Black Excellence Oral History with Keenan Adams, June 24, 2021 (Ms2024-072)

Amber Wendler: My name is Amber Wendler, and I’m interviewing Dr. Keenan Adams via Zoom for the Black Excellence in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] oral history project. Today is June 24, 2021. And can you start off by stating your full name and date of birth for the record?

Keenan Adams: Yes, my name is Keenan Jerome Adams, and I was born October 8, 1983.

Amber: Thanks, and can you tell me a little bit about your childhood, like where you grew up and what it was like?

Keenan: People always ask where you’re from, and that’s a very difficult question to answer. I typically say, well, where is my home, and home is South Carolina, but I was actually born in a military base in Germany. Landstuhl Air Force Base. My father was in the Air Force. My mother 00:01:00is Danish, and my father’s African American. And then we moved to Mississippi and back to Germany, and then my dad finally retired in South Carolina when I was around eight or nine. And that had a bit of a contrast in growing up, where I’m living in this space where there are many multi-racial kids; however, most of my friends were still primarily African American, and that’s who my dad hung out with. We typically hung out with people that are African American or African American with a European spouse or wife, and that was my network growing up. And then we moved to South Carolina, and I’m in this huge culture shock. A, the language, the slang, the accent. But, B, it was just a stark contrast of Black and white, and it wasn’t really until that moment that I truly realized I was Black. I always 00:02:00thought of myself as just this mixture. But I still remember the white kids didn’t really wanna play with me when I got to South Carolina, and a teacher found a guy that was--I believe he was a quarter white, a guy named Michael Evans. And she paired us up because she could tell I was having a difficult time just processing that stark contrast. And that was really my big entry into race and racism. From there, I had a long journey of navigating race in South Carolina. Childhood-wise, I would describe it--we were always wanting to be outside. My dad would take us fishing, would take us on walks in the woods, and we really fell in love with outside. We really enjoyed war movies. We would always watch war movies, and so we were always in the woods playing soldier. I think it has a lot to do with 00:03:00the military base, and at the time, this was during the Cold War with the Russians--so all these movies, Rocky and Top Gun. We grew up in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell. My brother and I, we talk about this--how we had this very different life than many of our cousins and many of our peers because we grew up, and we saw part of the world, and we saw that things were very different, whereas, many of our friends never left the county. And we went from military base where all these things are provided--health care, dental care, food’s cheap--to my dad retiring and not having a job, my mom working minimum wage, and we’re living in these apartments that were probably, like, $300 a month, and it was a lot of lower-income families living there, and we struggled. It’s not like we were starving, but money was tight. We were living check to check, and that was another exposure of being taken care 00:04:00of and not really having to worry about much to having to worry. And my dad’s riding a bike to work, and it was so weird to me to see that; we could only afford one car. And also it exposed us to a whole different subset of people that we weren’t exposed to in the military base. And I would always get picked on by the kids because I was always playing in the creek. They would call me Nature Boy. And at the time, there was a wrestler named Rick Flair, and he would say, Nature Boy, and so they would see me and say, Nature Boy, and I was kind of embarrassed about that, but I still played in the creek and tried to catch crawfish. And also--I’m not sure if you remember the thing called Shark Week--I was fascinated with sharks. I wanted to be a marine biologist; this was right before middle school. And I would just--my 00:05:00brother and I would fight over the television, but Shark Week, my parents were like, no, this is Keenan’s week. My brother would get so mad because he may wanna watch the Chicago Bulls, watch Michael Jordan, and I’m glued to the TV…just loving sharks! And also fishing. I would watch fishing shows on Saturdays. That was my childhood. This weird navigation between military base to deep South and then also being the mixed kid in the Black culture and navigating that as well and also having this love and affinity for nature. I think the concept is called a Third Culture Kid, so that’s what I was, and I learned to be a chameleon essentially, and I would just adapt to these environments. So code switching is always something that’s just been natural that I’ve had to use to 00:06:00thrive and survive. And I really struggled fitting in and wanted to be cool, so I started playing sports. I really didn’t like sports, and that was actually my path to college. Anything else?

Amber: No, you covered a lot! That was very interesting. And I’m curious about how your experiences were in grade school, maybe middle school and high school. Were you interested in STEM topics at that point, and how did the science classes go for you? Did you enjoy those?

Keenan: I got to school, and 00:07:00they initially thought something was wrong with me when I came to South Carolina, and they put me in a remedial class. They would segregate--a couple hours a day, you’d go to this class where you got this special attention, and the learning specialist realized, no, this kid’s really smart; he’s having trouble understanding the accents, and he’s finishing his work so fast. That’s the problem. The reason you see him sitting here staring is because he’s already finished his work. I went from the remedial thing to the advanced. It was called Alert, this advanced class. I was always geeking out on science. I still remember, whenever we would do science in elementary school, I was always clinging to the teacher, wanting to do the experiments. In middle school, I would always excel at science. And this 00:08:00is another good example where it’s so weird how middle school really dictates your path in college because the courses you take in middle school dictate the courses you take in high school. And the courses you take in high school dictate what colleges you get into. So although I had very high math scores on tests, I was placed in basic math in my sixth grade year. So here I am in this advanced Alert program, but I’m put in the basic math class. It was so weird to me. And then it happened again in the seventh grade, and I’m thinking like, what’s going on here? So I finally started saying something like, hey guys, how come all my white classmates I’m in this program with are in these other math classes? And we’re comparing standardized tests, so these kids are getting better curriculum and teaching than I am, and I’m still outscoring them 00:09:00on these standardized tests. And it’s crazy to think about--I was assertive enough to go to the principal about this by myself. I didn’t even talk to my parents. I approached the principal; I was like, hey, this is wrong, I want to be in the math class. So eighth grade year. First day of school, I show up, they got me basic math again. And my teacher told me, you made the highest score of the entire grade in math, during the standardized test. And I went to the principal because the first time they said, oh, the class is full; we can’t handle it. I went to the principal on the first day. I was like, hey, I wanna be in pre-algebra, and they finally moved me to pre-algebra, and I had the highest grade in the class. I should have been taking pre-algebra probably in the seventh grade or the sixth grade, so that’s just 00:10:00to show you what happens to young Black boys in the educational system in South Carolina, where you’re relegated to basic things, even though you’re outperforming people. And I look back on that just to show you the impact of that racism. I took pre-algebra and then algebra and geometry or trigonometry, but I never got pre-calculus or calculus in high school. And then I get to college, and I have to take calculus, and I am lost. And actually that’s what sunk me. I got two Cs in math. And one of the reasons I changed from pre-med to natural resource management was because I just wasn’t prepared for calculus. 00:11:00But yes, I loved science. I loved biology. I was, like, geeking out on experiments; I would always try to grow stuff. My dad gardened, so I really geeked out on a lot of these science classes. I was the science nerd. Math and science has always been my thing. I really struggled with literature. Come to find out, I have ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder]. I didn’t know this; I guess I was intelligent enough to get the work done, but I really struggled with reading. I think there’s some dyslexia there as well. So I would have these super high math scores, and my writing was terrible, and my reading was bad. Reading comprehension was always a struggle. Definitely my brain was wired for science and really struggled with the spelling and 00:12:00literature and writing, things that I always struggle with to this day. I still struggle with writing, but give me a math equation, or tell me to explain to you some ecological process, and I can do it for days.

