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'm Lance LeFleur, the Director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

The mission of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management is to assure for all citizens of Alabama a safe, helpful, and productive environment.

It's a mission all of ADEM's nearly 600 employees are committed to meeting.

Alabama is blessed with incredible natural resources, from sandy coastal beaches to scenic mountain ridges, from almighty rivers to treasured lakes, from thick forests to bountiful farmlands.

Our state has it all.

Alabama is also perhaps the most biodiverse state in the country, with more native animal and plant species than anywhere else in the continental of the United States.

Many of those species, in fact, are found only in Alabama.

I get to work with nonprofits, local municipalities, and schools and universities to provide federal funding to do water quality improvement projects.

And that can be anything from renovating a farmer's market to building a pa rk.

Another big aspect of my job is that I get to go throughout the state to each school and educate children about water quality and water pollution and how to reduce that pollution.

In my job, I am able to be a part of monitoring and protecting our streams in Alabama.

One way that we monitor our streams is by collecting macroinvertebrates and bringing them back to the lab to identify.

That It gives us a lot of information about the health of the stream, like whether it's impaired or not.

My group regulates the industrial facilities, and we do that by monitoring air emissions and ensure that they're at certain levels, it will be protective of the public's health.

We got a great team atmosphere.

We've always had great supervisors, and they allow you to do research and recommend strategies, and then your teammates, you can go ideas off of them.

It's a great work environment where you really feel like that your voice is heard and you're allowed to.

Five years from now, for me, I would hope that that means that I am a supervisor by then.

That's an aspiration that I do have to move up.

Since I've been here, I've been here for going on six years now.

Then the next step for me is a unit chief, and then beyond that, section chief, who knows, potentially a branch chief, and maybe one day I might run the place.

Protecting the state's To get this plentiful natural resources and rich biodiversity, as well as our people from the effects of pollution and environmental degradation, is the core of what ADEM does.

To meet our mission, ADEM employs hundreds of dedicated individuals.

They include engineers, biologists, geologists, chemists, and others.

These professionals come from diverse backgrounds and work in various capacities to safeguard our air, land, and water.

ADEM even has a team from meteorology meteorologists to forecast pollution levels in the atmosphere.

A career at ADEM is both challenging and rewarding.

I hope you'll consider joining us.

I'm Kenneth Boswell, Director of ADECA.

ADECA's mission is to positively impact Alabama through a range of grant programs that help build better communities.

Our programs help expand Internet to unserved areas, help communities complete important infrastructure projects, help build new trails, assist abuse survivors, and provide emergency aid to lower home energy costs, to name a few.

We have a team of dedicated planning and economic development specialists that manage every aspect of these programs.

While the work can be challenging, it is also very rewarding.

Our team goes home knowing that the work they do each day improves our communities and quality of life for our residents.

I work at ADECA.

I'm a Planning and Economic Development Specialist IV.

My job as a PEDS IV is to secure funding from the federal government to administer programs throughout the state that help communities in Alabama.

Specifically, we work with low-income families throughout the state.

Our job is to make sure that the funding gets to the local agencies who administer direct services to clients.

This program is called the Victims of Crime Act.

And what we do is we administer money to agencies that are going out and working with victims who, whether it's child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, substance abuse issues, neglect issues, elder abuse, human trafficking.

These are people who are experiencing the worst things imaginable.

And what these agencies do every day, and what gives us a sense of pride in what we do is that we help enable them to provide those services.

I would say the most rewarding part of my My job is actually being able to go out on site visits upon project completion and being able to just see the community, the citizens interacting and playing.

Maybe we granted funds for a playground, seeing the children on the playground, seeing citizens walk the trails, and actually being able to walk the trails myself.

Being able to provide award funds that help them is very rewarding to me.

I didn't know anything about ADECA before I applied, and it was a shot in the dark.

But when I got here, there's so many avenues that are in ADECA that you can get your hands on.

Sometimes you find stuff that is close and personal to you that you can really find and build a career in.

Apply for everything that you qualify for.

There's always opportunities to work with the state.

There's various positions all over the state that help individuals and help communities grow and things of that nature.

I would say, apply.

It's a wonderful opportunity to work for the state.

Great retirement system, great benefits.

Apply.

Don't wait.

Apply.

So down there at the Marine Resources Division on the coast, we're managing all of the commercial, recreational saltwater fishing.

So we have all the oystering, the crabing, the shrimping, the gillnet fishing, all the red snapper fishing offshore.

Then we manage the seafood dealers to make sure that they're getting sustainably harvested product to sell to the public.

