Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryce Pulley
Hi Bryce, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Funnily enough, the story starts just growing up in Cuyahoga Falls! I don’t think I had any burning desire to move back to my hometown back then. It was more of…if life has me coming back here, I’ll be happy but also happy if not! I’ve always loved Cuyahoga Falls though, and it is great being able to go about my day, work-wise or personal, and have those memories all around. Whether a cold winter night downtown, relaxing by the river, or running in Water Works Park. Fast forward quite a bit, after graduating college, I was still pretty split on staying up in Michigan with the friend circles I made while at school or coming back to my hometown. I was a middle school social studies teacher at the time and decided to spend some time abroad before making a final decision. I moved to Cape Town, South Africa for the next three years and worked for an educational non-profit, Education without Borders (EwB). We focused on after-school education for students in the heavily impoverished township areas.
My time there was not only amazing within itself, which is a whole other conversation but it helped me develop the skills that I utilize in my everyday job now working for the City. With EwB I continued to do some direct instruction to students but increasingly started taking more of a backend role in helping develop curriculum, manage & evaluate programs, network with local businesses and organizations, and more.
After those three years, I moved back to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I continued teaching for another year. The health of my father and grandfather was declining which helped solidify the decision to move back home. While I continued teaching for another year, I recognized that I might want to leave education and pursue another fulfilling career path somewhere down the road. I remember chatting with my mother about this and she mentioned, “[…] just email Mayor Walters some questions you might have about local government! I heard he does a good job of responding to stuff like that.” I figured I would give it a shot and within 48 hours of asking what might be some good fits for interning with a city department, I got an answer!
After chatting with our Neighborhood, Communications, and Community Outreach (NECCO) Director at the time, I started interning a few hours a week and learning more about what the day-to-day is in local government. In early spring, a position opened up for the city’s Public Utilities and Community Outreach Coordinator, and I decided to apply. After accepting the job, I finished my last school year as a teacher on a Friday in June and started my new journey in government that following Monday. The shortest summer break of my teaching career! This June marks my 4th year in the position, and I have loved every moment of it. Getting to work with the community, local businesses, & our schools (and some of my old teachers!) on sustainability-related projects has been fulfilling.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
All things considered, I think it has been pretty smooth. I realize how rare that is to actually say though! All roads have some bumps in them, and mine is no exception, but I have an incredible support system with my friends and family that allowed me to navigate all of that pretty well. The larger struggles were those “fork in the road” decisions. Do I stay in Michigan? Do I extend my South African visa? Should I stay in education longer? Am I ready for a career switch?
In moments like those, you lean on those you trust and earnestly listen to their opinions, weigh your choices, and make the jump. Luckily, when it came to moving to Cuyahoga Falls, it was to a place I was familiar with.
I would say that one of the biggest struggles was the feeling of imposter syndrome when choosing to start on a new career path. There is so much to learn at such a fast pace that you always feel behind. Thankfully, awesome coworkers and a network of people I’ve worked with have pushed those negative feelings back and allowed me to feel confident in what I do.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
While my official job title of Public Utilities and Community Outreach Coordinator takes up most of my business card, it is most easily understood as the City’s Sustainability Programs Coordinator. If there is something that the City is doing connected to sustainability or being environmentally friendly, I usually am involved in some capacity. With how much the City does on that front, I am quite busy! To make it a little easier to understand, I’ll talk about my work with our schools, businesses, and the community at large separately.
With our schools, I am doing what I love most…teaching! Whether it is with our 2nd-graders, teaching them about why litter is bad and how recycling works or with the high school students at Woodridge or Walsh Jesuit growing native plants for pollinator gardens, it is a great way to spend the workday. With two separate school districts and a handful of private schools, it keeps me busy! Some of my favorite projects are:
* Annual Earth Day poster competition with every 2nd-grade classroom (~600 students)
* Pin design (pictured) competition with graphic design students,
* Park & invasive species cleanups
* Seed starting native plants & pollinator garden installation,
* Tree identification walks
* Countless classroom presentations,
* Annual “Think Tank Challenge” with top students from 2-3 different schools who are tasked with creating and presenting a comprehensive solution to a problem that is revealed to them by Mayor Walters just that morning! It is an intense 5 hours! (All credit goes to Eric Ling from Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy for structuring this event & letting me continually work with him on it)
The goal in the end is always to help support the teachers achieve the goals they have for their students by facilitating unique learning opportunities directly from the community they’re living in.
With our businesses, I administer our various energy efficiency rebate programs, which help make it more financially feasible for a business, big or small, to make upgrades to their facilities that help lower their electric bill. Swapping out for LED lights can make a big difference. Our business community has been vital in the support of public events by co-sponsoring various river cleanups and tabling events to talk about their own sustainability initiatives.
