GeoHeroes - Ryan White
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[00:00:00] Guy: Welcome back to you Hero listeners. We have a special bonus episode a teaser here where we're gonna talk to Ryan White. Welcome Ryan.

[00:00:11] Ryan: Thanks guy. Happy to be on this side of the microphone.

[00:00:15] Guy: Ryan is our creator and producer and pretty much do everything or largely responsible for the whole GeoHero concept. But we're gonna turn the tables on Ryan. As we look at, what could be the future of the GeoHero podcast, but we're not gonna let Ryan get away that easily. We're gonna talk to Ryan and ask him some of these questions about what makes him tick and how he sees things.

[00:00:41] So you ready for that, Ryan?

[00:00:43] Ryan: I think as ready as I'll ever be.

[00:00:45] Guy: All right, well, let's just dive in the water. So for our listeners, Ryan, tell us a little bit about you and what were you like growing up? Like where'd you grow up and what were you like?

[00:00:56] Ryan: Yeah, so right now I'm the principal geotechnical engineer at [00:01:00] Apex in Portland, Oregon. I grew up in Oregon, native, small town on the coast, Seaside, about 5,000 people. Both my parents were science teachers and later stayed in the school district but did different things. Grew up with the academic mindset, so to speak. I got some early exposure to technology 'cause my mom worked as the librarian and media specialist. So I got first access to, the computer with the cassette tape drive and the VCR and the video camera. So technology that at the time cost. Thousands of dollars and people didn't just have in their houses, I got the opportunity with, to play with that when other kids didn't.

[00:01:41] So that's kind of how things started out. I played a lot outside, weather's not great at the coast, but I spent a lot of my time playing sports as a kid. Our neighbor was a high school football, basketball, and baseball coach. So, I grew up playing with his sons out in the gravel [00:02:00] driveway or in the grass fields nearby. And I think between academics and sports, that took up most of my time as a kid.

[00:02:10] Guy: As it should, right? As it should. So interesting. You had early exposure to, then novel computer technology. Did that instill a lifelong interest in that, or at least confidence that you could experiment because you seem pretty IT savvy.

[00:02:25] Ryan: I think it definitely did when I look back on it. At the time it just felt very intuitive to me. Kind of one of the things I recently joked with my mom was she showed me how to write this very basic computer program where you could just repeat text over and over and over on the screen.

[00:02:42] And I remember typing, Ryan is cool. Over and over and over on the screen. So that was my first experience with programming. And then, we did some video editing projects. At the time that meant you had to connect two VCRs together. We didn't have great resolution and cell phones. We had [00:03:00] single camera, and then we had to pause one VCR and hit record on the other one to make things go together.

[00:03:06] I think we were pretty advanced for our high school english class when we did our catch 22 video, but it was a lot of fun.

[00:03:13] Guy: That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. So did you do you have a side hustle when you were in high school or whatever? Some means of income.

[00:03:21] Ryan: I mowed my parents' lawn, they had this giant lawn and they paid me very little to do it. Almost more of a chore. But several of the neighbors with much smaller yards paid me probably double what my parents did to do their yards. So there's about three lawns that I mowed regularly to kind of keep me in the money. I would cover for the other neighborhood kid on the paper route. You mentioned before your paper route and collecting the money and I missed out on some of what I could have made because I was really uncomfortable going up and asking people for money. And he ended up having to come back from his vacation and do the collections with me.

[00:03:58] So he took a [00:04:00] bigger cut than I would've gotten otherwise.

[00:04:03] Guy: If this is rude, he should have done the collection anyhow. That's a really tough thing for a young kid, I'm sure. Your intimidation was warranted.

[00:04:12] Ryan: Yeah, it was definitely something that was scary and hasn't always been my favorite part of things, especially the asking for money. I think I've become a lot more comfortable in my current role.

[00:04:21] Guy: I wanna get into that later. I think I'm gonna just hold off on that just for a second. But we're from different generations, Ryan, so I think part of the interest for me and hopefully our listeners, is to see how you experienced our geoprofession perhaps a little bit differently than I did.

