This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I'm your host, Mac Pritchard. I'm also the founder of Max List.

It's a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helped you find a fulfilling career.

One of the best ways to get good at job hunting is to talk to people who do it well.

That's why, once a month, I interview a Max List reader who found a job they love.

Our guest today is Melanie Clem.

She's the Northwest River Restoration Director at American Rivers.

It's a nonprofit that works to safeguard the 4.4 million miles of rivers and streams in the United States.

Melanie joins us from Corvallis, Oregon. Melanie Clem has

seen firsthand the difference a network can make in a career. In a story you can find on the MaxList

website, Melanie says that her professional connections helped her pivot from the private to the

nonprofit sector and found the job she has today.

Why do you love your job, Melanie?

Yeah, thanks back. I love working at American Rivers where I can really use the combination of my talent, skills, and experience

to make a really meaningful impact of difference in our communities. Everywhere in the Northwest, the rivers are so important to our life, to our livelihoods, to our wildlife, to our health of drinking water.

And we have about 9,000 dams in Oregon and Washington alone, and many of those are impeding those important river processes that support healthy

communities and abundant wildlife. So in my role as the Northwest River Restoration Director,

I get to engage with people and identify dams that are obsolete, not longer serving a purpose,

or there's an option to meet the need, like a water diversion in a lower impact alternative.

And by restoring the free, cold, clean water, by removing the dam, we can have such a positive

impact on river health with a really minor intervention.

Well, let's talk about your job search.

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