Knocking on the right doors

Fresh off completing his undergraduate degree in environmental science at the University of Redlands, Sam Irvine ’13, ’17 found himself traversing the neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon, selling carbon offsets in an effort to combat climate change.

Knowing he was capable of more, Irvine decided to go back to school and, through a friend, found the Presidio Center for Sustainable Solutions.

“They told me that Presidio was focused on sustainability, impact investing, and it has a policy program, which is how I ended up there,” he said.

Today, Irvine serves as a senior strategic initiatives manager for MCE, a not-for-profit public agency that provides greener power to homes and businesses in California. However, the path from Portland's doorsteps to California's clean energy grid didn't happen overnight — it started in a classroom in Redlands.

A foundation built at Redlands

Irvine arrived at University of Redlands in 2009 with an early interest in solar and renewable energy. What he found was broader than expected. Drawn into coursework that included conservation biology and marine ecology — including study under the late Professor Monty Hempel, a leading voice in marine conservation — Irvine began to see the natural world not just as a system to study, but as a place where decisions were constantly being made about who gets to use it, develop it, or protect it.

A May Term trip to Palau made the world outside Redlands impossible to ignore: hotels going up along the coastline, eco-tour operators expanding rapidly, and local communities fighting to hold on to waters they'd stewarded for generations. He came back to campus with a new lens on what he was learning about climate change and ocean acidification.

“Redlands gave me a science-based foundation with a touch of, ‘here's how policy impacts that,’” he said.

After graduation, the question about policy remained, growing with his work in Portland.

“I was motivated to get to the right folks, pull the most levers, and make the most impact. In order to be taken seriously and do what I want to do, I needed to go back to school.”

Finding the leverage point

Irvine enrolled at Presidio in 2014, pursuing the Dual Master of Business Administration in Sustainable Solutions and Master of Public Administration in Social Justice and Sustainability — a program that placed him at the intersection he’d been searching for.

There, he observed that the private sector and the regulatory world weren't opposing forces — they were two sides of the same coin, with Presidio's experiential learning model placing him in between.

Through a project with the City of Berkeley, Irvine discovered how to fund a newly passed climate action plan. Through a fellowship with Environmental Entrepreneurs, an affiliate of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), he helped build the economic case to extend California's climate and energy targets from 2020 through 2030.

“That resulted in extending the law even though we were outspent by oil-based fossil fuel interests, 10 to one on the budget,” he said.

The project was a step toward his career with MCE, where he oversees the company’s virtual power plant program.

“It was literally this direct connection from Redlands to Presidio, Presidio experiential learning, to a specific consulting opportunity which led to a grant, and then taking my graduate school learning into the job I have now,” he said. “The best solutions are ones that take into consideration the community and not just the profit motive.”

For students still looking for their leverage point, Irvine's advice is simple: “Go with curiosity. Find opportunities to work with your network because you never know where those opportunities can lead you.”

Discover environmental science and the Presidio Center for Sustainable Solutions at Redlands.