Project Geologist, Nina, has a new found love besides studying rocks. This year Nina and her colleague, Katie, pursued their interest in flower farming and design for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members of Singing Frogs Farm in Sebastopol, California. CSA members receive 12 quality flower bouquets delivered at pick-up sites in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, and Petaluma throughout the summer. Nina and Katie managed the entire project from crop planning, to marketing, harvest, and design with support from Paul and Elizabeth of Singing Frogs Farm. Nina and Katie currently have 20 Flower CSA members including our Vice President Mike Purchase and membership is growing. They have also sold their flower arrangements at farmers markets and even provided arrangements for a few weddings and local events. Check out their amazing work below.
Mike Purchase Hits 20 Years at Orion!
Congratulations on our VP for reaching 20 years at Orion! Mike started at Orion in 1999, opened the Berkeley office in 2003, and is now our chief operating officer. He has helped shape Orion’s organizational structure and culture in a manner that will support our continued evolution and growth as a company. Mike is a tireless advocate for our staff and is a mentor for staff and managers across the company. His ability to connect and communicate with Clients, understand their needs, and develop value-added solutions using his technical prowess is impressive. Even more impressive is his desire and ability to transfer this knowledge to Orion's staff and create tomorrow's leaders. Mike’s hard work and commitment to excellence inspires all of us to achieve our goals every day at Orion, even if those goals are starting a Bread Club.
We want to thank Mike's family for sharing him with us. Thank you to
25 Never Looked So Good!
It’s the day staff look forward to the most each year, Orion Day! Orion Day is our annual meeting where all the offices congregate at Long Beach HQ for a little B&B (business and bonding). Each Orion Day starts with a review of the year-to-date (State of Orion) and a little professional development before ending with a team building activity. And it wouldn’t be Orion without some grazing in between with this year’s lunch courtesy of The Kroft (www.thekroft.com). Orion Day 2019 was extra special because it corresponded with Orion’s 25th anniversary. After reviewing the financials and discussing effective task delegation, staff presented Orion’s founders and owners with some special gifts to recognize this special milestone. After the celebration, we got competitive. The admin team created a scavenger hunt with an Amazing Race twist to close out the day. Randomly selected teams were given a series of missions to complete in the place where it all started, Long Beach. From
2019 Career Day at Johnson Middle School!
Orion was invited (for the 4th year!) to speak to middle schoolers at Johnson Middle School in Westminster, California. Jeff, Orion's president, described what it's like to be an environmental scientist, geologist, or engineer.
He talked to three groups of 20 to 30 students over the course of the morning. The 8th grade class had eight different careers to choose from, and this was a great turnout for future environmental professionals!
Jeff spoke about the type of people who work at Orion, the kind of work environmental consultants do, and the best high school class subjects to study when preparing for college and an eventual career in environmental science or engineering.
A few weeks later, Jeff received some wonderful handwritten thank-you cards from several students. He'll be back in 2020!
Orion Volunteers to Make a MakerSpace Happen
In May and June of 2018 Caryn, a Senior Project Geologist in our Burbank office, busted out her calculator and sharpened her pencil to volunteer for a grant writing committee to fund Cypress Elementary’s MakerSpace. What’s a MakerSpace you ask? It’s a way to inspire innovation and fuel creativity by providing a space and materials to build whatever you can imagine, create movies, and learn coding. Caryn contributed by providing the grant budget and performing the final technical review of the grant application. In August 2018, Cypress was notified that their funding for the space was approved through the Harriet H. Samuelsson Foundation. In May 2019, Cypress Elementary held a ribbon cutting ceremony and opened the space to students for use during recess and class time. The space even made it into the local newspaper,
Bread, White, and Blue
Members of the Orion Bread Club came together this past Independence Day holiday to exercise their right to bear arms… full of baking equipment and ingredients! Believe it or not, the Club needs to fine-tune their methodologies even after 100’s of hours of practice and passing judgement on Great British Bake Off contestants. The main objective of the event was to troubleshoot and obviously the Club used the scientific method.
- Loaf too flat? Let’s check on how active your starter is.
- Bread too gummy? Hands off! Let the dough rest to prevent overdeveloping the gluten network.
- Looking to give your loaf an extra zing? Add a handful of chopped rosemary for a savory blast of flavor.
Each clubber gave a tutorial during the bread-making process from mixing and flour:water ratios to shaping and scoring. They were on a roll! A total of thirteen loaves were either baked or ready to be baked by the end of the night. And what’s the
Orion Sponsors Annual Panthers at Sea Event
For the fourth year in a row, Orion was fortunate enough to sponsor local high school students in the annual Panthers at Sea event at Shoreline Marina in Long Beach, California. This year’s event was held on 11 May 2019 and was sponsored by the Panthers at Sea Committee with support from the Seal Beach Yacht Club, Shoreline Yacht Club, Long Beach Singles Yacht Club, and the US Sailing Center. The Panthers at Sea Committee works with the Long Beach Marine Bureau and Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) to provide students from Long Beach Jordan High School with a day on the Pacific Ocean.
During the event, small groups of students along with
ORION FOURSOME KICKED PUTT AT PEMA CHARITY GOLF TOURNAMENT
Despite what our parents may think, it’s not all scale bars and bar charts at Orion. When we’re not chipping away at our clients’ environmental problems, we’re shankin’ shots on the fairways for a good cause! Orion participated in the 22nd Annual Professional Environmental Management Association (PEMA) Charity Golf Tournament in May 2019. The golf tournament, held at Coyote Hills Golf Course in Fullerton, was PEMA’s most attended tournament to date and raised over $46,000 for two charities: St. Vincent Meals-on-Wheels and YMCA Community Services (New Horizons and Inclusion Programs). This was Orion’s fourth year participating in the charity golf tournament. Orion’s foursome included Burbank-based senior project managers Matthew and Caryn, Long Beach-based project scientist Adair, and one of our industry clients! Thankfully, the
Orion Hires New Director of Business Development
In April 2019, the Long Beach office welcomed Jack to the team. Jack is an accomplished business development executive with over 20 years of experience in environmental consulting. He will be leading Orion’s business development efforts in marketing our core business values and strengths in investigation and remediation services. Jack has extensive experience in geology, environmental site assessment and remediation, environmental compliance, and water and wastewater management.
During his spare time, Jack enjoys spending time with his family and traveling the world. He has visited Europe, New Zealand, South Korea, Fiji, and Caribbean. Last year, he rode his motorcycle through the Alps for two weeks.
Welcome to the team, Jack!
Workplace Culture Takes on New Meaning at Orion
In between seasons of The Bachelor and Bachelorette, the crew at the Long Beach office love watching The Great British Bake Off in the lunchroom. Everyone knows that no one makes a better pork pie than Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith’s pate choux swans are simply breathtaking. Like everything else at Orion, a committee was needed to nurture our aspiring home bakers and thus was born the Orion Bread Club. At Orion, we like to keep things simple and baking bread is no exception. Water, flour, salt, and some time (no tears, never tears) are the only ingredients you need to make bakery-quality bread in the home kitchen. The first step for naturally levained bread, or bread made without store bought yeast, is to simply mix flour and water and get your sourdough starter started already. Over time, the starter becomes heavily populated by lactobacillus, a genus of Gram-positive, facultative anaerobic or microaerophilic, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacteria (DUUUHHH!).