Photo By Patrick Adelmann | Elyssa Mendez, a park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth...... read more read more
As the sun rises over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District’s Proctor Lake, nature comes alive. A flight of cormorant lands on the lake, blue heron and a pelican search the shallows for their next meal, and two white-tailed deer scurry across the dam road.
Watching the scene unfold, park ranger Elyssa Mendez, a 2023 graduate of Tarleton State University’s bachelor’s degree in wildlife, sustainability, and ecosystem sciences program, reflects on her office. She admitted though, that as she was about to graduate, she didn’t know that job opportunities with USACE existed in her career field.
“Two years ago, I had a friend who was a summer ranger the summer I graduated,” Mendez said. “He told me that an opportunity existed at Proctor Lake and that it was exactly what I had been looking for. That is, it was a lot of hands-on work, interpretation programs, and he thought it would be a great fit for me.”
Mendez has now been a ranger with USACE for about a year and a half. As the natural resource specialist and serves as the hunting coordinator for the lake, Mendez calls the outdoors her second office. She can regularly be found patrolling the various wildlife management areas checking on the status of the deer feeders or looking for any changes in the habits of the local wildlife.
“The majority of my duties require me to be outdoors,” Mendez said. “Which is exciting for me because I am able put to use my knowledge and education to do surveys and manage wildlife habitats.”
Mendez credits the university with the knowledge base she garnered that has helped her with her career. At the same time, she admits that she didn’t know how everything was interconnected until she started working with USACE.
“You don't think about how much a lot of things correlate with each other,” Mendez said. “You can be a natural resource specialist, but there are rules and regulations to everything you're doing. There are proper ways to do everything, which they teach you that in school, you don’t know how everything correlates until you utilize it in your career field.”
While she doesn’t know exactly what lies ahead for her career, Mendez does know she is in the right place for her career now.
“USACE is what you make it,” Mendez said. “You can have set a plan for the day and then sometimes situations just happen, and your plans goes out the window. You can’t let it frustrate you because everything we do is important and has a reason behind it. You must like what you're doing to really appreciate what you're doing. In the short amount of time I've been at the lake, I’ve felt like I am part of a family. I've been very lucky, not a lot of people get the opportunity to have a job they like and the environment they work in.”
As Mendez drives home at the end of the day, she reflects on working for USACE in such a beautiful and peaceful environment. She is exactly where she wants to be, protecting and preserving the environment that she loves so dearly.
For more information on joining the Army Corps of Engineers, go to Https://www.swf.usace.army.mil/careers/
| Date Taken: | 02.10.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.10.2025 11:46 |
| Story ID: | 490435 |
| Location: | COMANCHE, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 86 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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