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Meet Carrie Roever

Director of Sustainability Risk Management

Unfamiliar Stomping Grounds: From Elephants to Agriculture

With an unconventional career trajectory – starting with elephants and landing in agriculture – Carrie Roever’s path to Eocene looks much different than that of her peers.

Carrie’s lifelong dream was to study African elephants, and she spent much of her early career studying ecology and trying to get closer and closer to elephant studies. “In ecology, the more charismatic animals are difficult to work with because the positions are coveted by so many,” Carrie shares. She started by studying birds, then got experience with bats, then she moved to deer, then foxes, black bears, and grizzly bears. “Once I had experience with one charismatic large mammal, it made it much easier to transition to another.” In 2010, Carrie was accepted into a Ph.D. position at the University of Pretoria in South Africa to study African elephant habitat selection.

“It was a dream come true, and one of the highlights of my career,” said Carrie.

After her PhD studying elephants, she took a postdoctoral position where she studied the habitat selection patterns of cattle in eastern Oregon – a career move she admits was driven mostly out of necessity because schooling and travel had left her a little short on cash. She uses the word ‘refreshing’ to describe her first exposure working in the ag sector. “Wildlife work can often feel like swimming against a current. Much of my time was spent trying to convince others as to why they should care about species A/B/C. But with farmers, they already cared because they were trying to do right by their land. Farmers also have the power to make changes that very same day … without the hurdles and years of paperwork and legislation that can accompany public lands. Because of that, I found working with farmers very rewarding, and so I stuck around.”

Then in November 2021, Carrie started her career with Sustainable Environmental Consultants, now our sustainability division, after the late founder John Harsch recruited her. Despite her career path upon hire being a little unclear, she recalls John’s generosity and kindness in those uncertain times. “The people really make an organization, so I felt I couldn’t go wrong.”

A few months into her position, Carrie was assigned a greenhouse gas accounting project where she combined her skills of quantification, ecology and science communication, and that’s where all the pieces fell into place. Not only was she able to play around with data and spreadsheets to calculate greenhouse gas emissions but she was also able to sit down with farmers to explain what it all meant.

“Climate change is likely going to be one of the greatest challenges we will face in my lifetime, and my work with Eocene feels like it is making a difference.”