“I joined the RMOT program in the fall of 2015 as a mature student, after having spent seven years in a career that I felt had run its course. I didn’t know exactly where I saw myself or what I saw myself doing, but the research I had done into the RMOT and the BNRP programs convinced me that wherever I wound up it would be doing something meaningful and positive.
In my first year I found work as a game check attendant with the Nanaimo Fish and Game Protective Association, then later as an invasive species program assistant with the Coastal Invasive Species Committee. The next year I worked as a student border services officer with the Canada Border Services Agency, which was when I decided that I wanted to work in law enforcement. In year three, I was hired as a co-op student with Environment Climate Change Canada, and was later offered a full-time indeterminate position as an environmental enforcement officer. I still had a year left in the BNRP program, but the instructors encouraged me to take the job. I completed designation training in the summer of 2019, and in 2021 I was promoted to a senior officer.
During the pandemic I decided that I wanted to return to school to finish my degree, a decision that was fully supported by my managers. The additional training and education I received in that final year supplemented my existing skill set as an environmental enforcement officer, and I returned to work more knowledgeable and confident than ever before.
My time at VIU gave me experiences that I won’t ever forget; the instructors are some of the best I’ve had, and the friends I made are still friends I have today. Going back to school as a mature student was a difficult and nerve-wracking experience, but it’s changed my life in ways that I never could have imagined. I’m grateful to have been accepted into the RMOT program, and I’m proud to call VIU my alma mater.
-Jake Blackwood, class of 2017 and 2022”