Alabama Public Television presents in partnership with the State Personnel Department, Alabama Career Connection a unique look at jobs available in Alabama state government.

All coming up right now on Alabama Career Connection.

Hey, y'all.

It's Governor Kay Ivey.

Welcome to Alabama Career Connection.

This program shines a light on the many departments within our state government and the diverse careers available right here in Alabama.

Serving the people of our state is a rewarding experience, offering the chance to make a real difference in our communities.

Whether you're interested in education, public safety, health care, or technology, there's a place for you in state government.

So if you're looking for a career that makes an impact, I invite you join us in building a brand of future for a home in Alabama.

As I always say, let's get to work.

I work in the State Revolving Fund section at ADAM.

One of our goals in the State Revolving Fund is to make sure that the people of Alabama, all people of Alabama, have safe and clean drinking water, as well as access to sanitary sewer where they live.

Our primary goal is to make sure that we ensure public health and safety by doing drinking water inspections across the state, ensuring that all the water providers are adhering to regulatory standards.

I am a hydrogeologist with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

I regulate gas stations, so whenever gas stations have releases above or below the ground, I assist them in cleaning up their contamination.

So our job is to prepare forecasts for each of the metro cities in Alabama.

Our forecast is for public health, so if you see those pollution levels get high, then we're going to put out a health alert for the public.

Our job is to protect people, so that's what we forecast.

One of the neat things about my job is I get to travel the state.

I don't have to stay behind a desk all day.

I get to go from the top of Alabama to the bottom of Alabama.

One of the great things about coming to work in my office in the State Revolving Fund section is that I immediately was assigned a mentor to help me adjust to my new job and learn all the different things that we do so that I could become a part of the team and participate and have a meaningful impact in what I'm doing and be able to just start immediately helping and participating on the team.

This job is very rewarding.

I get to travel the state.

I get to help protect the public, ensure we have safe drinking water.

I get to meet a lot of different types of folks all the way up from mayors all the way down to water operators.

I love the state employee benefits of off time.

It's very family friendly, family oriented.

I work Monday through Friday.

In my specific field, I don't do a whole lot of travel, so I'm always at home with family.

I really love working at ADEM because one of the things I was looking for when I was job hunting was a job where I felt like I was making a difference in the community.

That's what I found at ADEM.

What's really neat is we're helping people from all over the state, like I said, to have safe and clean drinking water.

I feel like I'm making a difference in the world and my community.

I really enjoy working here at ADEM.

The professionalism is amazing, but more so, it's a very laid back and a family oriented work area, so I really enjoy that.

I would tell a friend to work here.

The benefits are wonderful.

The work atmosphere is fantastic.

The leadership is really good here too.

I would say just the best piece of advice for coming to work at ADEM is I'm always going to say just have your work ethics because you can make your position into what you want it to be.

The Alabama Securities Commission's mission is to oversee the securities industry in Alabama.

We are committed to protecting investors against investment fraud and ensuring integrity in Alabama's capital markets.

We work closely with the Alabama Legislature to pass laws to deter fraud, protect seniors, and also to help facilitate responsible capital formation, especially in the areas of small business development and promoting entrepreneurs.

There has been a strong emphasis on protecting older investors and enhancing laws to punish the criminals who seek out older victims.

Alabama is considered one of the leaders in protecting older investors.

The Alabama Securities Commission sets a high standard in the securities industry nationwide.

Our legal division has one of the highest prosecution rates in the country.

The Enforcement and Legal division often partner with other states and federal agencies to combat fraud nationwide and to develop uniform policies.

Our Licensing and Registration division ensures that financial professionals possess the education and background to work in the industry and that they are complying with the Alabama Securities Act.

Our Education and Public Affairs division travels across the state providing investor education and fraud prevention seminars for investors young and old.

The investing landscape is changing rapidly and so are we.

We commonly investigate multistate crimes.

So typically I'll be in a Zoom meeting with probably 100 plus people all trying to collaborate to take down a major company that has defrauded victims all across the country.

I think that is probably one of the most unique things about working here at this job is having to collaborate with people that I've never met in person.

But we all have the same goal.

One of the things that I really look for when I was looking for a role is something to do that makes a difference.

That we can empower people and really impact change and just it's immeasurable how much people are able to learn something from our presentations.

Anytime we get to hear that somebody learned about the red flags and they were able to protect themselves or they didn't get scammed because they heard something from our presentations.

You just can't measure that value.

You have to have a four-year degree to work here.

