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Show 87 Sometimes he brought Jan and her younger sister to a wholesale flower market in downtown Los Angeles. As Mr- Knight checKed potted plants for parasites, the girls sniffed the spicy and sweet fragrance of newly-cut blossoms, watching local florists choose the prettiest ones for their shops. Most interesting to blond, green-eyed Jan were the trap runs to look for Japanese beetles or fruit flies. In Mr. Knight's area, thirty insect traps had been set up in people's yards. Jan looked on, fascinated, as her father sorted through the contents of each trap to discover whether any of the dreaded pests had slipped into the state. Perhaps as a result of these early excursions viith her father, by the time Jan reached her senior year in high school she began to think about a career in natural resources. It vias 1973 - all across the country, interest in conservation and ecology vias high. "I didn't have a very good idea of what kind of work it would be," Jan says. "I didn't know what those people did, really. From the high school library I got the addresses of colleges that offered ma'jors in the field and I virote to a few of them, asking whether there were any problems for viomen entering those professions." When the replies began to reach her, Jan vias most impressed by a letter from Thadis Box, the dean of the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. He wrote: As far as the kinds of jobs available for women are concerned, I am happy to report that the field has never been better for viomen than it is now. Many of the government agencies in particular are making a concerted effort to increase their number of viomen employees. |