NDSU alumnus shares river restoration expertise with students

For NDSU alumnus Marty Melchior, sharing his passion for river restoration has been one of the most rewarding parts of his decades-long career. Recently, he brought that passion back to where his career began, giving NDSU students a firsthand look at the work and the many disciplines involved in restoring rivers and natural ecosystems.

Melchior, who graduated from NDSU in 1989 with a degree in biotechnology, is a geomorphologist and principal ecologist with Inter-Fluve, a firm specializing in the design and restoration of rivers and streams. Throughout his career, Melchior has worked on several impactful projects throughout the country. His designs have been featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Tribune and Scientific American. Marty just completed work on a $1.2 billion restoration of the Don River in Toronto, and has begun work on restoring parts of the LA River system.

“I've gotten to see a lot of really cool places. I’ve traveled from Hawaii to Maine and everywhere in between,” Melchior said. “I've seen a lot of people grow from interns up to senior staff, and that's been pretty fun to watch.”

Melchior recently hosted a river restoration workshop on campus. The interactive workshop placed students in two roles: designers working on a river restoration project and community members asking questions about the provided design.

“It’s kind of a mock public meeting where it gives people a little taste of what it's like to work with the public and the resistance sometimes to unfamiliar ideas,” Melchior said.

That interactive piece is an important part of Melchior's river restoration work. While rivers play a vital role in communities and the environment, their importance can sometimes go unnoticed.

“People drive across rivers every day, but they don't realize that the river is there until it floods. Then everybody knows it's there. Rivers are super important, but often just overlooked,” Melchior said.

Melchior hopes hands-on experiences like the workshop will encourage more students to consider careers in river restoration and ecological design, regardless of whether they’re majoring in natural resource sciences.

“The multidisciplinary nature of river restoration, or any kind of ecological restoration, is that you need landscape architects, civil engineers, biologists and all those people working collaboratively, because you can't be an expert in every field,” he said.

Melchior personally became interested in natural resource sciences after working in the medical device industry for a few years after graduating. After wanting to enter a more environmentally centered career, he decided to pursue a master’s degree in fisheries, leading to a job with the Minnesota DNR and ultimately his current role at Inter-Fluve.

While Melchior has hosted similar workshops at Harvard, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, returning to NDSU is always a time for personal reflection.

“It's emotional coming here, for me. I just have so many great memories from this place, and I didn't want to leave,” he said. “I came out of my shell here and learned a lot about who I was.”

Melchior credits his NDSU education for providing him with a solid foundation for his career. In addition to learning the fundamentals of biology and natural resources through his biotechnology degree, he developed communication, teamwork and interpersonal skills that have continued to shape his career.

“That's the most important thing about undergraduate education,” he said. “You're learning about yourself and learning those important skills outside of your degree, too. How to interact with other people, how to live with other people and taking responsibility for yourself.”

Some of Melchior’s fondest NDSU memories include spending time with friends he still keeps in touch with today, finding favorite study spots across campus and learning curling in a physical education class. While much has changed on campus since his time as a student, he sees the same spirit of opportunity in the experiences available to today’s students.

For current students, Melchior offers two pieces of advice.

“The first thing is to appreciate every second of every moment that you're here because it comes and goes fast. There's nothing like it in the world,” he said. “Also, focus on your relationships. You can be the valedictorian in your class, a great engineer, a scientist, or anything, but it's your ability to interact with humans and those interpersonal skills that gets you the job.”