At Work: Doing good can be noble career choice

• Cheetahs are the fastest land mammal and live 10 to 12 years in the wild
• Their speed: Zero to 60 mph in 3 seconds, all the while scanning the land for food
• Cubs often come in litters of three and live with their mothers for 1½ to 2 years

Some people want to do good with their careers.

Then there is Laurie Marker.

She set out to save cheetahs nearly 25 years ago. Turns out, she's saving the world.

If she hadn't followed her "If not me, who?" philosophy, who knows if the work would be getting done.

First a little background: This conservation biologist grew up in Southern California riding horses. She raised dairy goats and rabbits. She was a member of the 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America. From 1974 to 1988, she worked at Wildlife Safari in Winston, Ore., as veterinary clinic assistant and director of marketing and education.

Marker's work with cheetahs began when she first encountered them in captivity in Oregon.

"I had been doing research since the mid-'70s in Namibia, and no one knew anything about them," she says. "I kept saying someone's got to go save cheetahs. I always thought the 'they' factor would take care of it."

She wrote to people around the world.

"They said, 'When you find out about them, let us know,' " the people wrote back. Then the cheetahs grabbed her. "The more I tried to find out about them, the more they engaged me, how their eyes can see so far, how they can run, how beautiful they are and yet how vulnerable they are. They get into your heart."

In Oregon, Marker raised a cheetah named Khayam while studying how to return cats to the wild. With Khayam at her side, she traveled to Namibia and talked to farmers.

Then she went to work as the executive director of the Smithsonian Institution's New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences, a consortium of scientists that is part of the National Zoological Park in Washington, to learn about international business.

In 1991 she sold everything she owned. With her life savings of $15,000, she bought a 1978 Land Rover and moved to Namibia with two dogs and 14 trunks filled with research equipment.

It was "real lonely in the beginning," she says. But the only thing she feared was "whether I'd have enough petrol and if I could pay to fix my car if it broke down."

She went door to door to meet farmers who were killing cheetahs to save their livestock. She explained that cattle are not a cheetah's first choice of food and if farmers kept other wild animals on their land, the cheetahs likely would leave the farmers' livestock alone.

The farmers listened. What came next was establishment of the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

She turned farmland and old buildings into an internationally recognized research and education center. She created a sanctuary for orphaned cheetahs. She started a cheetah breeding program with genetics and veterinary clinics. She began the Livestock Guarding Dog Program and has trained more than 3,000 livestock farmers how to live in a world with predators.

Marker's work has not only increased the population in Namibia of the most endangered big cat in Africa — and the fastest land animal, running up to 70 miles an hour — her work also helps humans and wildlife habitat coexist. And that can help save the entire ecosystem.

"The cheetahs took me down a path to understand how the world has needs and to realize that if they're going to be saved, their survival is linked to all kinds of complex systems," Marker says.

As a result, her work has helped create conservation policies and programs and develop a biomass industry that harvests encroaching thorn bush to make fuel logs. This not only restores habitat for the cheetah but also provides jobs and fuel for cooking and heat.

She is in the United States this month speaking and working with entities such as the Clinton Global Initiative to increase awareness, raise money and find corporate partners.

Marker's career has opened up a lot of eyes and improved many lives beyond those of the cheetah — all because the "they" she had hoped to find was herself.

Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author ofLife's a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 steps to get out of your funk and on to your future, www.andreakay.comor www.lifesabitchchangecareers.com. See an index of Kay's At Work columns here. Write to her in care of USA TODAY/Gannett, 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, Va. 22108. E-mail: andrea@andreakay.com. Twitter: @AndreaKayCareer. Facebook: facebook.com/AndreaKayCareerAdvice.