Job Title: President and Founder

Organization: Plisko Sustainable Solutions, LLC

Career Overview: Joan creates customized strategic sustainability policies and programs that help her clients achieve triple bottom line results – good for people’s health, good for the earth, and efficient/cost effective.

A Day on the Job: Joan has several clients. For example, at Pearlstone she is the Community Sustainability Director, weaving sustainability into the operations and working in Baltimore’s Jewish community to provide education on environmental and environmental health issues. For MedStar Harbor Hospital, she helped develop and implement a green infrastructure master plan and is now working on staff, patient, and community education related to it.

Skills Needed: Education, community service, and experience are needed. As a consultant you need to have a network of connections as potential clients. Interpersonal, organizational, and technical skills are essential.

Education: Joan has a PhD in Environmental Systems Engineering from Clemson University, a ME in Systems Engineering from University of Virginia, and a BS in Commerce and Engineering Sciences from Drexel University.

Experience and Training: She has worked in the private and public sectors and has volunteered on boards and commission. She currently is a mentor for women entering the sustainability field and starting their own businesses.

Personal Career Path: Joan’s first mentor was her father, a PhD chemist. He is now 83 and always understood the type of work she was doing and gave sage advice. He volunteered in the community and Joan knew that was an important aspect of life that she should emulate. Right now, Joan and another woman who owns a small business mentor each other. They meet regularly, have walking meetings a lot and we help each other in a non-competitive way.

Pay and Job Outlook: The outlook is bright and there are so many aspects of sustainability – energy, water, soil, health – a lot of opportunity to find a niche that aligns with your skills and passions. Joan believes that as a woman it is important not to undervalue her services. Favorite and Most Challenging Aspect to the Job: Favorite: Flexibility. Joan creates her own schedule and is selective on who her clients are. She brings passion to each and every project that she works on.

Challenge: One of the challenging things is having a very small business, and not having somebody to collaborate with every day. She chooses a collaborator for every project.

Advice for Young Professionals Interested in This Career: Balance is really important and so is creativity. Think about what helps you thrive and really remember that even if you are walking down a certain path you can turn directions at any point.