Amber: Did you always know that you would go to college, and what was that process like? Especially if you weren’t taking advanced classes. Did that make the application process a bit more difficult?

Keenan: My parents did not go to college, so they really couldn’t counsel or advise me on how to apply, what to look for. However, my two older cousins went to college, and that was my aspiration. And my dad always made it clear, you’re going to college, I don’t care if it’s a trade school to learn to be a welder, but you’re going to college. And so 00:13:00he had enough wherewithal to know that that was a ticket. He would always say, I want you to get a job using your brain and not your hands, but if you wanna use your hands that’s perfectly fine, too, but you’re gonna use your brain as well, while you’re using your hands. So he made a thing; we were going to college. And I also wanted to be in the NBA [National Basketball Association]. Basketball was my first love, and after a couple years of playing basketball in high school, I realized I was not going to the NBA. I always tell this story of this coach…this is a story that’s kinda related. I’m starting my first year; the next year I’m not starting. There was this freshman. [The coach] would play this freshman, and this guy would always mess up, and it was really bad, but he would always have him in the game. 00:14:00And then when we were losing, he would put me in, and I would, like, lead the team in scoring, and next game, I’m benched. I’m like, how did I lead the team in scoring one game, and then the next game, I’m back on the bench? And I finally approached the coach and he said, Chad’s gonna be a better basketball player than you. And that was such a difficult thing to hear, but it was one of the best things I’ve heard. And, yes, Chad ended up playing professional ball, and he was right, but it was one of those hard life lessons I learned about getting feedback. And sometimes it may not be what you wanna hear, but that was an inflection point. I quit basketball, and I focused on football, so then I wanted to be a professional football player. And I actually thought I had a chance probably up until college. That was the way you got to professional football. You went to college; you played college football, 00:15:00and then you went to the pros. And so I was very motivated, starting around my freshman year and sophomore year of high school, to go to college. I had over fifty offers for football, and all these very small Divison 1-AA colleges--so I joke and say Division 1-AA--and it’s called Football Championship Subdivision now--are Division 1 players, but something’s wrong with them--that one thing wrong with them. And I was just too skinny. And typically Division II players, they have two things wrong with them; they’re skinny, and they’re slow. So I went to a Division 1A school which is, like, more academic-focused schools. I had offers from William & Mary University and Tufts University and James Madison University, all these very good academic schools. I ended up going to Furman University in South Carolina because 00:16:00I wanted to be close to my girlfriend. And so this is one of those situations where I made a college decision based upon a high school sweetheart. She dumped me within two months of being in college! My parents couldn’t help me really choose or advise me from their experiences, but they did help me in figuring out where’s a good place for me to fit. And I went to a predominantly white institution, and that was another struggle for many other reasons.

Amber: Can you tell me a bit more about your experience as an undergraduate? You said that you switched your major?

