It’s been four weeks, and already I feel a keens sense of the common enthusiasm that’s been building towards Canada Day, with an inaugural fireworks display over the Vancouver bay – best to be watched by slow boat cruise with friends, of course. This summer holiday holds something special for British Columbia, as the northern province is also marking 8 months until the 2010 Olympics.

Working with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (or VANOC, which makes business cards significantly more concise) has been an enlivening experience, something of a very large not-for-profit which feels like a for-profit corporation and wedding planning service rolled into one.

On June 3rd, VANOC arranged the first Carbon Sponsor in Olympic history (see the announcement here: http://www.offsetters.ca/?q=news/offsetters). I work with a small team of dedicated eco-gurus, where part of my responsibility is forecasting and analyzing the base carbon footprint produced by hosting an Olympic-sized event.

There may be an abundance of job opportunities for environmental-minded MBAs, yet the reality is companies are chronically over-tasked and under-staffed for these positions, in part because of the uncertain nature of new business challenges. Case in point: negotiating a sponsor agreement and measuring performance against carbon reductions. Taking a cue from school, resourcefulness has been key. Understanding branding rights is critical one day; knowing the common legal boundary between levels of corporate sponsors the next.

I’ve posted some running blog commentaries on translating Olympic sustainability into large event planning in general. Check www.yalesustainability.wordpress.com for the latest.

Internship is off with a bang, and i couldn’t be happier. Although the work is pretty stressful. And the summer has been road-breakingly hot. No, really, roads are breaking because of the heat, the index has hovered around 110 or so for the last two weeks. Anyways, I’m working through the city to create an independent non-profit organization to manage citizen “evacuteers” (read: combination of evacution and volunteer.) During mandatory city evacuations for hurricanes and emergencies, it takes a lot of civilian help to move high-need residents without any other means out of Orleans Parish and to safety- that’s our gig. Things are rolling, got our articles, by-laws, MOUs, launch party next week, trainings starting in 2 1/2: it’s very, very cool.

Big ups to Brian Murray for his OrgEff presentation on starting 501(c)3’s that I refer to probably 3 times a day, and to Jody and Carrie McLean for giving me non-profit accounting advice. And finally, of course, biggest ups to the Internship Fund for making my work possible.

So yeah, definitely not your normal internship, but believe me, it’s been exciting. Two days ago I was looking through my Employee notes trying to figure out ideal organizational architectures for our executive officers and our board of directors. 30 minutes ago I’m looking through Art’s queueing notes to get a sense of whether the current system is moving people out of the city as fast as it possibly can, and where to put manpower to improve the process.

Oof and a half. I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone else is up to. Best.

g-mo