It's a very fun job.

I was asked before, what's a day like in my job?

And I said, if I had a job, I'd quit.

I have opportunities.

Every day I have opportunities to watch our staff do great things for the state of Alabama.

I have opportunities to meet with the public and see what works for them in the fisheries world.

What can we do to make their life better?

What can we do to make their angling better?

And how do we make their jobs better?

Because those people that work in the seafood business, it's very important to them.

We're a real tight-knit group.

We manage a facility that requires 24 hours a day care.

We have specific roles that have to be done.

The job can be very routine, but it's also very rewarding.

We get to contribute to our natural resource, which we all went to school to get degrees to protect or to be a part of the site of conservation.

It's cool being able to put your hands on and physically touch what it is you're impacting.

Well, for most of our employees, you're out in the boat, either in the enforcement side when you're out on these really nice 30-foot long vessels with the two outboard motors and you're out there working out on the water.

It's just a fine day.

Then we have our biologist for our fishery section that are doing a lot of the data collection, doing some shrimping, catching some of the oysters, some of the crabs, doing a lot of other surveys just to make sure what the population of our seafood resources are so that when we set the seasons and how we harvest those, that they're being sustainably harvested so that we can enjoy them now, but we'll have seafood for future generations.

We all work together for a common goal.

We have a variety of positions.

On our fishery side of the house, we have a scientist.

They work to study the different species here in Alabama and help develop fisheries management plans.

Then we have our enforcement staff.

The enforcement staff is tasked with ensuring that people are following the rules and regulations that have been laid out to manage those species.

This is a luxury being able to live somewhere like Alabama's Gulf Coast.

It's the beaches.

It's our number one tourist destination in Alabama is our Alabama beaches.

We get to live it and be a part of this community.

Then when we come to work, we also get to stay here on the Coast and be on the water and part of the environment that drew us it in the first place.

If you want to join the Marine Resources team, decide you want to be on the fishery side, are you a scientist type person?

Then apply for things such as our biologist aid jobs, our biologist ones and twos.

If you're an enforcement type, you can apply to be a conservation enforcement officer, and all of those are available through the Alabama State Personnel website.

You put in an application, and I always tell people to be patient.

It takes time.

It's a process, but we're continually looking for good people to fill those positions.

It's really if you love being outdoors, you love being on the Coast, especially if you love being on the water, this is the job for you.

This is the place that you can really have a career where you spend most of the days doing something that does not seem much like work.

As executive director of Alabama Public Television, I'm excited to share a little bit about who we are and what we do.

A lot of people don't realize APT is not only a trusted media source, we're also a state agency.

We operate much like a traditional TV station, with professionals in video production, engineering, accounting, news, and education.

Our educational team works closely with teachers and childhood educators throughout the state, providing essential training and resources to support learning.

We're also proud to tell the stories of Alabama, showcasing our state's history while connecting it to the Alabama we know today.

And one of the most critical roles we play is as a partner to Homeland Security and State EMS.

Maintaining a reliable statewide network for disaster communications, AMBER alerts, and other emergency updates.

I love this job.

I love the people I work with.

I feel like APT is one of those unique agencies that not only brings entertainment to the people of Alabama, but also education.

Advice I would give to a friend who wanted to come work for APT is we work hard.

We go all across the state.

We have to cover all points of the state.

Be ready to roll up your sleeves and work.

Even though we're flexible, we're still working hard.

So come in ready to work, but we also have fun, and it's a family atmosphere.

Bring that with you.

It's a great place to work.

APTV is a great place if you want to work part of the educational system.

There's a lot of great products that they put on the air.

They have a network called the PBS, which is nationwide.

If you're a person that loves education and loves to be part of the community, APTV is where you would want to be.

I look at the people who work here as being very intelligent, very creative.

No matter if you're the CEO or you're just an assistant, you're willing to help out when needed.

That's how we work here.

It's a great place to be.

We have days off, lots of days off.

We get those, so that's a plus.

I don't know.

I just work with great people.

I just love everybody here.

We've all become such a huge family.

I would say, don't hesitate if you're thinking about it and you've heard things about the state, come see for yourself.

I enjoy every aspect of my job.

I enjoy getting up every day and coming to work because I never know what I'm going to get into.

Oh, love the retirement about to come my way when I get a chance to retire.

That's the whole reason why I went to go work for the state.

If you're thinking about applying for a position here at Alabama Public Television, I highly encourage you to do it.

This is like one big family.

I wouldn't want to work anywhere else.

