Memo+1+-+Project+hopping

Rogat Memo 1 - Project Hopping

1- Making the Troy Country Club More Sustainable
 * Topical area
 * My research would focus on the barriers and pathways to making an establishment/business, such as a country club, more sustainable. This would include how the place is ran and the practices it uses. The study would look into the politics involved, they relationships between the club and the community it is and the one it is in, and the actual changes that could be made, how it could be economical and good for the environment instead of the idea that it's environment vs profit... There is a lot that my research could focus on, I could do a broad overall study of the process of making a country club more sustainable or I could hone in on one or two specific aspects. The Troy Country Club is a country club with a golf course and restaurant. I had this idea to make the club more sustainable by looking into where the food is sourced, what happens to food waste, what is the current waste management and recycling situation, how the golf course is managed in terms of lawn care, fertilizer, and types of turf, water management for the golf course as well as the whole building/grounds, energy usage, and that ties into the building envelope and air/ventilation systems... the list goes on. This is a members only country club, and some of these members have has families in the club for generations. I know that there is a definite sense of a community at the country club I presume would help to gain support for any changes towards sustainability and improving the club in general. Connecting the club's efforts to what is going on in Troy and Brunswick would be beneficial in terms of networking for local services and resources.
 * Data Sets
 * Case studies of other country clubs, golf courses, and restaurants moving towards sustainability
 * I have been working there for a little over a year so I have access to any info I ask for from the Manager, Grounds Superintendent, Clubhouse Manager, Controller, the Board Members, the House Committee and more. I have worked directly with everyone that runs the place because the club is relatively small, and that furthermore means that everyone knows each other well and has a good standing relationship for the most part. I feel this would help my research because people should be very willing to help me find any information I would need.
 * a nalyze and take a status of current resource and energy management
 * look into member approval - take surveys/interviews, ask their opinion on becoming more sustainable, see if there are members with careers that involve anything useful to this change, see if they have any suggestions
 * reach out to members who could participate by networking or providing a service
 * Social Theoretical Questions
 * Regionalism instead of globalization being beneficial for the economy
 * Can it be economy and environment rather economy versus environment - sustainability can be profitable
 * community support and interaction matters in the success of a sustainable movement, or probably any social movement for that matter
 * effects of becoming more sustainable on the people involved, how improvement in an economy isn't just growth and an increase in GDP but more to do with the economics of happiness in a society
 * how a movement can overcome institutional pressures by bringing forward community desires
 * Why Now?
 * I've worked at the country club for a little over a year now and have been promoted to Administrative Assistant. My manager who has been working at the club for over 10 years, Elizabeth Ryan, is all for sustainable practices and encourages my interest and research in this field completely. I feel as though I am in the perfect position with extremely good timing to put myself and my thesis research to good use. Not only do I have support of my manager, but RPI has an account with the country club, and I'm sure there could be some way to expand on that relationship to help bring in research or intern opportunities to help move this along. On top of that, the club is in the town of Brunswick, right up the road and neighboring Troy, which has a composting and food movement underway. The sense of the Troy community wanting to improve their city has been building for a while and there are many initiatives underway that if the club took part in would help pave the way towards becoming more sustainable.
 * Country clubs have a sort or reputation for being very old-fashioned, not just with societal behaviors like dining etiquette, but also for being sexist for not promoting women to certain positions, racist for not allowing people of a certain ethnicity becoming members, and for being more on the right wing side of politics. Since it has a golf course, they are very well-known for being wasteful with resources just for cosmetic sake of the greens, with the fine dining in the restaurant they are also known for serving foods that are out of season and the guests being very wasteful with refusing the idea of taking home leftovers... Basically country clubs have a bad rap for their practices and the ignorance of their members that they aren't aware of the need for change or improvement. With this new day and age though there is this idea of bringing in the new generation of members and shaping up the place to their likes and views. Hopefully this could include becoming more sustainable in an effort to decrease the establishment's impact on the environment.
 * How prepared? / What do I bring to the study?
 * As I've mentioned before, I work at the Troy Country Club. I started out bussing in the restaurant a little over a year ago, and after 2 weeks I was promoted to a server. This past June (of 2013) the Board Members and my manager promoted me to Administrative Assistant, so I serve in the restaurant part time and work in the office part time. The Admin. position had been vacant for a few years(?) and one that I had started fulfilling on my downtime at work by helping out with paperwork and other necessities in the office. So I have worked hard and moved up in the club in a very short amount of time, and have developed a good relationship and gained recognition among the Board Members and management. That being said I feel that if I shared my research with them they would be interested and supportive in seeing a few of the projects actually happen. Not only that, but since I have worked there I have a better sense of what strategies would work because I am familiar with how the place is ran, have an insight to how decisions are made, and would already have an understanding of the proper and more lucrative channels to go through for certain things.
