Employee Spotlight: Get to Know the Team
Brittainy Hewitt
Intermediate Biologist
Meet Brittainy Hewitt, Intermediate Biologist, who joined our Blue Heron Environmental team in 2023.
Brittainy has over 4 years of consulting experience and 4 years of experience in the fish culture industry as a technician and stocking coordinator. Her experience includes public outreach and training, extensive field-based ecological, wildlife, and agricultural sampling, biological and water laboratory analysis, database management, manuscript and report preparation. She has experience conducting mark-recapture population studies, stocking/rehabilitating trout species, large scale agricultural plot studies, fish population studies, Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM) studies, baseline biological studies, and environmental sampling. Brittainy has two scientific publications in the Canadian Journal of Zoology and the Canadian Journal of Animal Science.
We asked Brittainy Hewitt to answer a few questions to help our clients get to know her better.
We continue to share the stories of the remarkable additions to our hard-working team at Blue Heron Environmental (BHE). In the past few years, we’ve hired a number of new professionals to help reach new heights for our business.
To showcase the people who make up Blue Heron, we sat down with team members to ask them a few questions about their professional career — and a few personal ones too.
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HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT BLUE HERON ENVIRONMENTAL?
When I was working at another consulting company, I worked on a few field programs in collaboration with Blue Heron technical staff. I also heard great things about the company through the grapevine and decided it would be a good fit.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT BEING An Intermediate biologist?
It would have to be working outside and interacting with animals. Not a lot of careers allow people to be in nature as much as a career like this one.
One of my colleagues calls me the Disney Princess of the north, as I always seem to find wildlife wherever I go, work or otherwise. There is a type of internal satisfaction that comes with working outdoors. It is also great to be in a career where every day offers a different experience.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?
McDonald’s; generic I know! But the owners were great people and getting 50% off food was a bonus.
IF YOU COULD PICK UP ANY NEW SKILL IN AN INSTANT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
If we are talking real life skills, I would say the sudden ability to identify every plant and animal in the forest. If we are talking superpower skills, I would have to say the ability to teleport anywhere in the world.
GOT ANY FAVORITE QUOTES?
“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life”
– Robin S. Sharma
“Time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time”
– Marthe Troly-Curtain
“Why be thinner when you could have more dinner?”
– Me
WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO IN THE NEXT YEAR THAT YOU’VE NEVER DONE BEFORE?
Ungulate surveys.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE YOU’VE EVER VISITED?
I would have to say that it would be a tie between Mount Tongariro in New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.
Both places offered breathtaking views, unbelievable biological diversity, and experiencing it all with my best friend made it even better.
DO YOU COLLECT ANYTHING?
I collect insects.
Think of it as a lower-level form of taxidermy. Entomology was one of my favorite courses while I was studying at Laurentian University. I formed a love for insect morphological uniqueness and diversity. I purchase scientific entomology collection boxes, pin the insects, and then figure out their lowest taxonomic identification possible.
I hope to add lots to my collection during the 2025 field season.