I would advise getting a college degree in some type of financial background such as economics, finance or accounting, because a lot of what we do involves that and that would make your on-boarding process when you first start here much easier to learn the terminology.

ASC is leading the charge in fostering financial innovation while protecting the investors of Alabama.

Every day is different and we have an opportunity to positively impact the investing landscape for Alabama investors.

What we do today will influence future generations and how they plan their financial future.

I am proud to lead this team of professionals and I hope you'll consider joining the Alabama Securities Commission.

A helping profession and working with people and counseling people is one thing.

But making a difference in somebody's life, especially in terms of work and employment and their self-worth and somebody who didn't think they could and now they are and they're contributing to society and they're doing, they're reaching their goals and their dreams and their maximum potential, that's what we do.

This job, if there's a beginning, there's an end and that's the best part about it.

Whenever I usually get my consumers, they're usually sitting on a couch, been there for a few months, maybe even some years and I give them their white cane and show them how to use it and very soon after they can make their way to the mailbox or get on the bus and go to Walmart and get a personal shopper.

For the deaf community, it's a lot about communication.

The reward for them is retaining their job.

A lot of consumers that are hard of hearing are already working.

So they come in and they need to retain their employment.

You know, they get a lot of unwanted backlash on the job for not being able to hear and understand their co-workers and supervisors and so they need our services to help them retain their jobs.

I was helped when I was going into college by vocational rehabilitation.

I'm upfront, so I feel like I can really relate to the people coming in and put that smile out there and help them feel welcome and comfortable and I just love doing that every day.

Oftentimes I have seen my consumers believe that they will never become successful.

And really that has made me motivated to help show them that that is not true.

There are so many ways that we as deaf people can do it and once they got in, they start to realize and begin to start feeling better about themselves and start feeling successful.

I love working with the people here, both staff and consumers.

I love seeing people grow in their careers and in their jobs, whether they are our consumers or our staff.

I love teaching people what I know about my job and about, you know, I've been here 30 years and I've kind of learned a few things and I love sharing that with others.

It's very rewarding to me because I feel like I'm able to give back to the community, give back to the families and the children that are in need.

There's always room for growth.

I don't have to stay in this position.

I have ladder if I choose to move up, which why would I do that?

My job is amazing.

But if I wanted to, I could move up into another leadership role and that's super cool.

In five years, I would like to see myself right here doing what I'm doing, helping the community that I'm helping.

I had no idea about the services for deaf and hard of hearing and I'm learning and I want to grow in that area.

As far as my job, I am basically the chief accountant for the state.

All of the funds that come in and out of the state come through our office.

So our office is responsible for where different things, like if you go buy a car tag, where that money goes, we put that in the right account so that it can be dispersed correctly.

We have about 170 agencies that do business with us.

So they bring in all of their deposits come in through here.

All their payments go out through here.

But also we pay the state employees.

So we have about 33,000 state employees right now, and all the employees are paid out of our office.

I initially did not think about coming to work for the Department of Finance Comptroller's office.

I initially wanted to go into private, either private accounting or tax accounting.

At first I was really nervous about it because I did some research online and I was aware of some of the responsibilities and the importance of the comptroller's office had on the operations of other state agencies.

I feel like that was also the reason why it made me want to come here, because I wanted to be in a position that was important, that handle important duties.

People think of accounting, you know, you have your head down, just crunching numbers all day.

It's really not what we do, not what I do.

At least here.

If you are not sure about what you want to do in life, accountants will always have a job, right?

We'll always have a job in the accounting field in state.

There's struggle right now to hire people, so there's job opportunities.

Anyone interested to work for the finance department, I would encourage to reach out and definitely pursue that as an option.

It's a great place to work.

They offer career development.

I started, you know, at the bottom, you know, and over the years, I am now an accounting manager supervising for individuals.

They really help us grow in our careers.

They help you find every avenue you can so that when the promotion comes, you are ready and you are knowledgeable and able and you just keep on climbing the ladder.

If I knew of someone looking for a job, I would definitely tell them, look for the state, not just as an accountant.

So my entire family works for the state.

And they didn't start out there, you know, but they found as they watched different people, you know, watched what I got, how I have interacted in the state.

Sometimes people think, oh, I'm going to be enticed into this other area, that maybe the state is not for me.

But then once they get to looking into it, it looks more like, oh, you know, we have, they have holidays.

Have all the holidays.

Have a very generous leave policy.

We also have very good benefits.

You know, I could have retired nine years ago.

