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Ask Nicole Ross ’26 where she sees herself working someday, and she will tell you she wants an office with no walls. Ask her what it has taken to get there and be prepared to clear your schedule.
Ross, who completes her undergraduate degree in the Texas A&M Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management this May, is one of those students who makes a list of tasks that seem impossible and then quietly checks them off.
Eagle Scout? Check. Texas A&M Corps of Cadets Sixth Battalion Commander? Check. Drone pilot? Check. Half Ironman finisher and two-time national triathlon qualifier? Check. U.S. Department of Agriculture NextGen Fellow? Check. Aquatic habitat intern in the Black Hills of South Dakota? Check.
Every check of her list has been a step toward a career lived outside, on the water, in the field and without walls.
“Bite off more than you can chew and chew it,” she said, crediting her elementary school principal for the advice. “It does work.”
Born for the outdoors
Ross grew up in Katy, where maroon was basically the family dress code. Both of her parents are Aggies, classes of 1996 and 1997, and her little brother, Scott, is now a freshman studying agribusiness on campus as well. Coming to Texas A&M University was never really a question. But how she would do it was entirely up to her.
Fast-track your future
Earn your bachelor’s and master’s degree in just five years through the Texas A&M Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management’s 4+1 Fast Track program.
“My parents said, ‘Oh my word, you want to do the Corps? Are you sure?’” she said with a laugh. “I really wanted a structured lifestyle and to grow in my leadership abilities. It’s been one of the biggest challenges of my life, but also one of the most rewarding ones.”
Just as maroon has always been part of her wardrobe, a love for the outdoors has always shaped who Ross is. Her father is an Eagle Scout, and when her brother followed him into Scouting, Ross was right behind them.
She said earning her Eagle Scout rank was her first experience “being in the driver’s seat.”It planted an ambition in her that being a student in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Corps would only deepen. It only seemed natural to her that she would end up an Aggie, studying rangeland, wildlife and fisheries management.
She decided early that walls, or barriers of any kind, were never going to be for her.
Leading from the front
Ross has spent her time in the Corps working her way forward. As First Sergeant of Company S-1, she was responsible for the day-to-day health and well-being of 60 cadets. As 6th Battalion Commander this year, she expanded her lens to three outfits and more than 200 people.
The transition taught her something she now passes on to the cadet taking her place next year.
“Your legs are going to be your most important tool, followed by your ears,” she told her successor. “You want to walk around and see all your people, then listen to them and really hear.”
Ross built her leadership philosophy on presence, not position. She applies the same perspective to wildlife management: show up. Go where the people are or in the field, forests and streams where the animals are.
Willow trees and wild water
The office with no walls took its most literal form last summer in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where Ross worked as an aquatic habitat access intern with South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. The job put her in the field every day.
Her team of four planted 16,000 willow trees by hand over the course of a month. She conducted didymo algae surveys to measure its impact on fishing quality. She monitored stream crossings to determine whether fish/aquatic life could pass through culverts. And she developed her own research project on beaver dam analogues and their effect on stream health, soil moisture and vegetation — work she presented as part of her NextGen Pros Fellowship.
The fellowship funded her travel and gave her the opportunity to attend the annual Texas Chapter Wildlife Society Conference. More importantly, it gave her a research question that was entirely her own.
Back on campus, Ross added a commercial drone pilot license through an internship with Humberto Perotto, Ph.D., associate professor in the department. In Perotto’s Landscape Ecology and Drone Lab, students conduct vegetation surveys across Texas and get trained in ArcGIS Pro, a mapping and spatial analysis tool used widely in conservation work.
She also spent about a year on the internationally ranked Texas A&M Range Club plant identification team, which she describes with the cheerful self-awareness of someone who knows exactly what she signed up for.
“I ended up memorizing native Texas grasses in Latin,” she said. “Let’s just say it confirmed I was meant to work with wildlife.”
“I couldn’t explain joining the Coast Guard as anything more than a calling. I want to serve so I can make a meaningful difference and give back to my country that has given me so many opportunities.”
Nicole Ross ’26
Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management
Onward to being an officer
Ross will walk across the stage this May with her undergraduate degree, but she will be back for more this fall.
She is one of eight students in the department’s 4+1 Program, which allows high-achieving undergraduates to pursue a Master of Natural Resources degree following their junior year. The program pairs advanced coursework in natural resource management, planning and policy with monthly leadership training, a summer policy boot camp and a professional capstone project. She will finish her master’s degree in May 2027.
The credential, she said, was a calculated move.
“Wildlife is a competitive field,” she said. “I want to give myself every possible advantage with this master’s degree.”
After she completes her degrees, she is applying for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Officer Candidate School, with hopes of becoming an aviator doing search and rescue missions. This summer, she will take a significant step toward that goal as one of six cadets selected for the Daedalian Flying Training program in San Antonio, a highly selective summer program where aspiring military aviators are taught to fly by retired military pilots, with the goal of completing a solo flight before the summer ends.
“I couldn’t explain joining the Coast Guard as anything more than a calling,” she said. “I want to serve so I can make a meaningful difference and give back to my country that has given me so many opportunities.”
The long-term plan, however, is to finish her service and retire into a wildlife biologist role working on coastal fisheries, rivers and streams.
Back outside. Back on the water. In the office, still very much without walls.
And of course, somewhere in the middle of all of it, she will be competing with the triathlon team she built from the ground up, maybe fitting in another half Ironman or, knowing Ross, she’ll check off a full one.
“Easy things aren’t necessarily the worthwhile things,” she said. “The meaningful things are sometimes the most difficult, but that’s what makes them most valuable in the end.”
