About Me

My name is Thomas J. Garcia, I am attending school at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.  I expect to graduate in December of 2013 with a bachelors degree in environmental science and a minor in biology.  My strengths in the fields of math and science emerged throughout grade school, and I knew that my career would focus on these.  I am from Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, which is a shore community surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Shrewsbury River.  Growing up in shore community gave me a deep appreciation for the importance on healthy aquatic and terrestrial populations as well as an understanding of the magnitude of intense storms that effect the shores.

I attended Brookdale Community College after high school to pursue an associates degree in math-science.  At Brookdale Community College, I joined the environmental club where we preformed a wide variety of projects that gave me refined organization and team leadership skills.  I organized events that included the planting of rain gardens on campus and comprised numerous education campaigns that ranged from the effect on ground water from natural gas extraction through hydraulic fracking, and public health benefits of replacing cow's milk with almond milk.

Brookdale Community College offered the opportunity to become SCUBA certified under the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), the world's largest recreational dive membership and dive training organization.  My SCUBA certification along with a New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commision issued boating and personal watercraft license has allowed me to explore and understand aquatic communities.

I received my associates degree in math-science from Brookdale Community College in the Spring of 2011 and transferred into The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in the following Fall of 2011.  Richard Stockton College was my preferred school of choice given its reputation for their profound environmental studies program.  Here, I joined NJPIRG where I was assigned weatherization project coordinator.  The weatherization project encompassed many techniques on lowering home and/or business energy bills by preforming simple modifications and tasks.  As coordinator I rallied a team of volunteers, preformed phone banking to gather participants, made travel arrangements for volunteers to arrive at a client's property, and scheduled dates based on volunteer availability.  I also volunteered my own time for many other organizations events beyond my own.

The skills I have learned both on and off campus have matured me and readied me for future endeavors in my career search.  I feel these skills have prepared me for professional work in the world.  The courses I taken at Richard Stockton College as well as Brookdale Community College have shaped my wide range of skills and abilities to preform professionally in any career I seek.