SCOTT DOWD'S BACKGROUND
"When I was young there was a pond behind my parent's house, and I spent all of my time there. Then I started bringing things home from the pond. Frogs, salamanders, turtles, fish. I had extremely tolerant parents, but my mother was very uncomfortable with snakes. I interpreted that to mean if she knew I had snakes. So my job was to keep her from finding out about the snakes. I'd get calls to come home from school now and then to catch the stray snake in the living room.
"I went to college because I wanted a job in this field, but I was a terrible student. I started volunteering at the aquarium in 1985 while I was a student, but I had already worked in the field. In fact, I've never done anything but take care of fish. I kept a lot of tropical fish, and at eight years old I had a great rapport with the pet store. I'd shop at flea markets and was able to build a pretty impressive fish room. Later, I worked in pet shops, and I had a little business that I started taking care of people's fish tanks in their homes and offices.
"In 1987, because I was doing so poorly in school, I got a letter from the college saying basically that I was out. A week later I got offered a full-time job at the aquarium. I had been under the impression that I had to finish school to get a job here, but I had been volunteering a lot, putting in a lot of extra time and doing some special projects on my own. I didn't feel particularly that I was contributing. I thought the aquarium was just indulging me. But I guess I had made a bit of a name for myself, and when someone left the aquarium, they approached me and asked if I wanted to work there full-time. I thought everything was going wrong because of my college experience, but in the end it all made sense. The reason I did so poorly in school was because I spent so much time with fish. But all that time I spent with fish led to my developing the professional experience that enabled me to get my job. I didn't get the classical education, but I followed my heart."
SCOTT DOWD'S RESPONSIBILITIES
"My primary area of responsibility is the freshwater gallery. I maintain the health of the animals, the appearance of the display, and the life support systems, the holding and quarantine areas.
"The official name of my gallery is the Rivers of the Americas gallery. It is a comparison between North American and South American river systems, holding, among other things, arawana, pacu, piranha, cichlids, tetras, and catfish.
"We have to be extremely independent in this position and set our own priorities, but at the same time we have to work in a tight team situation. The people attracted to this field are passionate about it. And when you get people's emotions involved, it some-times makes it challenging to work together. People are so personally driven and committed to our conservation goals but they have their own ideas how to do things, so teamwork and compromise are essential. It's an intense job. And it isn't the highest paying job. People are doing this because of their personal motivation.
"In the morning I do a procedure called check in. I have a lot of sophisticated life support systems. I take an hour before the public comes in and view my exhibits to make sure the water looks good and is circulating and the lights are working. But the most important thing I do at this time is look at the fish. When you've been working with fish for a long time, you can tell at a glance if something's wrong. Their color patterns, their behavior, their posture- are all clues. It could be something subtle, maybe a fish needs a better hiding place or more fish of the same species in the exhibit. Or it could be something blatant, a fish has been injured or come down with a disease. Medical issues are dealt with by our vet services department. We work together to form a diagnosis and a treatment.
"After I check the exhibits, I come in back and look at every single valve and I feel every single plug and I check every detail to make sure nothing has gone wrong overnight. Then I manually take temperatures of all the exhibit. Every exhibit and every holding tank has a chart. I put the thermometer in the water and record it on the chart.
"After that I feed the fish. Because the fish we have are very diverse, their diets, too, are diverse. I also maintain the exhibits. I have to keep the glass and the background clean. I have two large exhibits that I have to go into to scrub algae. For that I put on a wet suit and wade into the tanks. Diving isn't part of my job. It is required, though, to be a certified diver. I became certified through a private dive shop.
"Since we are a thirty-year-old place and aquarium science is rapidly evolving, we don't have to look far to find something that needs to be brought up to speed. We try to do it on a priority basis. If something is really old or outdated or needs servicing, we address that situation first. We are nonprofit, so resources are limited and we can't do everything we'd like to do. But though we might be limited by resources, we aren't limited by enthusiasm or time. We can often put in seven days and seven nights a week.
"I officially work Tuesday through Saturday, but sometimes I've gone six-month stretches without taking a day off. I often find myself running to catch the last train home after midnight. And sometimes I'll spend the night here.
"The downsides are that I'll never get rich. I've been here ten years and am now earning about $30,000. It's not poverty level, but in Boston, it's not great either. And the time I put in eats into my personal life.
"But I love being an aquarist and taking care of fish. It's what I do. I think the world is in severe crisis with the environmental issues going on and it's very rewarding to know that you are committing yourself to an institution that has a goal of changing that."
A WORD OF ADVICE
"I think that the door I came through is closed now. In fact, I couldn't get the job I have now if I were applying off the street. The requirement now is that you must have a degree.
"Since this job is so demanding and requires so much compromise and the opportunities are so diverse, people have to make sure they are pursuing something they are genuinely interested in."
