Animal scientist finds pearl of a career
"I cried a lot," she says.
But not for long. Hamilton hosted a one-day self-pity party, then boarded
a plane and flew to Denver to look for a job and get on with the rest
of her life.
"I was looking for anything," Hamilton says.
"I was going to try Denver and then was going to
go to Seattle."
At a job fair in Denver, Hamilton realized that a recommendation from
a Purdue professor might be helpful. She called Mark Russell, who had
been her adviser in animal sciences. But instead of a letter of recommendation,
Hamilton got some advice that changed her life.
"Why don't you talk to LaDon Swann?" suggested Russell. As
luck would have it, Swann also was in Denver, on a stopover that was
part of the Animal Sciences 393 spring trip.
"We had visited with the Colorado Cattlemen's Association that
day," Swann recalls. "We were all on the bus and ready to
drive away and there she was, standing by the door."
Swann interviewed her right in the parking lot.
Swann was putting the finishing touches on his PhD in education at
Purdue. He was about to take a job as assistant professor at Auburn
University.
"I just told her she should consider graduate school," says
Swann, who now is the director of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant
Consortium at Dauphin Island, Ala. He recommended that she study shellfish
at Auburn.
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