For the general community, I organize our River-City Cleanup Series, Energy Expo, and Spring Sustainability Expo. These have been incredibly successful over the years, with hundreds of residents coming every year. The Spring Sustainability Expo is the one I am most proud of though. It all stemmed from a conversation with the Community Agriculture for Local Impact program based at Cuyahoga Falls High School. Their program has its own greenhouse, hydroponic system, and outdoor garden area that grows thousands of pounds of produce every year (most of which is donated to local food pantries) and helps teach the kids about [urban] agriculture. It is a fantastic program that I’ve worked with prior to the Expo, and one of the teachers is my old teacher from high school! We had the idea of the students growing some basic garden plants that can be given away to attendees of the Expo to help get their journey started of being more self-sufficient and sustainable. It has been a hit every year.
This year, we’re upping the ante, and I’m working with Walsh Jesuit’s Advanced Placement Environmental Science class to seed-start native plants that we’ll also be giving away. The goal of the Expo is to educate people and give them the tools and motivation to start making changes no matter how big or small. We have over a dozen different businesses or organizations that incorporate sustainability in some way at the Expo to help showcase all the innovation happening around us.
Through our partnership with the Cuyahoga Falls Library, called the Cuyahoga Falls Growth Initiative, we started doing monthly sustainability classes and workshops. Everything from native plants & proper recycling to creating bee/insect hotels & seed starting indoors for your garden. It has been a great success, which laid the groundwork for the opening of our Seed Sharing Library. People can pick up free packets of garden and native plant seeds. We’ve had hundreds of people utilize this since we opened it.
Lastly, being the city’s representative on important boards and committees, such as the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern, Summit of Sustainability Alliance, and the Cuyahoga River Water Trail, is incredibly important work that I am honored to do.
When looking at the history of the Cuyahoga River, from catching on fire repeatedly (with the 1969 fire garnering national attention and spurring the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)) to now being close to being delisted as a federally classified “area of concern” is a tremendous accomplishment. This could not have been accomplished without the countless stewards of the river since that time. Having a seat at these tables and being a part of such fulfilling work is hard to put into words. I especially want to highlight the work of Jennifer Grieser, Scott Hardy, & Elaine Marsh whose work and impact I’ve gotten to witness these last few years has been inspiring, to say the least. Our river and watershed wouldn’t be where it is today without the work of individuals like them.
I am proud to share that the efforts of the City of Cuyahoga Falls were recognized by the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern with their annual Champion of the River Award. The Champion of the River award is presented to recognize current individuals or organizations trying to make a positive impact on the river.
The City of Cuyahoga Falls was awarded this due to our continual focus on the Cuyahoga River as an important part of our City’s identity, a source of recreation, and its vitalness to our ecology. In addition to structuring the programs, education, and codes (i.e riparian setbacks) that all enhance and promote it. The city as a whole, from residents to businesses and the government, all understand and celebrate the importance of the river and work toward its continual health and improvement.
Any big plans?
The plan is, pun intended, to keep on growing! We have a foundation of fantastic opportunities, events, etc. for residents to learn valuable skills they can apply in their own properties to enhance the health of our ecosystem and river.
The one I am most looking forward to though is the community replanting of our municipal rain garden reserve in early May. It is the result of about 1.5 years worth of volunteer efforts to help prepare the site for this replanting. The goal after it is replanted is to establish an “Adopt-a-Plot” program in which volunteer groups can choose a section of the rain garden that they’ll be in charge of helping maintain. This group of rain garden stewards will be pivotal in its long-term maintenance and through their work, will learn about native plant care, seed collecting, stormwater management, and more.
The goal is for this area to be an environmental education site where the community will learn from the activities planned there and apply their knowledge to their own properties. During the school year, I’ll invite various classes from elementary through high school to take part in its care.
This work was guided by vital input from Chris Chaney and Rob Curtis of Summit Metro Parks. Their knowledge and expertise helped structure our goals from the time I first started working on the garden when it was severely overgrown with invasive non-native species to its upcoming revitalization.
Additionally, the efforts of Rick Chiera and Russ Pier from Bolich Middle School and their 8th-grade classes in helping clear out the rain garden cannot be understated. Nearly 3,000 pounds of vegetation was cleared out due to their hard work and later composted by Rubber City Reuse. Their classes stood out as one of the most successful volunteer groups. Not to mention, they also helped install a pollinator garden at one of our parks with native plants they grew from seed!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cityofcf.com
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