“That wasn’t just an annoying public safety problem,” he explained. “That was a GIS problem, which completely related to what I learned at Ohio State.”
“No matter where you are in your journey, it’s important you look for opportunities to help others,” he said. “This was a key component of my time in New York that was a reflection of what I learned at Ohio State.”
Carver also noticed later that the neighborhoods most affected by the storm were the most socioeconomically depressed areas of the city. “In this case, you have a disaster of human proportion that is also related to factors of political and economic geography which were barely known to the people that lived there, but were incredibly relevant to the reality of managing a public safety disaster,” Carver said. This “big-picture” approach to solving problems is something Carver says he learned in the Department of Geography. “Geography allows you to grasp the building blocks of how our society is organized today, as well as envision potential solutions,” Carver said. “I am proud to say that not a single day goes by in my professional career that I don’t use what I learned not just once, but 10 times.”
“I’ve Seen Miracles” Carver also credits Ohio State with instilling in him the importance of giving back.
One way Carver gives back is by speaking about his experience during 9/11. As he recounts his story from that day to communities around central Ohio, Carver always tries to keep his message about unity and the triumphs he witnessed as people came together to save lives. “9/11 should never be a divisive issue us-versus-them issue,” Carver said. “The people who went to work that day, without even being asked, not one of them said ‘Who are we helping? What color is their skin?’ That doesn’t matter in a public safety environment. And, it didn’t matter to the firefighters who went to that scene and rescued 20,000 people.” Carver says he keeps the unofficial title to his talk — ‘I’ve Seen Miracles’ — in mind as he shares his story. “What those terrorists tried to do that day is tear down the fabric of our humanity, and a whole bunch of people instantaneously built it back up,” Carver said. “That story demands to be told.”
OUR CENTERS BYRD POLAR AND CLIMATE RESEARCH CENTER (BPCRC) The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) at The Ohio State University is recognized internationally as a leader in polar, alpine and climate research. There are ten research groups at BPCRC, along with a library, archival program, the Polar Rock Repository, and a team of support staff. Research of the center is conducted throughout the world and focuses on the role of cold regions in the Earth’s overall climate system, and encompasses geological sciences, geochemistry, glaciology, paleoclimatology, meteorology, remote sensing, ocean dynamics and the history of polar exploration. The center has a number of collections of climate proxies, including a rock repository containing 42,000 samples from the polar regions, a sediment core storage facility containing Arctic Ocean cores and lake sediment cores from the mountains of Peru and China, and more than 7 kilometers of ice cores gathered during more than 60 campaigns to six continents. In addition, BPCRC maintains the Byrd Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, provides research opportunities and support for a number of graduate and undergraduate students, offers seminars
and lectures on a frequent basis, maintains a public education and outreach program, and contributes to the mission of the State Climate Office of Ohio. The center is named in honor of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, America’s most famous polar explorer. Information about events, tours and publications can be found at bpcrc.osu.edu.
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