Keenan: I 00:17:00started at Furman--and in high school I told somebody I wanted to be a marine biologist. And your high school counselor would show you the list of things, you take this test, and marine biologist was there, and I think the salary was like $18,000. And I still remember telling my coach, hey, I wanna be a marine biologist. He was like, man, those people don’t make any kind of money. We need more doctors and engineers; you’re really good at science. So I went to college pre-med, and my ideal was to be either a general doctor and have a clinic back in Columbia, South Carolina, to help out the Black community or to be an orthopedic surgeon and be involved in sports medicine. So, I get to college and day one, I realized how unprepared I was. I went to the best school in my district--or probably tied with the other one--and man, I didn’t realize how bad South Carolina public education was, 00:18:00relative to these kids from Connecticut and New York and all these private-schooled kids that came from the South. And they were leaps and bounds ahead of me in terms of preparedness. I mean, I still have this letter--and I’ll try to find it and send it to you and pin it to the story--my first teacher was Dr. Vicki Turgeon, and to this day, she talks about how hard I worked in that introductory to biology class. And I ended up getting a B, but she said, I’ve never seen somebody work so hard for a B. And I would always ask for these letters of recommendation. And my grades are never great. You know, when you’re applying to these internships or scholarships--you know, they were Bs. And she would write me letters of recommendation saying, his grades does not reflect 00:19:00his work ethic and his intelligence. He came from a public school system; he’s a little behind, and he plays football, and the fact that he’s still playing college football and in science is amazing. My academic advisor was trying to encourage me to be a high school teacher, and I didn’t realize she was always trying to like push me into some lower--she saw my grades and thought that was my potential. And I ended up taking a research and analysis course my sophomore year, and I think that was another big turning point. So my sophomore year was this huge turning point. At the end of my freshman year, I ended up getting in a fight with a teammate, and the resource officer that kinda did the paperwork and the reporting noticed, oh, my gosh--this guy outweighed me by a hundred pounds, but 00:20:00he had to get stitches. And he’s like, what is going on with this guy here that’s outweighed by about a hundred pounds? And he takes a liking to me. I was a person that worked at front of the dorm for the summer camps just to make some extra money. He would come to my desk almost every day and talk to me--and he mentioned he hunted, and I said hey, I always wanted to go hunting. I would watch these fishing shows on Saturdays, but hunting shows would come after, and I was always curious into learning how to hunt. He said, well, get a gun, and I’ll teach you how to shoot, and we can go hunting. He gave me a book to read about guns. I selected what gun I wanted to get; I drove to Bass Pro Shops, bought a gun, came back; I was able to put it at his house--store it there, while I’m a student on 00:21:00campus--he teaches me how to shoot; we end up going hunting, and then I harvested my first deer that year. So that was my sophomore year. In addition to that, I had a teacher named Dr. Travis Perry, and of all the people in the story, he gets the most credit for why I’m here. He really took a liking to me. And I didn’t realize until later, he saw himself in me. So he grew up in South Carolina super poor. He told me they’d had their door broke during the winter one time, and they didn’t have a door for the winter or something crazy like that. And he went to Furman, but he did not fit in because he came from an impoverished background, and so I think he saw a lot of himself in me. He’s like, man, here’s this kid that has a similar story. He’s from the poor rural South--the upper state of South Carolina--and 00:22:00I’m this kid, Black kid from the city, but he was still able to have some empathy and see himself in me. And he really coached me through that class, really helped me out, and because I harvested a deer, got interested in hunting, and because of him--he was a bat biologist; he was big into natural resource management--I switched majors. I was done with pre-med--I’m making Cs; this is tough--and I switch to him as my advisor, and then he ends up getting me an internship with the Department of Natural Resources that summer going into my junior year, and he knew what he was doing. He found the only Black biologist in the state of South Carolina, a guy named Richard Morton. And gets me an internship under him, helps me write my--you had to apply for an internship grant internally in the university--helped me with that, helped me design the experiment. I mean, held my hand through 00:23:00everything. I end up getting the internship with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and I was doing dove work. I continued to take classes with him, his zoology classes, et cetera. He always helped. He knew I had a learning disability, and he’s like, this is the most frustrating thing, Keenan, because the day before, you and I went over all this information, and you’ve been studying a lot, and you know it back and forth, and then when you take the test, you’re making a C or a B minus. He’s like, this is baffling to me; he said, you’re doing it too fast, you’re rushing through your work--because I was always the first person to finish my work--just get through it. And he would not let me leave. He, like, no you can’t leave; you could sit down, put your head down, take a nap, wake up, and look over your answers. That helped a little. And he ended up getting me another internship 00:24:00in New Mexico the following summer with the U.S. Forest Service working under another minority biologist--his name was Rene Guadarrama--he worked for the Forest Service, and this was in the Lincoln National Forest in the Cloudcroft Ranger District. And I was doing spotted owl work and checkerspot butterfly work. And from there, I was hooked. And I kinda of got pigeonholed into bird work. During my internship with Richard Morton, I ran into this professor at Clemson University. He was in Richard’s office, and Richard called me in on the radio. He’s like, hey, Keenan, get here. I think I was in the field doing something, and he’s like, come to my office. And I’m like, oh man. I’m scared. And I come in, and there’s this big Black dude there. I’m like, hey. He’s like, hey, this is Dr. Drew Lanham. And I’m like, hey, I’m Keenan. And we talked a little bit. And Drew is a rabid football fan; Clemson--he has season tickets; he’s, like, 00:25:00ten rows up. And his tickets are behind the opposing team’s bench. And it just so happened that year that Clemson played Furman and his tickets were behind the bench where the defensive line was. And half the game, this guy just kept yelling at me, Keenan, Keenan. By then, I’d forgot. He told me the story later. His family--he was like, oh, I know Keenan--and they’re like, no you don’t. And he kept yelling, Keenan, Keenan. I’m like, why is this guy heckling me; I’m not even playing; what’s the deal? And I think that really helped me. I end up emailing him saying, hey, I wanna--oh, we were trying to get an internship with him. Dr. Perry emailed him for me, 00:26:00and he was like, I’m not interested in having Keenan as an intern; I’m interested in having Keenan as a graduate student. And it’s like, sweet! Most people don’t get that opportunity, and Drew saw my grades and was like, okay, you’re playing football, and you’re doing sciences at the toughest school in South Carolina, and you got a 2.9 GPA. Good for you. I ended up getting in as a provisional student at Clemson University, and I remember going to his office saying, hey, I want to do some deer study. I still wanted to be in the hunting and studying big mammals, because every biologist wants to start studying big mammals, normally. And he was like, I don’t got any money for that; you can you can pay for your own college, and I’ll take you on as a graduate student, and we can develop a project, 00:27:00or I got this research assistantship doing bird work in south Georgia, and you’ll get paid $14,000 a year and school’s free. And my broke ass was like, okay, I’m gonna take this bird project. I just saw it as a means and an entry, but I was never this bird lover. That really grew on me later, and so here I am doing bird work, and I’m just not enthralled. I learned two hundred birds by ear, but it wasn’t because I loved to do it. It was because it was a means for me to get my research done. So, from undergraduate, I really struggled. When things were macro systems, I did really well, like human physiology. I still remember Dr. Dennis Haney--he gave a problem, 00:28:00and we had to describe what was happening in the body--he said, that might have been the best answer I’ve ever gotten; that was just an amazing answer to the question; you really do understand this system. And I didn’t realize that--just systems make sense to me and how things interact. I really struggle with the micro stuff. Microbiology is a struggle for me, but I can explain to you how things work in macro ecology. I can’t tell you about the molecule interactions, but I can tell you about what that molecule does in the larger system. So that was my entry into graduate school. Drew wanted to have a lab that was more diverse, and he purposely sought students of color because he was trying to diversify the field. I remember joking with all the folks from Black Birders Week; I was like, man, y’all don’t understand, there was like four of us. 00:29:00The fact that there was a group chat of Black graduate students in natural resources--I would go to Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources and Related Sciences [MANRRS]. There’s two or three of us in natural resources. I mean, in that type of space--in MANRRS a lot of time where engineers and other things, but the natural resources are always--or in agriculture, but natural resource management, wildlife biology, or conservation biology, they were was so few of us, and it’s been--and I still remember being in these conferences, being in a room with like a handful of people. And it’s been very cool to see this shift over time and more and more people of color in the sciences.

Amber: So, going off of that, did you ever experience tokenism within your 00:30:00institution, being one of the few people of color?

Keenan: Yeah. Yeah all the time. And looking back, I wish I wouldn’t have done it, but I got some type of grant--I mean, it was tiny, it was like five hundred bucks, and Clemson wanted me to do a photoshoot and talk about me and my life and blah, blah, blah. They’re using it for giving and, you know, and how--oh, look, this helped this kid from a lower income background. And I’m looking like, that’s five hundred dollars! If you wanna use me like that, give me twenty grand, not five grand. I would be in publications; people would want me to--oh, man, a good story. There was a job opening with the Department of Natural Resources, and this is when I was doing my 00:31:00Ph.D. at Clemson, and they wanted me to apply. It was a joint position between the Department of Natural Resources and the Forest Service, and it was maybe like an hour and some change away from school, and I was like, you know, I’m kind of interested because like my biggest insecurity was finances. Not having money was just a huge fear for me. And I was interested initially but then the more I thought about it, I was like, this is gonna impact my ability to finish my doctorate. I need to focus on that, and so I declined the interview. And one of the head guys of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources called my department chair Pat Layton and said, can you make him interview? It’s like, what! Then Dr. Lam talked to me; he’s like just do it; it’ll be a good experience. You don’t have to take the job but just apply, 00:32:00so I applied, and I didn’t get the job, and I didn’t realize they just wanted to say they interviewed a minority. Funny story on top of that, one of the people interviewing me, she was probably a district ranger or a biologist--I can’t remember what her position was, but I remember her face. And then we’re at a regional leadership team in the Forest Service--this would be thirteen years later, maybe twelve years later, and she says, you look familiar--and she was a deputy forest supervisor, and I was a deputy forest supervisor as well. She said, you look familiar, and I said, yeah, you interviewed me; you didn’t hire me. And funny thing is, we’re the same position now. I was one of those like, ahh! 00:33:00You didn’t see my potential!

Amber: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about your paths through graduate school. So you mentioned that you got both a master’s and Ph.D. Did you do those back-to-back?

