Talk on the Wild Side
with Christian Spilker

Transcription

Vikki Locke

Hi, I’m Vikki Locke with C2 Communications, and this is Talk on the Wild Side. We talk all about jobs in conservation, and it’s brought to you by the Florida Wildlife Federation. We welcome to the show, Christian Spilker. Hey, Christian.

Christian Spilker

Hi, Vikki.

Vikki Locke

Christian is CEO of land for Collier Enterprises. Why don’t you give everybody a little background about your company?

Christian Spilker

Sure. I work for the Collier family, who the county is named after, long-time stewards of the land down here, landowners for over a hundred years. Our company has a diverse array of assets, a lot of agriculture, real estate development, oil and gas, you name it. We probably have our toe in the sandbox there. A matter of fact, a lot of what people know is Collier County with its 80% preservation, if you go look at the history of that preservation, the Collier family was probably involved in that as well, the establishment of Corkscrew Sanctuary, part of the Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, The Panther Refuge, Collier-Seminole State Park, Fakahatchee Strand, all of those that the Collier family was involved in getting those established. Long legacy of land in this region.

Vikki Locke

Absolutely. I love this story that you established your love for conservation when you were a kid all because of a book. What was that book?

Christian Spilker

I was raised in a military family, and we moved with high frequency. Books were often a retreat when you’re in the middle of establishing new friends. I was in the Midwest in Ohio, sixth grade. My parents got me Jacques Cousteau’s first book. It was at that point in the middle of nowhere that I decided that I wanted to be a marine biologist. Read that book, and I ultimately remember going and hearing his son speak publicly, and it just fueled the fire, and I ended up choosing marine biology as a career path.

Vikki Locke

Were you able to tell anybody in his family about this?

Christian Spilker

No, but I did get to stand up and ask a question, which I will always remember. My wife got me a signed autograph by Jacques Cousteau, which I have in my office.

Vikki Locke

How sweet is that? Exactly what did you study in college?

Christian Spilker

My undergraduate work was marine biology, and also, it sounds extremely similar, but it is separate. I double-majored in marine fisheries as well, which is a separate area of study. Then, when I got out and went to grad school, I was really interested in wetland ecology, and especially in marine ecology and wetlands. Focused on that and got a master’s in environmental science with wetland ecology. From there, I ended up going into consulting. Consulting in the private sector for companies that wanted to do preservation or restoration of wetlands, companies that wanted to do species surveys, if they were going to create impacts and the responsible way to do so. It was a great career.

Vikki Locke

Do you think it’s important to have a college degree in order to get a job similar to your own?

Christian Spilker

I certainly think that in order to have credibility in the sciences, you need a pretty strong background academically. They usually look for, at a minimum, your bachelor’s and oftentimes, entry-level management, it’s going to require a master’s degree.

Vikki Locke

Tell us a little bit about the fire program. When I hear about starting fires, especially if there’s any land involved, I think of the California wildfires and how bad that is, but in your situation, it’s all a good thing.

Christian Spilker

It is. You had asked me about land management. One of my roles here is to help oversee the large number of holdings. We run an active ranch here jointly with the other half of the Collier family, the Barron Collier Companies, we have about a 60,000-acre ranch. It’s one of the largest ranches in the US cow-calf operation. In doing so, we use prescribed fire as a tool. It’s exactly for the reason you described, it’s to avoid the California wildfire scenario.

Our state is one of the highest per capita per acre rates of lightning strikes in the country, perennially, almost always number one. Our ecosystems in this area have been adapted to fire. Unfortunately, when we build, we tend to artificially suppress that fire. As a land management tool, we do is we inform our neighbors, we work with Department of Forestry, and we go in and we carefully light fires when fuel loads are low.

By doing so, you’re adding nutrients to the system, you get a lot of wildlife utilization, the cattle like it because they get fresh grass, and you keep that risk of big out-of-control fires down because there’s just not that material in there. The other benefit is that most of our native species out here are adapted to that fire, but a lot of the exotic species don’t like it. They weren’t from those ecosystems that are used to that fire, so it helps keep down exotics as well.

Vikki Locke

When it comes to the land, conservation doesn’t really work without a lot of planning. As you just mentioned with the fire program, I assume that takes a lot of planning, and everything you do takes a lot of planning.

Christian Spilker

It does. That’s the beauty of being interested in a job that involves the environment. There are so many arenas for that and so many experts that you tap. If I’m going to do prescribed fire, we would work with our neighbors, the Florida Panther Refuge, who also does prescribed fire and wants to make sure they can use it. We’d work with, as I said, the Department of Forestry, which another state agency, we might work with a non-profit that wants to do post-burn monitoring and go in and look at the impacts on exotic species or the health of native species. Every one of those is career path for somebody who has an interest in ecology or biology, and something like that touches on every one of those.

Vikki Locke

What gives you the greatest satisfaction in your work?

Christian Spilker

Wow, that’s a loaded question. Here’s the thing, I chose maybe a non-traditional career path for a biologist. I’m CEO of a development company, but I believe that some of the greatest conservation outcomes occur in the private sector, because sometimes, we don’t have the red tape, or the barriers, or the funding restrictions that some of the other folks have to deal with.

I look at what we’re doing, I look at the family I work for and their legacy, and I take the most satisfaction in adding to that legacy because we are going to have in a program that I have been working on, one of the largest private conservation initiatives east of the Mississippi, and as a habitat conservation plan that Florida Wildlife Federation is also involved in, and the end result will be over $1 billion of private land set aside for permanent conservation at no cost to the taxpayer, and that’s quite a legacy.

Vikki Locke

That is unbelievable. How long has this project going to last?

Christian Spilker

Well, it will be in perpetuity. It has taken a good 20 years of working on it, and I think we’re on the verge of seeing it go across the finish line here with all luck. From there and on, it’s a 50-year program laid out, but the conservation measures would be there forever.

Vikki Locke

Let’s wrap up. Any advice you have for students listening right now, thinking that they love conservation, they love the planet, they want to save the planet, what should they do?

Christian Spilker

Well, one, I would always encourage somebody to follow their passion. Sometimes, the career paths are not obvious. I have this discussion with my college-aged kids all the time. I had no idea where I would end up in this. I knew that I love Jacques Cousteau’s book, and I wanted to follow marine biology with the same passion he had. I was lucky enough to do so, and so I would say, follow your passion, get in there, and jump in with both feet and see where life takes you.

Vikki Locke

Great advice. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Christian Spilker

Thank you, Vikki. Take care.

Vikki Locke

Thanks to the Florida Wildlife Federation for sponsoring Talk On The Wild Side, and keeping the wild in Florida since 1936. You can learn more going to their website at floridawildlifefederation.org.