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Student Enthusiasm Launches a Life-Long Career
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| The Real World of Alumnus Eric Meusch |
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When Eric Meusch ’89 and fellow Westminster classmates started the student organization Ecologically Concerned Students (ECoS), he never dreamed his enthusiasm for the environment would turn into a worldwide career in natural resources management.“It all started when a friend and classmate talked me into an informational interview with the Peace Corps when they were at Westminster our senior year,” |
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recalls Meusch. “I realized during the interview that the Peace Corps would be a good way to get entry-level experience in my field. At the time I didn’t expect it to develop into an international career, but as I got more experience and opportunities kept opening up, things just ended up this way.” Fifteen years later, Meusch is still promoting environmental conservation halfway around the world.
Meusch started working in Southeast Asia as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, where he worked in rural areas as an aquaculture extensionist. After finishing with Peace Corps, Meusch remained in Thailand another couple years working with different projects in the areas of farming systems research and rural development.
After working in Thailand, Meusch returned to the US to attend Auburn University in Alabama, earning a Master’s degree from the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures. While with Auburn, Meusch conducted thesis research in Laos on traditional management systems for rice-field based fisheries. |
| Following his studies at Auburn, Meusch was hired by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) as an Aquatic Resource Specialist on a project in Laos where he was a field coordinator responsible for a number of research and development activities. In 1999, Meusch was transferred to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to become the County Program Manager of the AIT project, responsible for overseeing projects with the Department of Fisheries, the University of Agriculture and an Agricultural Collage. |
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In 2001, after completing his position with AIT, Meusch became an independent consultant, based out of Phnom Penh. Some of Meusch’s consulting activities involved working with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, the IUCN – the World Conservation Union, The Mekong River Commission and the World Fish Center. Apart from Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, his work has also taken him to Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and China. |
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