Geologist/Engineer Charlene Wardlow – Focusing on Jobs in the Geothermal Community

Reno resident Linda Peri interviews Charlene Wardlow, Director of Business Development for Ormat Technologies. Charlene talks about being interested in geology from a young age, experiences in many different aspects of geothermal development, similarities to oil and gas development, and doing what you love. This series on Jobs in the Geothermal Community was filmed at GEA’s National Geothermal Summit 2011 in Reno, Nevada.

At the age of 21, I had a summer job as an assistant geologist in Nunavut in 1994 (NWT at that time). I lived in a fly-in camp, 200km North of Hall Beach – one of the northern most towns in the Arctic Circle, Canada. I lived in a tent, flew in a helicopter collecting water samples, and carried a sawed off shotgun in case of polar bear attacks. Nunavut is a territory mostly inhabited by Inuit (eskimo) Canadians. Nunavut is the polar bear capital of the world. We were on an expedition to prospect for diamonds. Our 3 year project (I worked for one year) found over 200 million dollars in diamonds beneath the permafrost – or, frozen arctic tundra. The highlights of this job involved the natural aspects of northern Canada. We experienced 20hours of sunlight everyday as the sun moved in a giant circular motion in the sky. From a helicopter, I saw an Arctic Grey Wolf, an arctic fox, and a wolverine (not captured on video). On foot, I saw dozens caribou and arctic ground squirrels. I lived in this fly-in camp for 3.5 months. My job responsibilities included hiking (all day) in search of particular minerals in rock “outcrops” found on the tundra. I flew in a helicopter, for 7 hours a day, landing on 100′s of small ponds and lakes to collect samples of water which we analyzed to determine if diamonds lay beneath (or lackthereof) the ground. This was not the first time I worked for BHP. My neighbor was the head of BHP Canada, and he was nice enough to employ me a few times. I worked …
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