
Happy Mother’s Day! While the best gift that you could possibly give your mother is for you to get a job, flowers, brunch, or a card will have to do for now (not many people get hired over the weekend). I think flowers make a pretty awesome gift, but it sucks that they are eventually going to die. Why not give your mom a flower experience instead? Take her somewhere like the Queens Botanical Garden, which is a Flushing, NY based “urban oasis where people, plants and cultures are celebrated through inspiring gardens, innovative educational programs and demonstrations of environmental stewardship.” Could there be a better place to take your mother?
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In my fiancée’s mind there is no better dessert than fresh berries and whipped cream. I’d probably add a piece of chocolate cake to that, but the biggest variable in the equation is almost always the berries. Good berries, whether they’re strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or snozberries, taste better than candy, while bad berries often taste like dirt. Since I share Jerry Seinfeld’s feeling that fruit is a gamble, I’m not particularly brand conscious, but checking my refrigerator tells me that my most recently purchased strawberries are from Driscoll’s. They’re a Watsonville, CA based berry purveyor that has been family owned and operated for more than 100 years.
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I’m in the doghouse. I’m the guy who forgot Valentine’s Day. Luckily, it’s not with my fiancée–I took good care of her yesterday. It’s with you. I didn’t give you a Valentine’s Day post after in past years telling you about jobs at places like eHarmony, Tiffany & Co., OpenTable, ProFlowers, Necco, Vosges, and even the American Heart Association. Flowers are the tried and true way of getting out of the doghouse, but a beautiful bouquet isn’t going to do it when that’s the status quo for Valentine’s Day. How about a flower arrangement every week? That might do it, and that’s exactly what New York, NY based H.BLOOM offers. They are a “flower service.” If you don’t know what that is, you can learn more here. Essentially it’s a subscription to flowers. Subscription based business models are all the rage these days, so it’s no surprise that someone is applying it to the floral industry.
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I don’t think I realized how much I enjoyed the gardens my parents had in our backyard until I moved to a city and lived in a high-rise. As cool as it is to be 30 stories up and see tiny people going about their business below, I’d much rather be able to open my back door and see blooms, butterflies, bees, and birds. I’ll bet that the people at the non-profit American Horticultural Society would agree with me. The AHS “is one of the oldest national gardening organizations in the country,” and since their founding in 1922 they’ve grown to more than 20,000 members. The AHS is headquartered in Alexandria, VA at a placed called River Farm, which was owned by George Washington. It includes 25 acres of landscaped lawns and gardens, so I’m sure it’s stunning.
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Virginia

I used to wake up every day, look out the window, and see the Chicago skyline. In my new place, I wake up and see a whole bunch of trees. Though I know I’ll miss being able to watch the city from a few hundred feet up, it’s a nice change. Who doesn’t love trees? Well, the people at the Sacramento Tree Foundation probably love trees even more than the average person. The Sacramento Tree Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Sacramento, CA that is “working to grow healthy, livable communities in the Sacramento region by empowering people to plant, protect, and learn about trees.” They have a goal of planting 5 million trees in the area by 2025. Though they have a long way to go, they’ve already gotten off to a great start.
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I’m in St. Louis for the weekend, mostly to watch my girlfriend’s little sister’s volleyball tournament, but I’m looking for other cool things to do since it’s my first time here. Yesterday I got to visit the Saint Louis Zoo, which is fantastic. (And I promise I didn’t act like this kid.) I got to see monkeys, giraffes, zebras, lions, penguins, gorillas, elephants, somali wild asses, and a whole range of other animals that I’d never even heard of before. I even got to see the mountain nyala that makes an appearance in the zoo’s logo. I was really impressed with the Saint Louis Zoo—it has a wonderful layout and an amazing collection of animals. The best part, though, was that we got to see feeding time for the grizzly bears. It may sound barbaric, but it was nothing of the sort. We watched as two of the laziest bears that I’ve ever seen would catch oranges in their mouths and then suck out the meat while leaving behind the rind. What made the experience even better was that it was free. Saint Louis Zoo is a “free zoo,” so all you have to pay for is parking.
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It used to be that if you wanted to build something, the hard part would be actually building it. These days the biggest hold up in construction and development is often environmental compliance. There are a multitude of regulations that limit what you can build, where you can build it, and how you can build it. The rules are often complex and they can vary greatly between jurisdictions. Sapphos Environmental is a Pasadena, CA based company that helps its clients resolve “planning, resource management, and environmental compliance issues through the development of pragmatic solutions and exemplary client service.” In other words they offer a range of services that ensure that development projects are done in an environmentally sensitive and compliant way.
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Ten days ago we took a look at Rodale Institute, a non-profit that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” We talked about how industrial farming has led to amazing boosts in productivity, but it’s also created a lot of problems. Marrone Bio Innovations is a Davis, CA based company that is taking a natural approach to one specific area of agriculture: pest control. They’re aiming to be “the world leader in natural product innovation” by making “natural, effective, safe, environmentally friendly products the mainstream future of pest management.” Usually you don’t hear organic and pesticide in the same sentence, but Marrone Bio Innovations’ business is predicated on bringing the two together.
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Last week I got an e-mail from a One Day, One Job reader who is just wrapping up a seasonal position and looking for her next gig. In doing so, she realized that other readers might be interested in her current position, so she wrote me to tell me about it. When I saw the name Rodale Institute in her e-mail, I swore to myself that I had already featured the organization, but it was actually a publishing company named Rodale that was started by the same person as the Institute and used to be financially linked to it as well. The Rodale Institute is a Kutztown, PA based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” They’ve been at it since 1947, and they’re going to keep “researching the best practices of organic agriculture and sharing [their] findings with farmers and scientists throughout the world” because they believe that eating organic is the healthiest option for people and for the Earth.
