Our Climate Journey with Oliver Jones
“Conservation is the number one principle here. We don’t take more than we need, we use what we take, and we share. Sustainability is just that, but at a macro scale. If our entire society lived by these principles, we wouldn’t run down our resources, and plants, animals, and our environment would return each year.”
Oliver Jones
Technical Recruiter
Oliver is a seasoned recruiter at Zūm, dedicated to assembling high-performing teams that drive innovation in student transportation. With over eleven years of experience in technical recruiting, he possesses a profound understanding of talent in the tech industry. Outside of his recruiting endeavors, Oliver treasures time with his wife, two sons, and their two dogs, exploring the great outdoors through activities like fly-fishing rivers, archery hunting for elk, and seeking out new adventures beyond every ridge. For Oliver, the outdoors isn’t just a hobby—it’s home.
At Zum, we’re revolutionizing student transportation in order to build a green, sustainable future. What does sustainability mean to you?
To me, sustainability revolves around my kids. I want to help shape a world that’s as good as the one I grew up in.
I was born and raised in Idaho, with the good fortune of being very near to the outdoors. I learned to hunt, fish, and appreciate the wild from my father and grandfather. Today, I’m teaching my kids the same principles: field to table; harvesting no more than you need; how to fish for trout and salmon or hunt deer and elk; how to properly dress, preserve, butcher meat; how to process our own food; the importance of enjoying it and sharing with friends and family. Conservation is the number one principle here. We don’t take more than we need, we use what we take, and we share.
Sustainability is just that, but at a macro scale. If our entire society lived by these principles, we wouldn’t run down our resources, and plants, animals, and our environment would return each year. I’ve learned a lot from living with the land, and now from multiple generations of my family.
Climate change is the single greatest threat to our way of life, but it can sometimes feel abstract, far away, a problem for another time. How has climate change affected you personally?
Before becoming a recruiter and joining Zum, I spent three years as a member of the Idaho City Hotshots, a federal firefighting outfit. With that group, I fought fires from March to September, traveling throughout California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and even as far as Alaska.
Fires are getting more and more intense every year. They rage harder, burn longer and destroy more land season after season. It takes so long for the environment to regrow after a fire. And it destroys the local ecosystem.
As mentioned, I hunt and fish. When there’s a fire, it displaces and kills animals in the burn area, but it can have much larger, lasting effects on the wildlife and aquatic life in the area. The smoke contributes to very poor air quality, and the lack of shade and vegetation leads to increased temperatures in streams and rivers. After a burn, the lack of vegetation means less insect activity for the fish, which in the long term means fewer fish and a less sustainable population. All of that limits the amount of hunting/fishing we can do, and restricts our ability to enjoy the beauty of free flowing rivers and streams.
Climate change isn’t just more, or more intense, wildfires. It affects everything because everything is linked together in a single ecosystem.
What can Zum do to be a leader in sustainability, to spearhead the charge in the fight against climate change?
Zum really is pushing the envelope, especially in the fight against climate change, and I want us to make sure that we continue to do so.
For years, student transportation has been so far behind. Outdated buses, hand-drawn maps, antiquated routing. As a recruiter, I see this firsthand. Drivers and engineers alike are excited to work for a modern company that’s changing the way we move children to and from school.
But Zum needs to continue pushing the envelope. Yes, we’ve brought student transportation out of the stone ages, but now we need to drive it into the future. Let’s keep using a smart mix of vehicles on the road, including Zum’s vans, so we’re not wasting fuel. Let’s continue giving special needs students the exact same treatment as everyone else (one of the things I like most about this company). And let’s keep showing people that we are the future, and the future of sustainability starts with our kids.