I'm still working today because I enjoy my job.

And I'm not the only one.

There's multiple down here that could have retired.

But we love our job.

We love coming to work.

We are a state agency.

We've been here for 40 years.

We were founded in 1984 by legislative act.

Our job is to compensate victims of violent crime any financial expenses associated with their victimization.

We compensate them and try to either pay for that or to reimburse them those funds.

That includes medical expenses.

If they're involved in assault, we pay for sexual forensic exams, we pay help us with funeral expenses, moving expenses if that person is in fear of where they live, we pay for lost wages if they're out of work because of their victimization, and then if it's perceived to be some lost wages for the future income, we look at that as well.

So we are, it's a phenomenal agency that I don't know of anywhere else in the state that we actually serve crime victims and help them try to become whole again after their traumatic experiences.

A lot of the victims will have medical bills, and they will be bombarded with calls from collectors about those bills.

And they've already been traumatized.

So a lot of times I'll get a call from someone and they'll be crying and saying, you know, why did this happen to me?

I didn't, you know, mean for this to happen.

And, you know, we try to explain to them that we know it wasn't your fault and we're sorry that you've been victimized, and we're just here to try to help as best we can.

We can't give them a whole lot, but we can help ease that burden some by taking some of those medical bills off of them and paying for some of them.

Yeah.

At 17, I have access to full health insurance at a very good price.

I have retirement that's already accruing and building.

It's a really good, really good opportunity in that regard.

In 10 years, assuming I'm still working here, I would like to be a specialist at the very least in 10 years.

This job for me is rewarding because we get to help families who are experiencing hardships from violent crimes.

Being a resident of Montgomery, Alabama, there's a lot of families that have come through this agency that I personally know, and I just appreciate the fact that they're the agency that exists that help families who struggle.

Working here is an excellent opportunity.

It's a good environment.

Obviously, we help a lot of people, and it's a really wonderful spot for me to be able to start off.

I've always been a fan of growing our own.

I like to hire them young and raise them up to learn about the job and have the experiences and to move them up.

We've had a lot of opportunities for advancement here within our organization.

When I see the potential and the ability to be able to promote someone, I take advantage of it because I think that's the best way that I can show my loyalty to my employees is giving them the opportunities to advance and do well.

A lot of people don't know that one-third of every bite of food that we eat is the result of pollination from bees.

It's critical that we continue to keep the honeybees around.

And we even, you know, promote it even with backyard beekeepers.

We need bees, not just the large-scale beekeepers that we call commercial beekeepers, but also what we call backyard beekeepers as well.

So one of the things I like most about this job is the variety in what I get to do.

You know, the greater good, helping producers throughout the state instead of individual animal medicine and producers was very appealing.

We're here for our producers and our growers to make their life better, to make their businesses better.

We're checking the nutrients and contaminants in animal feed and fertilizer for the state.

We're testing all the feed and fertilizer that's moving in the state of Alabama.

We want to make sure that crops are growing and that people are getting what they paid for and that the animal feed is filled with nutritious ingredients and that it really holds the manufacturers accountable.

We administer programs to help prevent and control diseases among the livestock and poultry.

So we spend a lot of time with emergency preparedness, just in case there is an event in the state.

There are other days I get to be in the field.

Yesterday, today a little bit I'll be in the field, which keeps it a little, you know, exciting and different each day.

I've always enjoyed working for the state.

Hey, you get sick leave, you get annual leave, if you need to be off, I mean, there's a lot of flexibility with being able to get off and we have a lot of freedom on this job.

We love it that we can have families and we have tremendous benefits.

We have great leave time.

It's been a very, very nice place to work.

I get to spend more time with my family than I did when I was in practice, which is a benefit I have two kids and so that's really important to me to spend more time with my husband and my kids.

This lab is very family oriented, so we celebrate birthdays, we celebrate work anniversaries or just significant achievements.

Great team, easy to work with, I have a great supervisor.

The whole plant division is just, they're very supportive.

We laugh a lot and we have fun and work hard, play hard kind of mentality.

We have a great working relationship, team mentality, almost a family, just good people, to be honest.

So, I would say don't be intimidated.

You can start a job right out of college here, you don't have to have any prior experience and this is a great environment to work in.

We have our lab family, but we also have our AG family.

Seriously consider it and do it.

It's been great for me, I've been with the department for almost seven years and don't have any regrets at all with this move.

Get on the state website, personnel.alabama.gov, fill out an application.