[00:04:37] I mean, for one, my computer story is different than yours because they didn't exist when I was in high school. But I think there's a whole lot more to it. So what you're uncomfortable with as you're in the moment in the practicing, I think is gonna be maybe relevant in something we can explore in this podcast.

[00:04:55] What do you think?

[00:04:56] Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, sounds good. A little therapy session.

[00:04:59] Guy: [00:05:00] Yeah, a little bit. So when we get to that part, I'll ask you to lay down on the couch, but not yet. Okay. You're good at science and you have technology, and somehow you must have pursued a geoprofessional degree. How did you decide where you're gonna go to college and how did you pick your field of study?

[00:05:16] Ryan: Like so many people I think you've talked to. I didn't really have a plan. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was very academic. I was, you know, a small school, but one of the top academically, not valedictorian or anything. I think I, I ended up getting a b plus in something.

[00:05:30] School was always really important. Both my parents had master's degrees in various things, and there was just never any question I was gonna go to college. So I was actually a good student. I actually did better when I was playing sports and was busier, which was interesting to my parents because they thought when I had less time, I would do worse.

[00:05:51] But I think I had had to be a little more careful with how I spent my time when I was busier. So I was pretty good at managing my time [00:06:00] at a young age. I really enjoyed physics and calculus like many of us nerds do. And I think what led me into civil engineering my senior year we had to do some sort of project for physics and my. I had a great teacher and he mentioned this balsa wood bridge building competition that was held at Oregon State. And so I didn't know anything about the science of statics or anything at the time, but I just looked up a bunch of pictures of bridges and I mimicked those with balsa wood and glue. And I actually had mono at the time, and so I sat at home and built all these bridges while I couldn't be at school. And went to Oregon State, and at the beginning our bridges were doing really well. We had no idea what we were doing, but they were holding a lot of weight. Unfortunately people with I would say teachers that gave more direction on statics and where to put certain types of supports ended up winning that [00:07:00] competition.

[00:07:00] But that kind of spurred an interest for me. I mistakenly thought that Bridges and structures were mechanical engineering. There weren't resources , there wasn't the internet to tell you even what engineering was. And so I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go into engineering, I'm gonna do mechanical engineering, and, found out that that meant you design bolts and screws and sit at a desk all day. As soon as I heard you sit at a desk all day, I was out. So I had progressed enough in my engineering curriculum that I realized that Bridges were structural engineering. So I'm like, okay, structurals and civil, I'll pursue that. But we got into Matrix math and I quickly discovered structural engineers also sit at a desk all day and do really crazy theoretical math stuff. And that didn't really interest me either. I had a professor in my introductory geotech course, it just came very intuitively to me. He was a really good professor, used sort of current practice as training material, [00:08:00] and I liked the idea of factors of safety of three.

[00:08:03] You know, you don't have to go to three decimal places. And so I graduated with my bachelor's in civil, not prepared to pursue life, and so I traveled a little bit. And ended up coming back to graduate school at sort of his request. He didn't have any research opportunities, but he gave me a few side projects to help supplement my graduate degree.

[00:08:27] That's sort of how I ended up in, in geotech, was purely by misunderstanding what engineering was.

[00:08:36] Guy: That's a great story, I hope the career materials have improved since then, but I don't know.

[00:08:42] Ryan: Well, I think it's a lot easier to figure out what a mechanical engineer does these days than it was for me back then.

[00:08:48] Guy: I hope so. Okay, so you're coming out with a master's degree and you're entering the job market. What's in your head at that time? Tell us about how you moved into your career and through it.[00:09:00] 

[00:09:01] Ryan: So sort of accidentally being successful. So I was actually in grad school finishing up grad school and I sneezed hard , had a collapsed lung. Right? So this

[00:09:15] is the craziest thing. Apparently it happens to thin young males. You get a bleb on your lung and you build up pressure and collapses your lung.

