Name: Wes Floyd
Hometown: Charleston, S.C.
Major: Sustainability science
Expected Graduation: 2014
Meet Wes
By serving as an intern for the city of Greenville's Green Ribbon Committee, I've been able to play a role in the city's sustainability efforts. On a daily basis, I examine what other cities are doing to be more sustainable and identify ways to apply it to Greenville. I look at things like mobility, transportation, energy and buildings, waste and recycling, education and green spaces. In the process, I helped the city develop a project tracker to monitor its progress toward different goals.
Best of list
I got to hear some inside information about a new park they're planning for the West side of Greenville and another hearing about selling the gas from a closed landfill.
Being able to attend conferences and meetings that a regular citizen doesn't have access to. It's being on the inside looking out instead of the other way around and I've enjoyed that. I'm also hoping to wrap this internship into another one in Charleston and do a case study between the two cities for my thesis.
Proposals and ideas take a long time to come to fruition in the government. But governments do a lot of good and there's real change that comes from within those entities. It's very important to pursue ideas, just as the City of Greenville is doing.