His job can be a little scary, but this Texan cave specialist never quits

Colin Strickland’s dream job as a cave specialist sounds like most people’s version of a nightmare.

“A lot of these caves, right at the entrance, there will be daddy longlegs, 5,000 of them covering the walls,” he says. “And you try to go in the cave, and they all start running around, and then they’re just, like, climbing all over you.”

All spookiness aside, Strickland’s calling as a cave specialist biologist for the City of Austin, Texas, is essential for the well-being of his community.

“The main part of my job is monitoring caves, their health, and the ecosystem within the caves,” he explains. “And then also the surface ecosystem above the cave to make sure it’s healthy. But really the main reason is if we go into the cave and see that everything is dead, then we know that we have a problem.”

Part of his job is protecting endangered species that live in the caves.

“You have this very complex ecosystem happening,” he says. “And so, by protecting these few endangered species, we’re able to blanket protect a huge amount of land and all the ecosystem services that nobody thinks of.”

For his service to his community, Strickland, a member of AFSCME Local 1624, is a winner of our union’s Never Quit Service Award. The award recognizes public service workers who go above and beyond the call of duty to make their communities better.

Strickland admits that his calling can be a little scary even for him.

“It’s a little scary, having to go through really tight squeezes,” he says. “Some of them, we call them chest compressors. Basically, you have to squeeze your body through a very narrow space. And some places you even have to kind of blow the air out of your lungs to be able to squeeze through.”

And yet he wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. His job as a cave specialist is his way of making his community better.

“This is, like, my dream job,” he admits. “I like to educate the public about the importance of all these creatures.”