Staff Spotlight: Anusha Sridhara
Anusha Sridhara was “in a frenzy,” she remembers. She wanted to find work in the US. But she had just completed her master’s in environmental science and management at UC Santa Barbara and, as an international student, her visa required her to find a job within just a few months of graduation.
Then an opening came up with Sustainable Northwest. Anusha had project management experience. Her master’s thesis aligned with some of Sustainable Northwest’s work in natural resource management. And she had worked for Wallowa Resources, an Oregon environmental nonprofit Sustainable Northwest helped create in 1996.
“So all of these things came together and it felt like a good fit,” she says. “Our objectives, and just what the organization does and what it stands for, are very fulfilling.”
Now a Program Associate on the Green Markets team, Anusha is part of a group program that helps small businesses get Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, and much of her work centers on supporting current members and growing the program by adding new ones.
Sometimes, her work takes her outside the office and into the field. When taking forest tours and meeting the people who manage them, she says, “Those are moments where I’m able to connect the work that we do to what’s actually happening out there in reality.”
Working for Sustainable Northwest has also connected Anusha to other women and women-owned businesses in the wood industry, which has been among the most impactful aspects of the job. “I guess, being a woman myself, it shows that, yeah, there are many things that women can also do in this basically male-dominated industry.”
A lot of her inspiration also comes from her colleagues — people like Paul Vanderford, who she admires for being both an interesting and insightful person to talk to and learn from: “It’s really inspiring to work with such people,” she says.
When she can, Anusha enjoys traveling and seeing new places. In May, she visited Vancouver, Canada for an FSC audit, and it has since topped her list of favorite travel spots. Her other likes include dogs, okra, and kindness — a virtue she says is underrated.