Keenan: I did my master’s looking at riparian thinning and clear-cut harvesting in riparian areas and how that affected bird communities, specifically riparian obligate species, and we looked at it from a spatial extent of space on X, but also the Y. We looked at the lowstory, midstory, and the canopy. We looked at how that affected communities of birds horizontally and vertically. And I still remember doing my work, and I was like, it’s not the birds that are cutting down the trees; the problem is people. 00:34:00And at that time, Drew and I were running around a lot of ideas about Black land ownership, and I ended up applying for a fellowship that was specifically for funding Black or minority Ph.D.s to become academicians on the Southern Regional Education Board. And his wife Janice helped me edited my master’s thesis a lot; I was a terrible writer, and, man, she would red ink, and she would get so frustrated with me. It was funny, they could get mad at me for my writing, and I’m just like, I went to public high school in South Carolina! What am I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do about that? Then I ended up struggling to, again, write my M.S. thesis, 00:35:00but she helped me with my application, and she never wrote anything for me. She would always just edit, and she helped me with my application to this fellowship which gave you $24,000 a year to do your Ph.D., and it was for three years. I was like, great! I can survive into a Ph.D., and I ended up getting it. I still remember--it was August; I was close to leaving and going to live with my brother and figuring things out, and I got a phone call telling me I got the fellowship, and I was crying because I was like, oh, my gosh-- and to back up a little bit, I ended up getting in the Student Temporary Experience Program at the Forest Service during my master’s, and I would work there during the summers and sometimes during the winters, but I had a really bad experience. I actually quit, so I 00:36:00walked away from a federal job when I finished my master’s degree because I wanted to pursue this Ph.D. studying African American landowners because that was this passion project Drew and I both had. And I ended up getting a fellowship to pay for myself. The department chair Pat Layton did me a huge favor--by then, I went from token to golden child in the department, and she helped me--she pretty much said, you have a teaching assistantship. And that was how my college was--I didn’t have to pay tuition--but she’s like, you gotta teach once a semester, and of course, the professors knew that, and it wasn’t like a teaching assistant. It was like, no, you’re teaching this class; I’m getting a break. And I wanted the experience, too, because I wanted to be a professor, so it wasn’t like they were using 00:37:00me. I was like, no, let me get this great experience and be an instructor, so I became an undergraduate instructor, while I was doing my Ph.D. I wasn’t getting paid instructor pay, but I was essentially an instructor, and I taught statistics, conservation biology, non-game wildlife biology, and wildlife management. And I learned a lot teaching with other professors. It took me two years to do my master’s and then three and a half to do my Ph.D., and I did a really cool course, ended up getting a small grant from the Forest Service Southern Research Station to look at--did some work that really helped me fund my work interviewing African American landowners and did a qualitative and quantitative study. So I switched from hard science using geographic information systems, to this 00:38:00interdisciplinary science looking at land ethics of African American landowners in South Carolina, which was great because I got exposed to so much, and it made me a much better ecologist. And then finished in three and a half years. I ended up getting another Student Career Experience Program grant with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and did my work with the Carolina Sandhills, and then I was so burned out after my Ph.D., I could not fathom chasing tenure. I was like, man, I just went through five years of just grinding, and I was like, I’m gonna go just get a federal government job. I saw what I can make; I was like, in two years, I can make the same pay as a professor. I’m just gonna do that, so I ended up joining the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Florida was my first assignment. My first assignment was supposed to be Puerto Rico, 00:39:00but my Spanish deficiency really shot ‘em off, and also I think the person down here didn’t know me. They already had somebody in mind, so I ended up getting reassigned to Florida.

Amber: Do you wanna continue talking about your career path after graduate school, the various positions you held, and your thought process transitioning between them?

