How to Start an Environmental Career (Without Losing Your Values) with Andrea Everett

How to Start an Environmental Career (Without Losing Your Values) with Andrea Everett

From Indigenous Earth Community Podcast by Frank Oscar Weaver

October 19, 2025 · 37 min · Episode 60

About this episode

Andrea Everett discusses how to pursue an environmental career without compromising personal values.

Want a green career but worried you'll have to compromise your values? Andrea Everett from the Pueblo of Ysleta del Sur shows there's another way. Andrea shares how she turned her midnight business decision into MatriARC PROJECTion LLC, a drone and GIS mapping company that serves communities instead of extracting from them. She reveals why she turns down high-paying work that doesn't align with her Pueblo values, and how that actually attracts better opportunities. You'll also hear the inspiring story of how a group of Pueblo women came together after Feast Day to reclaim their traditional farming roles. They secured land, built two hoop houses, and are now growing ancestral seeds: Hopi corn for ceremonies, Pueblo chiles, tobacco, and marigolds for Day of the Dead. Healing in community while creating a foundation for the next generation. What You'll Discover: How to break into GIS and drone careers Why staying true to your values attracts the right work Starting a business with just faith and a grant that showed up unexpectedly How youth learned to fly drones while connecting with sacred sites and elders Traditional farming techniques: three sisters planting, waffle gardens, soil…

People in this episode

Host: Frank Oscar Weaver

Guest: Andrea Everett

Topics covered

  • environmental career
  • values in business
  • drone technology
  • community healing
  • traditional farming
  • GIS mapping

Keywords

  • environmental career
  • drone
  • GIS mapping
  • community
  • traditional farming
  • Pueblo values
  • Hopi corn
  • ancestral seeds

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MatriARC PROJECTion LLC

Books & works: Braiding Sweetgrass, Radical Cartographies, Muskogee Tools of Futurity

Places: Pueblo of Ysleta del Sur, Hopi, Pueblo, Day of the Dead

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