At this time in my life, I would characterize myself as an ever-learner:
learning what adds up to meaningful and mindful relationships; exploring the
various roles we play; and playing with various chains of thoughts, barriers
and actions.
I have always been interested in water, nature and the outdoors growing up
the rural area of Grantham Township, near Port Dalhousie in the 1950's. I
participated at an early age with sailing and continued that until shortly
after I came to Toronto in January 1973. By then I had received an Honours
Bachelor of Science degree in Earth Science which included a strong biology
curriculum.
My career included sailing instructress, teaching lab assistant in
historical geology and optical petrology, field chemistry analyst with Great
Lakes Surveys, a summer mapping the western edges of Ontario's Sudbury
Basin. My first published paper was on coal in the eastern Arctic while in
Pond Inlet, Nunavut in the summer of 1972. In these circumstances I was
working within teams and living together often in close-quarters for weeks
at a time. Plenty of opportunity to get to know a wide variety of
personalities and attitudes.
After 1973, I worked out of and in Toronto as a provincial hydrogeologist
and focused on exploration, mapping and development of groundwater supplies
for many rural municipalities such as Dryden, Powassan, Orono, Valley East,
and others in Eastern and Northern Ontario.
This evolved into another 10 years of high profile assignments regarding
contamination from landfills and preparing Ontario's landfill site inventory
culminating with work with the Interim Waste Authority to locate and defend
a new secure municipal landfill site design for the City of Toronto. It was
during this time that I first attended sessions involving NLP and the
discovery of wordless communications in the public delivery of government
programs. In 1995, I received my Toastmasters certificate and in 2006, my
NLP Practitioner Certificate.
Then, I took on the challenge of sealing of 150 boreholes for OWMC, followed
by the setting up a new provincial funding program for groundwater studies.
By the time Walkerton happened we had funded over 40 survey areas and by
2009 some 180 areas had received funding to complete new GIS groundwater
mapping and inventories within the province. More recently in January 2009,
I retired from active service with the Ministry of the Environment and moved
back home after 36 years. I am enjoying my family, 4 cats and a dog, amateur
radio and the challenge of rebuilding my community in St. Catharines, in the
house and in the garden where I grew up.
Irmgard R. Pawlowski (nee Steltner) P. Geo.
Also known as Geddie VE3CJX
.