Keenan: I finished my Ph.D. I got assigned to Florida because they were establishing a new refuge called the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge, and they were having problems with the landowners. So in federal government fashion, they’re like, send out NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] to do the public engagement and draw this huge circle around all these private lands, and 00:40:00they’re saying, hey, we wanna develop a national wildlife refuge here, and we wanna do easements. Well, this is at the intersection of the Tea Party, so Barack Obama’s was just chillaxed in that midterm election because of Obamacare. The Tea Party is just heightened, and these folks were angry at the federal government. So, they’re like, hey, you got a good background in landowners, and you just finished your--the best part was they said, you’re a good writer because you just did a dissertation, so we need help writing. Which is hilarious! I didn’t say, no, I’m not; I was like, yeah! Sure, I can write! And I end up being stationed at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, which is actually the first national wildlife refuge established in 1903, and 00:41:00we were also over Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge and Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, and my boss was this guy named Charlie Pelizza. He’s been just a phenomenal person, another mentor. And Archie Carr is the number two sea turtle nesting beach in the world, so I got to learn sea turtle work. I got to moonlight as a marine biologist, and Pelican Island was mostly small, little visitation, but managing a rookery and trying to restore a maritime hammock forest. And Lake Wales Ridge were these small patches in the Sandhills of Florida--these small patches of endangered plants, so I learned a lot about plant ecology and fire management. We did a lot; I learned a lot about prescribed fire. I learned a lot about bird work. The cool thing 00:42:00was, now, I’m in the position to be a mentor. I mean, I used to mentor people a lot in graduate school; first-year Ph.D. students would come to me, and I had this infamous white board, and we would sit there and figure out their Ph.D. together, and I used to always tell them, your goal isn’t to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Your goal is to finish. That’s the goal. Funny, to this day, I have a friend that I helped with that named Jason Quarter, and him and I became really close friends, and he ended up mentoring Corina Newsome. That was the person that got her into birding. Yeah! Isn’t that cool? Such a small world. So, anyway, went there. During the summer, we were working on establishing a refuge, and it was all these big-time donors. It was the National Wildlife Refuge Association, which is the lobbying group for the National Wildlife Refuge System--were down there. They had the big donors, and so I was there 00:43:00interacting with these people, letting them know how hard things are, and I got tired, and I saw this middle-aged dude wearing the same polo shirt I had. I was like, I’m tired of talking to rich people. This guy--he’s drinking, and I’m like, I need a drink, so I sit there at this bar with this guy, and we’re drinking. And, of course, I start complaining about headquarters and how they’ve been in this process of trying to establish a refuge. But I’m being solution-oriented. I’m telling him my life story as well because he’s asking all these inquisitive questions, and at the end of it, I said, oh, sorry, I never introduced myself; my name is Keenan. And he said, I’m Jim Kurth. And I was like, okay, Jim, what do you do for the Fish and Wildlife Service? He’s like, I’m the Deputy Chief of the Refuge System, dummy. I was like, ahh! 00:44:00Well, he was impressed; I found out later, he went back to another person, and said, I just met the next President of the United States, which was hilarious. And he ended up--there was this conference that summer called the Vision Conference, where the Refuge System was working on their vision, and he ended up putting me on a--I wasn’t even supposed to go. I just started a year ago; nobody knew me. He said, no, Keenan Adams is coming, and he’s going to be on the panel called Refuge Managers of the Future, so I’m on this panel at this conference, and I give a speech. Tell a very similar story that I’m telling now about how--I talked more about like--a lot of my friends that I grew up with, they’re dead or in jail. My best friend just got sentenced last Tuesday. Just pled guilty to a crime, and he’s gonna spend the next three years in prison. I’m lucky to get out of the situation 00:45:00I was in growing up. I really am because I can play sports. And so I’m telling the story about this and now I’m a refuge manager. And it landed very well. And during that conference, my name kept being brought up in front of the whole--when the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service talks, he names three of the next leaders of this agency, and I was one of them, and Jim Kurth gave his speech, and he mentioned my name, so I began getting noticed, within the Fish and Wildlife Service. One thing Drew taught me--because this is what always happened at all these conferences; he said, you’re big, and you’re Black, and people are going to remember you, and that can be a blessing or a curse. It’s up to you what it’s gonna be. And Drew can work a crowd; everybody loves Drew, and I learned a lot from him about being charismatic 00:46:00and being edgy and saying things that--it’s funny the whole the best comedians or Jewish and Black because they can say things like--what it is about being a minority, but you can say things the majority can’t, and so, I’ve always been a bit of an edgy person, when it comes to saying things. I love making people uncomfortable. I get remembered; I’ll use all these skills I’ve learned from Drew to get remembered. And I met this girl there so--of course, I’m at this conference, and I see this very attractive person that’s not white. I’m like, oh, my gosh, who is this person? I need to meet her! And, of course, she just blows me off like, whatever; leave me alone. We’re talking, and she says, oh, I just saw something I’m trying to find; excuse me. And just walked away. But I’m not gonna quit, and I end up getting her number later; 00:47:00we fall in love; she’s working in Colorado, and I ended up getting a job in Colorado. We made a deal; whoever can get a job wherever somebody else is, we’re going to do that, and if it doesn’t work out, she said she would quit and just come live with me in Florida. So, I moved across the country to Colorado; I take the most bureaucratic job ever. They were starting this new refuge system inventory monitoring, and they wanted somebody to track all the work, so it can be reported to the Office of Management and Budget, so we can get more money. So essentially I was just, eh. And, of course, I did the job, and I did it well, and it was really good experience. I’m working at a national level now; I’m getting experience to OMB and briefings and got a lot of experience working at the national level, trying to implement a strategy 00:48:00nationally. But, of course, I started joining all these teams, so the Vision Conference created all these subcommittees of implementing the plan, and I just kept jumping on these teams--sure; I’ll join that team! Sure; I’ll join that team! Whatever, I’ll join that team. And given my job wasn’t too complex, I had a lot of time to read--really got a good mentor in that, where I worked, this guy named Peter Dratch. He really helped me with my writing; he really helped me with my thinking. We’re still very good friends to this day, very dear person to me. Helping me evolve as a scientist, and how I’m thinking about things. Because at the time, I was doing land management, which was science-driven, but I wasn’t really doing science-work. Well, the Refuge System said, hey, we need to revise the way we are acquiring land. We had a system called LAPS, Land Acquisition Prioritization System, and it was just completely arbitrary, this weird 00:49:00scoring system, and we knew that we could do better. And this is important because the Fish and Wildlife Service buys about, now, a hundred and twenty-something million dollars worth of land every year, so over ten years, it’s over a billion dollars that’s being protected. So I do this big spatial ecology project, brushed off my GIS [geographic information system] skills, and developed a land acquisition system that prioritizes based upon strategic objectives and wildlife population objectives. So, we went from this arbitrary score sheet to a spatially-explicit decision support tool that said, hey, where do you want to buy land? And they would know in this landscape, and we could then rank that parcel based upon biological data because we had very good bird data biologically, waterfowl and breeding bird data. So we 00:50:00developed a really cool system, and I led that whole project, and it wasn’t me alone; I had a great team of people helping, but that really put me on the spot nationally; I’m interacting with every region, all these biologists. It becomes very political because--I define politics as the allocation of scarce resources, so it becomes very political quickly, but people really respect it. I did a lot of inclusion, a lot of engagement, and from there, I got a job as the Division Chief of Scientific Resources in the Mountain West region for the refuge system, so I went from a GS11 in Florida to GS12 in Fort Collins, Colorado, working for the headquarters, and then got a GS13-14 in Denver, Colorado, and led a whole team of about thirteen 00:51:00scientists. And our whole jobs were to develop decision support tools for land managers and really help people make scientific-driven decisions. I realized there’s a big gap between land managers and the scientific community; there’s this place in between called purgatory, because somebody publishes a paper--well, that paper is just one paper in a sea of literature. And that one paper, as much as researchers like to think and make these management recommendations, a lot of times, those management recommendations don’t account for--yeah, in a perfect world, you should do that, but this person only has a budget of $20,000, so how do you implement that strategy? It’s not feasible. So a lot of recommendations are never really feasible coming from research. So I was really trying to bridge this gap between feasibility--and then the land managers are so busy and overwhelmed, they’re not reading literature and staying close, and so there’s this really cool gap in the middle 00:52:00that we can start bridging. And I learned a lot; it’s funny, one of my employees is a mentor--this guy Murray Laubhan used to work with Charlie Pelizza. He actually mentored Charlie Pelizza, so this guy mentored my previous mentor and--to back up, I had a guy named Mark Chase who was a center director, became a big--my boss became like a big brother, and I have a history of my career, up to that point, where my boss has become super close with me because I was always wanting feedback. That time that coach told me the hard truth, it taught me to take feedback, so I’m always bugging people like, how can I get better; how can I get better; what can I improve on? So, Mark Chase becomes this integral part of my life on learning how to be an executive. And then in Denver, I had a really good boss, a guy named Will Meeks, and he teaches me a lot as well. And I led a team of scientists. We would do 00:53:00stuff from black-footed ferret work, bison genetics, wetland restoration, you name it; run the gamut. We were doing all types of--grassland restoration adaptive management models, arctic greyling adaptive management models to help inform management. Throughout this, I’m taking these leadership courses, and I realize I’m a much better leader than I am a scientist because I can’t write, so I can do really good science, and then writing it and publishing it is a struggle. I think I have, like, ten unpublished papers that are ninety to ninety-five percent done that are just not across the finish line, and I need to finish them because there’s some good work that needs to get out there. So, I take these leadership courses, and one of these leadership courses, you have to do a sixty-day detail, and you do this detail 00:54:00in a discipline that has nothing to do with what you’re doing professionally. And so I was the lead for the southwest region for Congressional Affairs and Communications, and during that, Hurricane Maria happened. And I failed to mention, the person I fell in love with--we end up getting married, and she’s Puerto Rican, so I have this very close connection to Puerto Rico, and I said, okay, I gotta help. I didn’t know this, when there’s a recovery, the Federal Emergency Management Agency develops a disaster recovery framework, and they task different departments to help with recovery and develop the plan. So the Army Corps of Engineers, they do infrastructure. The Economic Development Agency, they do the economy. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development does housing. NHS does the health; there’s all these sectors--Department 00:55:00of Education does education. You have all these different sectors. Well, natural and cultural resources is on the Department of the Interior. They sent their call out and said, hey, we need a Spanish-speaking person that’s willing to go to a place where there’s no electricity and a lot of crime and basic services aren’t there for six months. And only two people applied. And the other person had zero natural resource background, but they spoke Spanish, and I had a natural resource background, and by then, I started taking Spanish lessons, so I had intermediate Spanish--because I took French in high school and middle school because I don’t know why. And I ended up being deployed to Puerto Rico, and that was the most meaningful work I’ve ever done in my life. I helped lead a team of folks to do damage assessments, engineering assessments, 00:56:00essentially to develop all this information, so a recovery plan could be written. There’s a contractor writing it, but we pretty much designed the whole thing, and that was probably when I was at the pinnacle of my leadership. Looking back on what I was able to accomplish as a leader, and that was like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe--I would have never fathomed my ability to facilitate and lead that level of excellence. And being able to have these scientific conversations but also these social conversations. It was this weird mix of recovery here in Puerto Rico. During this, I met this person during the recovery process named Sharon Wallace, and she was the Forest Supervisor of El Yunque National Forest, and she said, hey, I heard 00:57:00you wanna be in Puerto Rico full time; I have a deputy position that’s opening up for four years, do you want to come down here and work on an interagency agreement, and you can work for me? And I’ve been waiting on this person to retire for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Puerto Rico, she said, when this person retires, you can just apply for that job; she’s probably retiring next year. She’s still not retired. So I end up taking the deputy job. I said, oh, you know, there’s two of us. She’s like, well, it’s important that this person speaks Spanish because I have a community engagement position open as well, but they need to be Spanish-speaking, but what does your wife do? I said, she’s Puerto Rican; she’s from here; she does community engagement. She’s like, okay, sold. So, both of us came down here as a package deal, and within a year and a half, Sharon retires, 00:58:00and I applied for her job and got it. So now I’m the Forest Supervisor, so I was leading recovery for El Yunque National Forest, and now I’m the Forest Supervisor over recovery and everything else, so that’s how I ended up here.

