more post interview thoughts

I’m writing this on the flight home from West Virginia. It’s a relatively easy drive from the science center I interviewed at to Dulles Airport in Virginia, outside of Washington DC. One can easily visit DC from the location of the center after about an hour and a half drive.

Still mentally decompressing and self-exit interviewing today. I woke up today thinking that I really hope I’m in the running. Before coming I was more ambivalent. It would be such a challenge although I think, I know I could do it. But certainly everything would change. I guess what I think about most is the impact on our parents, and on our kids. That’s the hard part for sure.

Today I was given a tour of the area a very knowledgeable ndividual, who also happens to be a contract officer who covers two local ARS stations. Very quickly one realizes the history of the area, civil war battlefields everywhere, and towns such as Harper’s Ferry, Leesburg, Mecklenburg, and so on. WV is a little depressed economically compared to Virginia and Maryland, and in fact many of the employees live in those states because of the school districts. I guess we wouldn’t have that worry, and one could get a big house and a lot of land for about 2/3 the same thing would cost in Seattle. So while many people drive from 20 miles away or so to work, I bet we could find something much, much closer.

After the area tour, Greg and I toured the station itself and I saw the complete operation, including all of the fish rearing and water treatment facilities. The latter includes both pretreatment (hard water, high calcium because of the limestone), and effluent treatment. Available lab space is more than adequate, as well as office space for techs and post docs. Major equipment is largely shared across projects but there’s everything I could think of needing, thermocyclers, real time PCR, DNA sequencers, micorarray readers, colony pickers, and so on. Project funding seems adequate and they’re sitting pretty good this year and next. There is certainly more detail in the project and reporting process than NOAA, but upon reflection, it doesn’t seem that bad. Research planning follows a five year process, then annual milestone reports.

I’ve gone back and forth all day as to where I think I stand in the process. I know the internal candidate is good, and has the background and history of working at the station. I know the other outside candidate is very good, certainly much more personable than I am, very respected in the aquaculture community since that’s the . What I have over both of them is much longer term government administrative experience, initiating research projects, mentoring students and staff, and so on. There’s probably more I should have talked about, as I expected there were things I now wish I would have said or at least articulated better. Oh well, that’s the experience part of the process.

I’ll be following up with the Area Leader tonight with a few budget questions and a thank you. As I finish writing this I’m thinking I want to be in the running. When I re-read paragraph 2, I’m not so sure!