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received e-mails from readers who say something like, “I’ve always loved (company name), but I never considered the fact that I could work for them until I read your post about them.” The reason for this is simple: most job seekers don’t have the right mindset or approach. If you’re looking for a job, everything that you do should relate back to the job search. If you find something interesting—a product, company, idea, or anything else—you need to make a note of it and revisit it when you’re at your computer. For example, today I came across an article on Cool Hunting about Guerrilla Seed Bombs. They’re basically little nuggets that you can toss, chuck, or drop in dirt to plant seeds and improve green spaces. It’s part of the “guerrilla gardening” movement, and I think it’s a really neat idea—Johnny Appleseed for the new millennium. One of the companies behind these seed bombs is Los Angeles, CA based Commonstudio. They appear to be a two person design firm, and they’ve developed their seed grenades to be dispensed in old gum ball machines and sold under the name Green Aid (get it… grenade).
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You’ve probably heard the term “heirloom,” in reference to fruits or vegetables. For the longest time I had no idea what it meant, but eventually I asked someone and the gist of the definition is “any garden plant that has a history of being passed down within a family, just like pieces of heirloom jewelry or furniture.” More often than not the plants are passed down in the form of seeds. Heirloom breeds of plants are important not only for sentimental reasons, but also because they provide genetic diversity. By maintaining old breeds of plants with their unique resistance to disease and pests, we are able to ensure the security of our food supply. Seed Savers Exchange is a Decorah, IA based non-profit that “saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations.”
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My Dad is an architect, and he often likes to send me suggestions on which companies I should feature next. Sometimes he finds some pretty cool stuff, and a month or so ago he sent me a link to the Winter 2009 online issue of HQ Magazine, which features an article called “Top 20 Places to Work.” Usually such lists focus on a range of reasons for a place’s being great to work at, but HQ is an architectural publication, so this list is all about office space (not the movie). The section of the article on Epic Systems says: “Epic’s campus fits into idyllic pastures and farmland, providing serene, relaxing views from within. Outside are hiking trails, playing fields, a treehouse. Meeting rooms have working fireplaces to further the sense of calmness.” It sounds amazing. Epic systems is a Wisconsin based, privately held, employee owned healthcare software provider.
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The economy may suck, but you still need to eat. No matter what you’re eating (unless it’s dirt), it probably came from a farm. That means that farms won’t be going out of business anytime soon. I haven’t deeply investigated how a recession affects the agriculture industry, but it might be an area worth looking into even if you’re not an Aggie. One company that is hiring new grads in the agricultural sector is Rochester, NY based Agricultural Consulting Services. They seem like a relatively small company, and it’s hard to get a lot of details about who they are, but they’re a perfect example of a company that the large majority of job seekers would overlook. They offer a wide range of consulting services to farmers that include farm mapping, soil and plant analysis, fertilizer recommendations, integrated pest management, weed scouting and control, tillage recommendations, manure management, crop residue and cover crop management, laboratory services, environmental services and recommendations, and custom farm management software. I’m sure some of you are BS artists who specialize in “fertilizer recommendations” and “manure management,” but for the most part ACS is looking for new grads who have a background in Agriculture or Engineering.
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I love the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top Small Workplaces 2008, but I wish it was longer. It always alerts me to companies that I never would have found no matter how hard I look every day. For instance, Decagon Devices is a “is a small manufacturer of biophysical instrumentation for food and consumer goods manufacturers, agronomic scientists and soils scientists.” I can’t imagine how I would have found them without the WSJ’s list. Decagon Devices does appear to hire new college graduates, but the jobs that they are hiring for have very specific academic requirements. Maybe in the future they’ll have some jobs that don’t require a scientific background, but until then, those of you who aren’t scientifically inclined should spend time that you would have spent researching today’s employer telling your friends about us. That’s all that you need to do to win the iPod Touch that we’re giving away in 4 days. So far the number of entries is pathetic, so take advantage of everyone else’s laziness and go with that iPod.
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We’ve featured jobs at a botanical garden before, but we thought it was time to reach out to those plant science and botany majors again. It’s especially appropriate because spring is in full force at One Day, One Job Headquarters. Everything has bloomed, and not only is it beautiful here, but it also smells great. As soon as we open a door or window we’re hit with a fragrant burst of springtime. Since we hear from a lot of people that we focus too much on jobs in New York and California (hey, that’s where a lot of the jobs are), the addition of the Chicago Botanic Garden to our employer profiles should be welcome.
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Most kids beg their parents to take them to the zoo. Animals are exciting. They move. They eat. They make sounds. They smell bad. Plants have none of those appeal factors. Plants don’t move, they grow. They absorb their nutrients. They’re soundless. And they smell good (most of them anyways). To most kids that spells B-O-R-I-N-G. The zoo is an 86-minute comedy movie, while a botanical garden is 142 minutes of Academy Award winning cinematic genius. It might take a little growing up to appreciate plants for all they’re worth, but when you really start to observe plants, it’s hard not to start to enjoy their “personality.” Maybe that wasn’t the best way to start off today’s post, since there’s a good chance that those of our readers who will actually want these jobs have loved flora since they were old enough to crawl around their parents’ garden.
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