We're proud to serve the state of Alabama in so many ways, and we'd love for you to consider joining our team.

I think this is one of the best, most important agencies in the state of Alabama.

Every time that there's a tax increase or there's a tax that's been in the Constitution or in the law, our department is the one that goes into state agencies, to local governments, to local boards of education.

We go as far down as sheriffs and DAs and look to make sure that those taxpayer funds are being spent the way that either you voted on or the legislature voted on for them to spent.

We make sure people aren't stealing the money and that they're using it in a productive way to make society better.

For me, working in this job, I feel like I'm helping to protect the public's interest.

There's a lot of different disciplines and fields you can go into with an accounting degree.

This one, to me, is very interesting.

It's not just the routine, same thing every day, day in, day out, but you're using that basic knowledge you learned in school and applying it.

I've been with the Examiners since 2006.

At the time, I just wanted to do something that wasn't mundane.

My current job was like that hamster wheel.

You go to work, you do the same thing, you clock out, you go home.

With this, it is definitely not a hamster wheel.

I would say you would definitely need a thirst for knowledge.

It's continual learning.

You don't just come in and have everything you need.

If you're one that likes status quo, this is not the job for you.

You have to have a quest for knowledge, a desire to learn, and the inquisitive nature.

I say more like being a detective.

It's definitely not a boring routine job.

You're doing audit after audit, but all of them are a little bit different.

You're learning a little bit about each office as you go in and go out.

I really like the benefits.

It's great.

I was on my dad's insurance when he was a state employee, and it's just the best, and the people are great, too.

I love the stability as well as the benefits It has great insurance.

I have a small child, and you never know what could happen.

I love the fact that I can go to the hospital and I know that he'll be taken care of without fear of receiving a big bill or anything like that.

That's my favorite part.

At some point, I'll like to retire, and those benefits will be good, too.

But I enjoy just working for the public, too, and providing that public service, public benefit.

We're in need of a good bit of employees.

We want those that have, obviously certain degrees, accountants are very important to what we do, but we have other disciplines that we hire from.

We have some with finance degrees, economic degrees, criminal justice degrees.

Those are all important when we're going in and evaluating and examining different entities.

It is very important to me, not just that you're educated, but that you have a heart for service.

It is very important to me that you understand what we're doing and want to do something to make government and make Alabamians' lives better.

If you're interested in finding out more about these jobs and many others, please scan the QR code on the screen or go to our website.

We have an agency of 830 employees.

We're one of the three largest law enforcement agencies in the state.

What our job is, is we don't determine who gets out or when they get out.

What we determine is once you're out, you have appropriate supervision.

We supervise over 44,000 people in Alabama today that are on both probation and parole.

Eighty percent of that is probationers, 14 percent are on parole, and the rest are out of state or some other category.

But for the most part, our job is providing supervision, making sure they don't go back to prison or go to prison once they've been put in our custody.

A lot of people, my friends, neighbors, they see me with my belt on, and they're always asking "Are you on your way to arrest somebody?"

No, I'm on my way to save someone.

So day to day, it's retraining the mind, and it's just getting them out back into society.

I've served in every capacity.

I've got plenty of plaques and titles.

That's great and all.

But most importantly, this is the best job I've ever had.

And the reason it is, is because I have people I work with every day that are really like my family.

And the more we drive together for this mission of reentry and improving rehabilitation, the more I love it.

The people that work here, we're all on the same page.

Like I said, we're just a big family.

This is not really work.

This is driving passion for me, but also I would say it's probably the same for the people that work here as well.

I'm not always doing the same thing over and over again.

With the experience, I've been able to transition to various different jobs within the agency while still staying basically the same officer.

That experience has also led me to be able to train other officers and give them the experience that I've learned through doing this job.

To work here, you have to be a person that's aware of compassion gaps.

Compassion gaps are places where bureaucracy and what needs to be done, they are almost automated.

It's casework.

It is making sure society is safe.

You have to have a passion for people and helping out because it's basically what we're here to do.

Yes, we have a gun, we have a badge, but we are in the business of people.

If you're interested in coming out and getting involved in criminal justice, and really criminology, sociology as well.

You want to come here, you want to help somebody get back on their feet, and you want a good paying, rewarding job, Pardon and Parole, the Alabama Bureau of Pardon & Parole is a place you want to come to.

I know how happy I am here, and I know most of the people I talk to who work here feel the same way.

We want you to come be here.

We need more people in this cause.

Rehabilitation is not easy.

It takes dedicated professionals who are committed to making it happen, get involved in it.