Amber: Can you speak about what it’s like working in Puerto Rico, compared to other places that you have worked?

Keenan: Yeah, what a big question! So, within the first week, I was driving in Puerto Rico and--moving here--and things have normalized by then. This is the end of 2018, and I’m trying to use my cell phone to navigate, 00:59:00and I’m holding my cell phone like this, driving, and I look, and there’s a police staring at me. And in Puerto Rico, you cannot use your phone, while you drive. He signals me to pull over, so I get pulled over. It was the first time in my life I was not fearful of my life by having an interaction with the police. And I was like, oh, that’s what it’s like to feel white in America. That’s how that feels; it’d just hit me. Another story, when I bought my house in Denver, I’m wearing a collared, button shirt with a tie and some chinos, and my realtor and I are dressed exactly the same. I probably had a red and blue shirt on; he probably had a green shirt on, but we looked exactly the same as far as dress because that was the thing in Denver in 2016. Shirt and tie, very nice. 01:00:00It’s actually a custom shirt; I literally had the shirt custom made. And we walk in, and the bank says--directly to him--congratulations, and they could not fathom the fact that a big, Black guy was buying a house for that price in Denver. And my realtor was like, no, no, no, actually, he’s the person buying the house. When my daughter was born here--I’m literally wearing the same exact outfit because she was in the newborn intensive care unit; it was a day she got out of the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit], and we wanted to take her home, so we wanted to dress nice and have the celebration, and I’m waiting for the doctor to come get us, and this lady comes up to me and starts speaking to me, asking these questions because she thinks I’m the doctor. I’m like, wow! In this space 01:01:00in Denver, I was a realtor; I couldn’t be the guy buying a house, and in Puerto Rico, I’m a doctor! And I think that says enough about working in Puerto Rico. I no longer have to worry about my ethnicity when I walk into a room and how I’m being perceived. All the time, when I worked in Florida when I was working at the Refuge, people would walk in, hey, I’m looking for Dr. Adams, I’m like, yeah, that’s me. Wouldn’t believe me! We’ll be giving presentations or something, and the biotech who’s a GS5, and I was the GS11, is standing next to me--he was white--and people would go to him because they think it’s his poster ninety percent of the time. Those things just don’t happen here; it’s this level of racial anxiety that I don’t have to worry about anymore. It’s also another challenge because this 01:02:00place is very impoverished, and working in a place that’s twice as poor as Mississippi is very difficult. Working in a territory--I mean, you see the effects of colonialism here. When there’s not a voting representation, and people can’t vote, Congress allocates money; it is very reflective of not having that power. And that’s not a statement on whether or not Puerto Rico should be a state or not, but it’s just a statement on--there is an impact of not having representation, and you can see it, and it’s very real. Even me, as a federal employee, I deal with it; the allocations we get are not comparable to the allocations that other places would get on the mainland, and it’s nothing to do with anything ill-intentioned; it’s just their congressionals are knocking at the doors of the appropriators, 01:03:00are knocking on the door of the agency, and the agency’s responding to that. And over time, a hundred years of being in a forest and not having representation, it yields what we have now. So, yeah, it’s difficult; it’s safer individually, but professionally, it’s more difficult to work. Things are more expensive; logistics are harder, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world because my personal safety makes my professional challenges much easier. I would rather be here with fewer resources and feeling safe than being in the racist rural south with all the resources. So, it’s very different working here. Also culturally, it’s very different. People in Puerto Rico focus on living, is the way I frame it. It’s, how can I live, not 01:04:00work, work, work. Whereas, in the States, it’s just work; people are super anxious! I didn’t realize the level of anxiety in the continental United States compared to here. People here are not as anxious. You can even see it when people move from the States to work here; even within the federal government, their anxiety is just so much higher! Get wrapped around the axle about things that are, you know--people from here are like, yeah, okay, roll with the punches; it’ll be okay. Poco a poco, is what they say. Mañana, mañana.

Amber: You shared a bit of your experiences working in rural areas, and I was wondering if you have any advice or suggestions for other people of color that might be doing field work in those areas and ways that they can stay safe in the field?

Keenan: Get out! I’m joking. 01:05:00So, when I was working in rural Tennessee, I would go to town; people say, oh, you’re the guy that moved in town. I knew exactly what that meant, and I actually had nigger written on my windshield with a marker. At least it was dry-erase. I was thankful for that--this is a very kind racist person. And I didn’t have anybody; I was not welcomed, when I went there. There was one guy that really talked to me and invited me and just made me feel welcomed, and everybody else was super busy, and nobody ever invited me over for dinner. Nobody…yeah. Just didn’t come see me. So, yeah, it was a struggle. But my 01:06:00advice is to make sure you have a community. I drove home every weekend from there. I would drive three hours on Thursday or Friday when I finished work, and I would, then, drive back Sunday night, or sometimes even Monday morning. I would wake up five in the morning and drive, and that wasn’t a good way to experience that landscape. But my advice to folks is to find a network. When I was in New Mexico in a rural area, I was really struggling because I was living with a bunch of hippies from California, and I’m a southern kid, so, culturally--I mean, they would yell at me for eating meat, and we would hike all day, maybe, like, after work. You know, I’m tired; I’m a big dude, right? At the time, I was, like, two hundred and fifty pounds hiking all day; that’s tough! And we’d get back home from work, and they’re like, yeah, let’s go hiking! 01:07:00I’m like, what were you doing all day? These little, I call them, granola girls; they were eating a granola bar and run up the hill, but I ended up finding my fraternity in El Paso, Texas, and I would go there and get recharged on the weekends and hang out with people of color, so I would go to the Black church down the hill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. So finding that community; there’s gonna be a community of people, whether it’s a community of allies, or it’s a community from your same culture, but find them; don’t be shy! If you’re Hispanic, and you see a Hispanic person in a grocery store and hear someone speaking Spanish, start speaking Spanish to them. I guarantee you they’re like, oh, where are you from? You should come over! Because people realize it can be isolating, but really just don’t be shy; find a community, and get engaged--unless you’re introverted, and you just wanna go home and read a book every night. 01:08:00There’s just no sense of being alone and suffering through that alone and not feeling safe.

