In a feature for The New York Times, Fordham alumna Lindsay Okarmus discussed her work measuring snowfall in New York City, reflecting on how her psychology degree from Fordham informs her day-to-day work and how a summer horticulture job led her to a career with the city’s conservancy.
Where forecasters depend on satellites and computer models. Okarmus has one tool, a long metal measuring stick. She is the director of landscape services for the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages the park and has been responsible for taking snow readings — and reporting them to the Weather Service — for 11 years.
Okarmus has a degree from Fordham University in psychology (“I use it every day, working in New York”) but became interested in horticulture on a summer job in Buffalo, her hometown. When she graduated from Fordham, she wanted to stay in New York; she found a gardening job with the conservancy and worked her way up through the ranks.And she loves snow. “I know that’s an opinion not everybody shares,” she said.
But snow “makes everybody happy,” Okarmus said, adding, “It seems like dogs are smiling when it’s snowing, and the park, I think, looks the most beautiful when it’s covered in snow.”
