve gotten so removed from the farms and the land that our urban population doesn’t appreciate and certainly does not understand nature very well. We’re growing up in a period now where the average person has very little experience with the outdoors and our kids are spending time indoors with computer games, and I was out walking the stream and catching frogs. And in that case my father literally when I was in college sat me down and said, ‘You’ve got to stop wasting your time doing that. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to make a living.’ But I didn’t listen.