Amber: Thanks for sharing that. This is kind of a broad question, but I’m curious what about the work you do brings you the most joy.

Keenan: Yeah, it’s simple: helping disenfranchised communities. I’ve always been interested in this intersection of conservation and helping out disenfranchised communities, specifically communities of color, and we can do a lot of good at my job to expand opportunities. The nicer our facilities and the more visitation we have, the more our communities are gonna thrive economically; there may be some other unintended consequences of traffic and congestion, 01:09:00but I’m trying to figure out ways to develop these cool models. Because we’re so different and because we don’t have as much money, we have to think of very innovative ways to do work, so one thing we’re working on is called voluntourism. And the challenge is that we don’t have enough money to maintain the trails that we have; well, we partner with a non-profit that does sustainable tourism development, and what they’re gonna do is get people to pay money to come maintain the trail. The money goes to the non-profit, so they can survive; they get a cool experience maintaining a trail in the rainforest, and the rainforest gets the trail maintained. What a cool model, right? And, you know, it was there the whole time; we just didn’t use it because we were so used to, here’s our government money; we’re gonna hire some seasonals; the seasonals are gonna--the 01:10:00YCC stuff, the Youth Conservation Corps work that we do, you know. We’re selecting these kids that are in high school, and they’re getting a job during the summer, and they’re getting great work experience. I think we had applications open for like a week and a half, and we had like four hundred applicants--something crazy! So, that is very--I love being able to do conservation work and help communities that have been disenfranchised while doing it, and that, to me, is…it’s gonna be hard--you’d have to drag me from this place because I don’t see those opportunities as much in the continental United States; they’re there, but they’re just harder to find.

Amber: Can you talk a bit about ways to involve the community in the decision-making processes? 01:11:00Keenan: The management has really evolved; it used to be, we’re the manager; get out. You know, they would kick people out; they would put signs up; communities, you don’t know any better; we’re the experts. And then we went to more of a science-based approach, where like, oh, this is what science says? This is what we’re doing. We then start looking at ecosystem management of biospheres which kind of recognizes people’s role in the environment, and now we’re going to more of this collaborative co-management approach. It’s really not happening much in the States with the federal land management agencies at a big scale--one little place here and there. But decision-making has been changing over time through NEPA and the public-scoping process, and people are having an ability to give their voice to how they wanna manage their public land. You can do that process, but it’s not perfect 01:12:00because the squeaky wheels are the ones that are getting the voice, but locally, it really is about developing relationships and understanding what the community wants and engaging them when you’re making decisions beforehand, not after. And talking to them and saying, hey, this is what we’re thinking about doing; I wanna hear from you; how would you deal with it? And just truly listening, and sometimes, you don’t do what you necessarily think is the more optimal thing to do scientifically because what’s right really depends on what your objectives are, so it’s really trying to define those objectives with the community. El Yunque did a great job, before my arrival, of having that community engagement. Pedro Rios really led an amazing planning process where the communities were heard, 01:13:00and we’re now implementing those plans. It’s been tough because of COVID, you know. Initially when I got the job, COVID happened two months later, so it’s hard to show up and like, hey, all these vulnerable, old people or people with comorbidities, let’s gather together during coronavirus. They’re super vulnerable, so we really didn’t have that level of engagement, and you can’t do a virtual meeting with a ninety-year-old; people may not have the bandwidth nor the equipment to even have virtual meetings, so hopefully, we can restart that level of engagement again. But it’s just really about developing relationships and not coming with answers and coming with questions and listening, and that, to me--it’s really simple. People make all these complex models, and don’t get me wrong, I think they’re accurate, in some regards, but 01:14:00just sit down and be a human; listen to people. If you make a decision that the community may not want, at least show up and tell them about it and hear them and be empathetic. We’re doing a reservation system now, and there are some community members that don’t like it. And just explain to them like, well, my option was to close it, or do this, and I’m sorry. And the mayor doesn’t like it; I’m like, well, we had a crowding problem before, and we would close the gate, and people wouldn’t get in; now, we have a bit more predictability. It’s difficult.

Amber: With this sort of work, I feel like there’s always more things to be doing and that can be tough to balance sometimes, so how do you maintain a good work-life balance? 01:15:00Keenan: Oh, man, I was crushing it before, but now I’ve kinda slipped back into something not as healthy. It’s just intentionality; if you don’t schedule time off ahead of time, you’re not gonna take time off. It’s really just about being intentional, scheduling things for me. And I focus on life, not work. I mean, when I’m at work, I work my hardest, and there’s times where I have to work way more than forty hours in a week, and there’s times I have to do stuff at night; I don’t mind that. But you’ve got to focus on yourself, your family, your kids, your friends, you know? My weekends are sacred; not allowed to--oh, we can meet on the 01:16:00weekend. No, we’re not. We’re not gonna meet on the weekends, unless we know about some community event, and if that’s the case, I’ll take a day off during the week. But to me, it’s just about intentionality and not letting your job define who you are. A lot of people identify with--the people that struggle the most identify with their job; literally, they’re like, I’m a biologist. I meet them; [they say,] oh, I’m a biologist. Me? I’m like, I’m Keenan, and I like to fish; I like being with my kid. I happen to work here. So it’s really reframing how you identify, and I think what you identify with is what you’re going to gravitate towards and prioritize.

Amber: My next question is, what advice would you give to, let’s say, a high school student who is thinking of pursuing 01:17:00a similar career?

Keenan: Stay open-minded about what direction. I see a lot of people get pigeonholed. I wanna be a sea turtle biologist; I wanna be a bear biologist; I wanna be a [inaudible] biologist. You can’t be a [inaudible] biologist but one of a few places, right? But stay open-minded and realize that there’s so many different career paths. Say, you like accounting. Well, you can be in budget for the park service. So people always think about natural resource careers as just the -ologist, but there needs to be people doing administration; there needs to be budget people; there are engineers; there’s public affairs, communications people. So it’s a great career, and it’s just such a broad career, and you can do so much 01:18:00within that and still be connected to nature. I could have been dogmatic because I just wanted to keep being a scientist and not get into administration leadership, but here I am. It’s been cool to evolve. And maybe some people wanna do the same thing, and be a bear biologist, and I know people that bear biologist and love it. Cool. Certain people are wired that way, but I would say just try to stay open-minded and try different things and move around. And college-wise, getting experiences, try to volunteer in the things you think you’d like. Because what’s on TV is and what’s on social media is not the real world of that job; I can guarantee you. So really shadow people that are doing the job. I thought I wanted to do forensics. After pre-meds, I was like, I wanna do forensics biology, and I went and shadowed the forensic 01:19:00biologists in Greenville, South Carolina, I was like, oh, this sucks! This isn’t like “CSI,” it’s just in a lab all day; I wanna be in the field looking for blood splat! So I would just spot-shadow people; there’s many different things--and learn about it.

Amber: Another question I had was what resources do you wish you had when you were younger, as you were navigating these different careers that would have been helpful?