And that's why we want more people who want to interview with us.

I know there's a QR code we have, and you can go on our website.

We are interested in hiring people who are committed to our cause.

The Department of Forensic Sciences is one of the nation's oldest forensic crime laboratory systems, founded in 1935.

Alabama is fortunate in that we're an independent forensic lab system, and we process items of evidence associated with any criminal act occurring within the boundaries of our state, from Muscle Shoals in the north to Mobile in the south, and from the Mississippi Line to the Georgia Line.

I love working for the Department of Forensic Sciences because it's an opportunity to collaborate with fellow scientists.

If I were to give someone advice who's seeking a job in the forensic science community, I would encourage someone to get involved, do an internship program.

Every day is an interview, and we have an excellent, very vibrant, exciting internship program.

We make it very engaging for them.

It's a mixture of hands-on laboratory work.

They have the opportunity to attend autopsies.

They're able to attend court.

They're able to observe testimony that we provide.

Going to court is where the rubber meets the road.

Everything we do here, from a criminal standpoint, has the possibility of making it into the court systems, and we will go and defend that type of work, our work in the court systems.

Probably the most recent case that I can think of is a case where, unfortunately, we had an individual who was committing sexual assaults with females, and he was able to go undetected for a period of time.

Alabama has a law that if you are arrested for a felony, you have to give a DNA sample.

And this individual was arrested for a felony for drug charges.

And through giving a DNA sample, we were able to provide a name through our testing, which then allowed his apprehension.

One of the things that I personally love the most, I'm a mom.

I have two children.

I have a husband.

I am the President of our PTO.

I have a lot of obligations outside of these walls, but working for the state allows me the opportunity to have a really good work-life balance.

I'm able to provide good insurance for my family.

I'm able to be with them on days off.

I'm able to accrue sick leave and paid time off.

And in some cases, you even have the option to have a flexible schedule.

So if the traditional 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't work for you, you can find a different way to fulfill your work hours.

I would encourage anyone who is seeking an opportunity in public service, who is a spirit of science, to look for opportunities in the Department of Forensic Sciences.

We have opportunities throughout the state, from Huntsville all the way down to Mobile.

If you're looking for a place where you can demonstrate your passion for science, your passion for being part of the criminal justice system, the Department of Sciences is the place for you to be.

I'm here to tell you about the Retirement Systems of Alabama, which doesn't sound very glorious, but it's a fabulous place to work in the state of Alabama.

You may not know much about the Retirement System, but I'll tell you a couple of things that you can see.

Go to Montgomery and you'll see every every new building in Montgomery was built by the retirement system.

Every new building in Mobile was built by the retirement system.

The retirement systems are the ones that brought you Mercedes.

They're the ones that put up the money.

But it is the public pension plan for the state of Alabama, and we're very proud of it.

We're very proud of our employees because they're the best.

I do a little bit of everything.

I'm never bored.

I oversee about 13 departments, and that includes the teachers' retirement the employees' retirement system, The Public Education Employees Health Plan, we call that PEEHIP, and then all of the supporting departments that support those divisions, and that would be accounting, human resources, IT, legal, member services, employer services, field services.

It's a really interesting job.

PEEHIP is the Public Education Employees Health insurance Plan.

We service all of the active employees in public education, the two-year college system, and then we also provide coverage for the four-year universities at retirement.

We have over 400,000 active and retired members that we're supporting.

Having staff in all of our 18 divisions is so important to get the right people.

We're looking for individuals that are career-minded, not somebody that just It's not a job, but a career.

To help members all over the state, from elderly to young people of my age, is just really being a public servant, honestly, and helping them understand where they stand as far as retirement.

It is a good place to work, great management, great people to work with.

Just really research if this is something for you.

We are public servants, so if you love to help people, this will be a great place to come work.

I love helping people.

I've helped students, I've helped veterans, and I'm helping members, seniors, so it brightens my day.

Usually, a lot of time, it's instant gratification because they're so grateful.

Any advice that I would give to any accountants coming up to work for the state of Alabama.

I would let them know that working here, you would learn a lot and get a lot of efficient training to do your job.

If I had a friend coming to work here for RSA, I would let them know that you serve a great purpose.

The job getting to help our public and be a part of that is very fulfilling, and that's something that makes me feel like what I do is important.

If you want to work and have an impact on individuals daily, this is the place for you.

I would say to you after seeing the retirement systems and some of it staff, we need you.

and we want you to come join us.

Join us for Alabama Career Connection, an in-depth look at career opportunities available in Alabama state government.

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