Peter Zaykoski is the South Portland program manager and acting as the staff for the State of Maine Joint Environmental Training Coordinating Committee (JETCC).
Q: What is your current role at NEIWPCC?
Peter: I recently transitioned to serving as the South Portland program manager in South Portland, Maine. I was previously in the Lowell, Massachusetts office where I was a program manager for Hudson River projects in the Water Resource Protection Division as well as the quality assurance program manager. I will continue to serve as the quality assurance program manager, providing oversight for all quality assurance activities at NEIWPCC, including review and approval of Quality Assurance Project Plans and updates to our Quality Management Plan.
Q: When did you start and what initially drew you to NEIWPCC?
Peter: I started at NEIWPCC in September of 2018, and at the time I was looking for a change professionally– something more aligned with my experience in environmental science and water policy. I have never seen anything quite like the model here of working closely with state agencies and other partners, as well as the work itself.
Q: Which of your contributions or projects have you enjoyed the most?
Peter: Rather than an individual project, a component of my role in Lowell that I really enjoyed was being able to facilitate the work of other people. I was able to help staff members in our Hudson River programs do cool and interesting work and projects including topics such as climate resilience, habitat protection, and eel monitoring. I got a lot of satisfaction laying the groundwork to actually get these projects done.
Q: What have you learned from working at NEIWPCC?
Peter: One of the fundamental tenets about how NEIWPCC works has been a good lesson for me. A primary job is to connect and collaborate with people from across the industry and region on clean water issues. From this, I have seen how necessary it is to have network facilitators and to engage your partners and colleagues to get things done.
Q: What is your favorite aspect of being a part of NEIWPCC?
Peter: I get to work with great people. One of my favorite things is part of the staff onboarding process, where I perform a required training through my quality assurance role. I meet every single one of our new employees. It has given me a lot of perspective because I’ve been able to meet people in different roles and see a lot of the work we do across the organization.
Q: What is your favorite outdoor activity?
Peter: I like to do all things outdoors, but my favorite is alpine skiing because I can really push myself with it. I was on the alpine ski team in high school, and our giant slalom races were at Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks in New York. We’d race on the women’s slalom Olympic run, which was neat because we were skiing at the same place they held the Olympics back in 1980.
Q: Tell me a fun fact about yourself!
Peter: Okay… back in high school, my friend and I bought a school bus from a rafting company in my town. We spent a couple of years ripping out the seats, putting in carpeting, knotty pine panels for walls, and tie-dying giant cloths for the ceiling. We never took it anywhere because the insurance would have been ridiculously expensive, so it just stayed parked in my friend’s father’s construction lot. It was our place to hangout.