Keenan: Geez! I mean…ones that are actually attainable? Because I would say 01:20:00financial resources. I wish I had a writing coach to help me with applications. When I was in high school, the internet was just starting--well, it was started in middle school, but it was a very different place than it is now. It wasn’t social media; it wasn’t YouTube; you were using telephone lines for the internet, so all the video stuff’s not there, so I wish I had all these resources that people have now to learn about stuff. You had to go to encyclopedias to learn about something, or you had to go to a career fair, and now you tell people, they say, careers are on YouTube; you just view it! It’s 01:21:00hard to say something meaningful now, given that the times have changed so much, to that question, but I would mostly say a mentor in this space. I wish I would have met a federal employee a lot earlier that would tell me, I make X amount of money, and I do just fine, versus me looking at some sheet on some high school counselor’s database. I would just say that. Just finding a mentor in the field and talk to them about life and not just one because you can watch these videos--everybody’s gonna have a very different story and perspective and different path, so talk to multiple people.

Amber: What kinds of qualities do you think make for a good mentor? 01:22:00Keenan: I’ve outgrown some of my mentors in the past, so realizing that a mentor isn’t for life; sometimes they are because they’re growing with you, but sometimes, you can outgrow your mentor, but I think the key thing is that they have a keen interest in giving back. And make sure you connect. I’ve been paired mentors sometimes, but it just wasn’t chemistry. Find somebody you got chemistry with; it’s okay to--not to say everyone has to have chemistry; you can learn something from anybody, regardless of chemistry, but really find somebody you connect with and that really wants to give back and give the time. I think that’s the key, and many times, I, myself--I used to mentor college athletes; I had a lot of time to do it; my time is so limited now, given my attempt to do work-life balance. I would be a terrible mentor right now, right? Because I would not be able to--not that I don’t wanna give back, 01:23:00but finding some actual time for what you need. I still mentor a few people, but it’s like always very quick things; it’s not like this deep dive with them, where I’m like, let’s go out on Saturday, and let me show you--I don’t have time for that anymore, so finding someone with time as well. The amount of time that you need. If you just need a quick check-in for one hour every three months, okay, cool, that person. But if you need a lot of work and learning, find somebody with the time.

Amber: Thanks. I was curious if there is anything else you would like to share during our interview today? Whether it’s about your career path, what inspired you to continue on this journey, if there’s anyone else who helps support you? 01:24:00This is just an opportunity for you to add anything that you would like.

Keenan: We were doing these visualization exercises during one of these leadership trainings. And visualization is crazy; I’m just gonna say like--the mind-body connection, we’re still learning about. But we’re all visualizing our futures, and everybody, we’re going--then we have to share because it’s a leadership course. You sit in a circle, and we have to share. And everybody’s saying what they thought, and people were like, I’m gonna be this person of this position, and I’m in front of people, and they’re following me. Everyone’s talking about their career, this advancement. Like…everyone! And it gets to me, and I said, at the time, I didn’t have any kids, I said, I’m in the beach with my wife and my kids playing. And 01:25:00I share that story because I was one of, at the time, the youngest GS14 in the Fish and Wildlife Service. I fast-tracked my career; I was moving every year and a half to two years, and I realized, for me, there’s a law of diminishing returns to career advancement. There comes a point where the additional responsibility, influence, money, is just not worth it. So I say don’t be in a rush because I have essentially one promotion left for like twenty-something years of my career left, right? I mean, now I have, like, seventeen years left in my career, and I got one promotion left--possible promotion. And I don’t wish I would have--because it got me to where I am today--but, like, if 01:26:00I go back and tell myself, not knowing the future, slow down, don’t be in a rush to move around. Don’t be in a rush to move up; be present; enjoy it because being in the field as a young biologist is the funnest thing you’re gonna do in your career. And the more you advance and take on leadership administration, the less you’re in the field, the less you’re doing the work. The more influence you can have, the more good you can do, honestly, but don’t be in a rush. There’s no competition; there’s a really toxic thing going around--I remember COVID, here’s me, if you don’t learn another language and start a new business and do this, this, this, and this during the pandemic--you know, #grinding, and I’m just like, man, that’s toxic! It’s just not helpful. Just take 01:27:00your time. Focus; enjoy it, be present in what you’re doing, and then figure out what the best way to have work-life balance is. Being able to function in your job well, where you don’t have to work a bunch of hours, extra hours, to get your job done. I’ll say, to me, if you’re working a bunch of hours, either you’re not competent enough for your job, and it’s taking you additional hours to do the work that’s expected of you, or you’re overcommitted and doing more work than you should be doing. And really setting boundaries with that and figuring out, where is that place where I can function highly and not kill myself and also enjoy life, and where is that level, and where do I wanna work; what type of work do I wanna do? And then get there, and there’s no shame in having the same job for fifteen years. If you’re still doing good work, still growing, still progressing, and enjoying life. But 01:28:00for me, I love Puerto Rico because I like to focus on life and not work. My career really doesn’t define me, who I am. I told my story; I got a bunch of dumb luck, you know, I got in a fight, and that led me to natural resources, and then I get drunk with this one guy, and he ends up being the Chief of the refuge system, and he helps me propel my career, and I met an advisor who had football tickets behind me. Like, I’m here not because of my individual merit. I’m here because of just dumb luck. And understanding that helps me realize, like, be thankful for what I have, but 01:29:00it your career doesn’t define you because I could have had a very different career, and I would still be the same person, had it not been for those dumb luck opportunities and random events. For me, it’s been tough navigating white spaces in the STEM field. And they’re dominated-white spaces just because--I’m thankful my dad grew up in the civil rights era, so he taught me that I have to work twice as hard as everybody else. I’m glad he did, but it shouldn’t be that way, and it’s difficult, and it’s really important to build your community within that field just so--a lot of people are not gonna be able to understand your experience. 01:30:00I’m not gonna understand what it’s like to be an immigrant, right? So just build your community of people. If you find yourself in a toxic situation, don’t be scared or fearful to take it on, and if it’s something that you don’t think is gonna change, then, you know, get out of it. There’s other opportunities. It’s not your job to be the person that changes the toxic culture, or it’s not your job to educate everybody on racism; it’s not your job. And people are always gonna tag you to be on all these diversity and inclusion teams, and if you have the energy to engage in that and help, great. Do it. But if you don’t--I was so thankful I was working here when the George Floyd incident happened 01:31:00because if I was in Denver, I would’ve had a line of people outside my door wanting me to help them with their emotional labor, and it would have been taxing. And I had people calling me…all these people randomly calling me--I don’t know what it was; it was weird--and [they’re like,] are you okay? And it’s frustrating because you’re just like, I’ve been trying to tell y’all about this my whole life. Because I had friends [that were] like, why are you always talking about race? My white friends [would say,] why are you always talking about race? Because I can’t help but talk about that; that’s my experience. So you don’t have to take on that additional burden for your career and what you’re doing. It’s not your job. It’s not your job to help people stop being racist. It’s just not your job. 01:32:00Amber: All right. Well, thank you very much for participating in this interview, and if there’s anything else that you would like to add at a later time, you can definitely reach out to me. It was very interesting hearing all of your stories, and I appreciate it.