 * As for contacts, I would consider every member at the country club and even their coworkers and associates as contacts because you would be surprised at the amount of networking that goes on at the country club and the openness to which the members are with their work life. There have been countless times I have been asked about my studies and if I'm looking for an internship or job, have been asked for my contact information to pass on to someone working on a local project that might need an intern from my field, etc. I am sure that once they knew, members would come forward to give advise or even a helping hand if they had the right expertise to lend. An example of one person I know of for sure is Paul Murphy, the President and CEO of Murphy Foundation Consulting Services. From his Linkedin page he describes his firm as " Management Consulting firm specializing in public and private sector economic development issues, grant funding and financial planning for business/government partnerships, government and small business collective bargaining/arbitration consulting. Other areas included: Green Business Solutions and Greener Communities Programs, Capital Project Program Management in Guam and Asia/Pacific region, Climate Action Plan development for business and government." He was having dinner with a Board Member I was serving dinner to one evening and asked about my studies. We quickly got to talking about his career, he even offered me an internship, and I told him about wanting to change some things at the club, he offered his assistance for if I ever needed it! So right away I know of a close contact!
 * Sympathies and aversions I could leverage... I am now working under my third different General Manager since I started working there. This new GM, Bob, doesn't seem to be much of an environmental conscious person, and who even knows if he will still be at the club next month! A way I can get my research approved and gain access to all the info I would need would be to present to him the very possible economic profit from it and how transitioning the club's image this way would be good for business. If I wanted to get approved by going around him, then I could very easily go straight to the Board Members themselves, who act as his boss, and present my research ideas and findings to them. I already have a better established relationship with them to begin with. Then there are the other Department Heads like Chris who is the Grounds Superintendent. I found that he is knowledgeable in using native plants in landscaping and he always using biodegradable products in his practices, so I know that he is already environmentally conscious and I have a feeling he'd be thrilled about my work. The fact that everyone at the club already knows me will help with the research because people will understand where my motives for the research are coming from and know that I just want to help improve the place and give back some of the kindness they've shown me.
 * I have an Associates in Liberal Arts: Sciences from Dutchess Community College and am studying for my Bachelors in Sustainability Studies at RPI. I am minoring in economics and have taken classes throughout my studies that have centered on sustainability, the economics of becoming sustainable, reviewed actual principles and guidelines that businesses have used successfully to shift their practices towards sustainability, among other things. So I have a general background knowledge that will help with this research. I also have experience in some field research with doing interviews, surveys, gathering data from areas on my own, etc.
 * Bias
 * Since I am a Sustainability Studies major that's minoring in economics, it's pretty clear I already have opinions on whether moving towards sustainability is needed and feasible and why. The fact that I have worked at the country club does give me great and useful insight, but it does also have the drawback of making me biased and have some judgments about the place. This could close me out to some ideas that I might have otherwise considered, but I will try my best to remember that and keep myself as open-minded as possible. As with any job, some coworkers get along with each other better than others, meaning there are some tense connections that would bias me to how they effect the research and success of projects.
 * Fields of Work
 * Sustainability
 * Community Development
 * Resource Management
 * Systems Efficiency
 * Waste Management
 * Supply and Demand Networking
 * Materials Research
 * Food Systems
 * Economic Development/Researcher
 * Corporate/Social Responsibility
 * Data Collection
 * Funders
 * I would start with any members at the country club to see if they were interested in my research and would be willing to help fund me. Some of them would have businesses that would be interested in funding my research, others would know of the right businesses that would be interested in funding my research. Again, Paul Murphy would probably help me with funding and finding more funding. Mr. Bouchey, the member he was dining with, is a Board Member that owns his own finance consulting company, I'm sure he would gladly direct me to the right people that would be stakeholders in the club and community willing to fund my research.
 * Then I would go to the Albany's Center for Economic Growth and explain everything to them and see if they would help fund my research.
 * On the NSF Funding website I found that I would apply for funding through these programs:
 * Cultural Anthropology
 * Economics
 * ====Partnerships for Innovation: Accelerating Innovation Research- Research Alliance (PFI: AIR-RA) - their recent awards went to studies/projects that had to do with renewable resources, and resource recovery and recycling. They might be interested in this research. ====
 * Environmental Sustainability
 * Science, Technology and Society
 * Sustainability Research Networks Competition (SRN)
 * NSF Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability Fellow
 * NSF Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability Fellow