By Easton Lane 25C
An environmental science degree can take you in more directions than you would expect—many more directions. Areanna Sabine (18C, 23MBA) exemplifies that fact as the CEO of Birdzoff, a company specializing in bird-deterrent services. Birdzoff uses their own technology to humanely ensure that important infrastructure and public areas can be protected from bird landings. Sabine’s journey to this point was no straight line, but through her years of experience in both the Emory College of Arts and Sciences and the Goizueta Business School, she gained the expertise necessary to become the director of a large, environmentally adjacent company.
From the age of 12, Sabine worked with her father, Gordy, who founded Birdzoff in 1988, assembling bird-deterrent technology in his garage. It was a hands-on beginning to her professional journey, her father encouraging her interests in science. She looks back on her time learning the Birdzoff ropes fondly, but she is quick to point out how the hard work made some parts of her future clear.
“My dad and I did our first install together at JFK Airport: it was me up there with a bunch of zip ties and my hands freezing in the middle of March—that was when I decided I didn’t want to go to an Ivy League school because it was too cold!”
When Sabine arrived at Emory, she initially aspired to be a field biologist, but those plans hit a snag when she realized Biology classes were not a great fit for her. Not to be dissuaded, she quickly switched gears and set her eyes on becoming an environmental consultant, taking classes at Goizueta to develop the necessary quantitative analysis skills. However, she then realized the undergraduate Business School program did not suit her either. After switching to a pursuit of physical therapy on the pre-med and environmental science track, she began to take more classes in the Environmental Science department, and finally, everything began to fall into place.
“I fell in love with the way the [ENVS] department worked, and also with the professors and other students. One of the biggest aspects I found exciting about the major was how many different subject areas you could pursue and how applicable it was to so many different career paths,” Sabine says. “A lot of people asked me what major I did when I was applying to my Master’s programs, and I would say environmental science and explain that it was really a systems degree: I learned inputs, I learned outputs, I learned how variables worked together.”
Several Waffle Thursdays and a trip to the Bahamas in Dr. Anthony Martin’s ENVS 242 class later, Sabine graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in ENVS degree. She subsequently went on to complete an MBA and work with her father at Birdzoff before finding a role as an Undergraduate Degree Program Coordinator in Emory’s Quantitative Theory & Methods department. Even though she was not doing direct environmental work, Sabine feels that her degree in both ENVS and business were always at play at her jobs. As she later found herself returning to Birdzoff, Sabine’s environmental and business skill-sets became vital to the kind of operations she would eventually oversee.
“I use my environmental science major almost every single day now that I’m working at Birdzoff. We are constantly talking about migratory birds, and all of our products require scientific background, so we work with a lot of field biologists and wildlife biologists,” Sabine says. “I’m always in contact with scientists, so the value I bring to the table with being able to integrate some business aspects and being able to say, ‘Here’s this report about what species of bird we’re dealing with,’ is huge.”
As an Emory alumna, Sabine holds a great appreciation for her time at the university, as well as the opportunities it opened up for her. In a constantly changing political, economic and environmental landscape, making a meaningful environmental impact on the world is an increasingly hard thing to do, but Sabine sees her success in terms of her ability to affect change from the inside. Birdzoff’s products and operations are deeply tied to the environment, and Sabine knew that she could make a difference by bringing an environmentalist perspective to the company’s standard operations.
“You can’t always affect change from the outside—there are a lot of situations where you have to be on the inside in order to make a change in the larger scheme of things,” she says. “You have a lot of power in your understanding of environmental science and your connection to Emory.”
Coupling the education and networking experiences at Emory with her professional aspirations, Sabine exemplifies how organizational change is possible with an ecological driver. She attributes much of her success to the skills she graduated with, as well as the fire necessary to approach challenges with sterling determination.
“The most important part of your undergraduate experience is that you come out of school with practical skills, a willingness to learn and an ability to communicate—those are the top three things. You should have skills that you can apply in real-world settings, a willingness to learn and adapt to different environments and you should have a passion to find success—no matter how big or small—in whatever space you find yourself.”
Sabine is also quick to mention that now is a great—and important—time to be an ENVS major. Across disciplines, environmental and environmental-adjacent fields are seeing a massive uptick in operations and funding.
“The renewable energy space is like… popping right now. It’s huge. You have offshore wind, you have solar, you have onshore wind, and there’s so many opportunities in that space right now, they’re hiring like crazy.”
Connection, whether fostered at Waffle Thursdays or through experiential learning, remains important to Sabine, who keeps the ENVS department updated on as many job opportunities as she can. She is a huge believer that once ENVS students get the opportunity to engage in professional work, they will succeed.
“Most of the environmental science alumni would be interested in helping out a student, whether it’s with an internship or a job opportunity,” she says, along with the implication that she herself is more than willing to work with students to find them the right opportunities.
In the often overwhelming endeavor of pursuing a career during and after college, Areanna Sabine is living proof that the path less traveled can end up being the most rewarding, and she strives to help others find theirs. Through pursuits of biology, physical therapy, business and environmental science, Sabine has created a career for herself at the nexus of different fields— creating meaningful change from the inside.
Department of Environmental Sciences 