Not only does that open up opportunities for Department of Agriculture, but any state agency.

So at EMA, I'm over the planning section, which involves natural hazards, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes.

Then I'm over plans as well.

Emergency operations plans, COOP plans, which is continuity of operations plans.

So if it has the word planning in it, I do it.

The one major thing that kind of really got me thinking was Hurricane Helene.

When we were in Montgomery at the National Guard, and we were.

We were there all day, we were going to go all night.

So some employ, you know, some staff members did go all night.

And what we saw and how you interpret the information and then send it out to the public, it was, it was something to see.

And it makes you feel good.

Even though it's disasters, I feel like I'm helping and doing a positive thing.

And I think that's our goal is just to help and try to do the right thing.

And we're pretty good at it so far.

I feel like it runs very well.

I like it because they don't treat you just like an accountant.

Because at most agencies you don't get to go places and you don't get to experience things.

But with Alabama EMA, you get to go places, you get to experience things, you get to go to conferences, and you're not just stuck in your cubicle counting numbers all day and you help the state.

I mean, the most rewarding times is during the Selma tornadoes that happened last year.

You know, that area doesn't have a whole lot of resources, but we made sure that they had what they needed, you know, with the recovery and everything.

They're still trying to recover, but, you know, we're still there with them.

We'll be there until the end.

And Hurricane Sally.

Hurricane Sally was in 2020, which everybody knows that 2020 was a very trying year because we also had Covid.

You know, we had to get FEMA in, but we worked jointly to make sure that those citizens down there, especially, you know, in Baldwin and Mobile county, those guys definitely get, you know, their fair share of hurricanes down there.

So resources could be possibly limited.

But we made sure, you know, through the recovery that we were there for them.

It's a very good work environment to work in.

And that was.

That's something I've seen just in my two months that has really made me realize I want to keep working there.

I'm in for the long haul.

This is a great agency that I've learned because I've been to a couple of different agencies, but this agency is really good because we're like a family in my accounting department.

We really are a team and teamwork makes the dream work.

I've always wanted to go into management and I have been afforded the opportunity with my supervisor currently.

So I would like to continue on with the growth.

I've had growth here at EMA and just would like to continue to grow.

If you are a people person and you like to help people and want to help the community or the state, you need to apply.

The main thing I want to say is to thank everyone for their interest and possibly working at the ABC Board.

The ABC Board does some various things.

In particular, we do business regulations, so we protect the public.

We monitor labels of products coming in.

We also try to make sure that responsible adults have an enjoyable experience in a responsible way.

We do provide funding for various state, city, and county agencies.

Last year, we provided over $350 million of funding to the General Fund, the Education Trust Fund, various cities and counties, as well as Department of Mental Health and Human Resources.

I began my journey here seven years ago.

I started as an entry-level warehouse worker.

Four years later, I became warehouse operations director.

So they give you a testimony of how growth and prosperity you can receive here.

I'm really trying to move as far as I can to pretty much move the ABC Board into the future.

We have artificial intelligence now.

We have a new warehouse that we're about to build.

So it's going to give a lot of people an opportunity to be successful.

Oh yeah, there's positions all over Alabama.

And I started off as a sales associated and I floated for a year and I say floating is a really good thing to do.

If you like being in multiple places and seeing a lot of things, I love floating.

It depends on how your family operates and what works better for you and your family.

Oh, yes, sir, yes, sir.

With the ABC Board, we have over 100 stores.

So you're not just tied down to your local county.

If you want to move to the beach, be down by Mobile or up in Birmingham or wherever, you're free to move.

I started off as an operational tech.

I started here in December, and I have already got promoted within six months, seven months of being here.

I just look forward to see exactly where my career goes within IT.

It's an agency that makes people happy by providing good products.

It also protects people, and it provides funding for people.

We're one of the agencies that the state does not provide any funding to.

We provide our funding through our operations.

It's a good place to work as an agency of the state because we have state benefits, we have retirement, we have health insurance, we have generous leave policies, the number of vacation days you get.

It is a good place for a family to work because we have a very family-friendly place.

And in fact, I retired or was about to retire from the state, and I decided to come to the ABC Board because of the atmosphere at the ABC Board, the people here at the ABC Board, and some of what we do.

So it's the only agency in the state that I stayed out of retirement for.

I encourage anybody, if you want to work in a fast-paced environment, being innovative, come build your future with the Alabama Beverage Control Board.

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Alabama Career Connection, Sundays at 1pm on Alabama Public Television.