Gregory Turcotte

Gregory Turcotte, who graduated from Chico State with a BA in Economics and an option in Environmental Economics in 2009, received the Department’s highest honor, the Smale Award.

Before entering Chico State Gregory worked as a computer service technician for the Nevada County Superior Court in Nevada City, California, for 5 years.

While at Chico State Greg was a master tutor in economics at the Student Learning Center where he helped students understand economics and helped train new tutors. In his senior year he was also a student researcher for the Chico State Research Foundation with a published paper, Supply Chain Sustainability: Business Processes for the Carbon Footprint in the California Journal of Operations Management, February 2009 .

During his senior year Gregory began an internship with Lundberg Family Farms which turned into a full-time job after his graduation. As environmental manager at Lundberg Gregory measured and analyzed the company’s environmental and supply chain goals. He reduced energy consumed at the facility by 13% and landfill waste by 21% in one year by implementing waste stream reduction efforts and energy resource management strategies.

For the next 6 years he worked in information technology, beginning with Base Gear LLC and moving on to Portland State University. He is working on his master’s degree at Portland State and his is an instructor of computer applications and office systems at Portland Community College.