Georgia County Internship Spotlight

Each year, the ACCG Civic Affairs Foundation provides specialized grants in the field of environmental management to one or two deserving counties. For the 2020 program year, Oconee and Henry counties were selected to receive Kundell Environmental Management grants.

 

The Kundell Environmental Management Internship/Fellowship Program was established by the ACCG Civic Affairs Foundation in 2017 to honor the work of Dr. Jim Kundell. Dr. Kundell was a distinguished professor and highly awarded member of the University of Georgia faculty. During his lifetime, he made significant contributions to environmental law and served as an advisor to many local, state, and national organizations on environmental matters.

 

 

Morgan Pace, an environmental management major at Kennesaw State            University, researched green infrastructure requirements and create the first green infrastructure standard operating procedures for the county. A copy of the Henry County Green Infrastructure Handbook is available here. Pace’s favorite part of the internship was working and collaborating with county staff. Throughout her internship, she gained new research skills which should help her on her journey to becoming an environmental lawyer.

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Detweiler, an agricultural engineering student at the University of Georgia, worked with the civil engineering department on water resource projects that required using engineering software, collecting, and preparing data, and assisting in project coordination from inception through final plan preparation.

 

Detweiler’s most significant work involved the mapping he developed for the Upper Oconee Watershed Network. Over the course of his internship, he gained significant mapping skills in GIS, ESRI, and AutoCAD–all of which are important to know for a future engineer.

 

Because of the Kundell environmental management grant opportunity, several counties applied for environmental-related internship projects. In addition to the Kundell internships, the ACCG Civic Affairs Foundation also funded three additional environmental projects for the 2020 internship cycle.

 

To learn more about the  ACCG Georgia County Internship Program or the ACCG Civic Affairs Foundation, please visit our website at https://www.accg.org/caf.