[00:09:22] Didn't know what happened. Went to the doctor. He misdiagnosed me, sent me home with some codeine. They were relieved when they called me in the morning and I was still alive. 'cause I was basically breathing off of one lung.

[00:09:33] Guy: So this is really serious then.

[00:09:34] Ryan: Yeah. Well, apparently , it didn't, didn't occur to me until later that like, oh, oh yeah, if you would've been a smoker or less healthy you could have suffocated in your sleep.

[00:09:43] I'm like, oh, that's,

[00:09:44] that's unfortunate. So as a result of that injury. Well, I was supposed to go with my parents to travel in England that summer. I couldn't fly. And so I was scrambling to figure out what I would do for the summer. And my geotech [00:10:00] professor said, oh, there's this company that's starting up and they're looking for people. And that was a new company at the time called GeoDesign. It was several folks from GeoEngineers in the Portland area that had started it up. So I went in with my shirt and tie to interview and they were wearing shorts and Birkenstocks, and there's about four of 'em in the room with me, joking with each other, throwing things at each other. And I was trying to be , all proper, as I was trained to do in my professional interviews. And I found it a totally unnerving experience. But also I realized that oh, wow, these might be some of the coolest engineers I know they're not wearing suits and have slide rules in their pocket.

[00:10:42] So I did end up getting a summer job with them. So that ended up being a lot of density testing and construction observation that first summer. And then I was able to work there a couple days a week while I was finishing up grad school. Then I started full-time there when I got done with [00:11:00] grad school.

[00:11:01] Guy: So you felt like it was a good fit from the beginning?

[00:11:05] Ryan: Yeah, because it was sort of this startup, there was a lot of really good energy, right? They were still building out the lab. They were still figuring out processes and developing report templates and things like that. There's sort of this exciting hum through the office. 'cause they were working really hard to bring in projects and keep things busy.

[00:11:24] So it was an exciting time. There was a lot of collaboration. This was all pre-internet too, so we used to send our dfr out via fax. Back then, we did have computers to type 'em out. But we were faxing our dfr and we actually had to visit the site instead of look at street view to see what it was gonna look like for our explorations.

[00:11:44] Guy: That's crazy. 'cause I forgot you can even do that. So let's go through your progression. You're in entry-level job now. You found a full-time job, you're doing interesting things. How did you progress to be a senior principal at [00:12:00] Geotech?

[00:12:00] Ryan: Because it was sort of a small startup, I was given a lot of autonomy pretty early, maybe earlier in my career than most people might have. I was managing projects, with only three or four years of experience. There was three or four principals that sort of made up that practice and we all kind of worked with one or two of them.

[00:12:24] One of the guys I worked under, became one of my mentors, and then later started his own company where I went to work. But I'm trying to think back what I learned. I know back then I didn't have to keep a calendar. I would have three or four site visits lined up every day, kept it all in my head.

[00:12:42] Goes to show that when you have a lot less responsibility, it's a lot easier to keep track of, what you have going on. I remember buying my per first palm pilot that had the ability to sync with your email and your calendar to keep track of things. I think just given that I had a [00:13:00] lot of responsibility early on, I had some great mentors, helping me through that process is what set me up for early success.

[00:13:11] Guy: So it was like being really busy when you were young with sports and school to do better. You were busy, had a lot of opportunity. Do you think that helped you?

[00:13:19] Ryan: Yeah I think I was pretty good at managing my time, so I think that really helped early in my career because it allowed me to do a lot of things and be, productive in terms of, doing analyses, writing reports. Keeping my bosses happy, so to speak. Make them look good to their clients. So I think being able to produce a lot, when you have the energy and you're young, I think contributed to being able to be successful. I.

[00:13:47] Guy: So what do you think were the next steps? What were you thinking as you progressed? What was your next opportunity and how is your job now? What do you do on a typical day?

[00:13:57] Ryan: Yeah, my progression was all [00:14:00] very just intuitive and gut feel. I didn't have a life plan, I didn't have things I was trying to accomplish. I had this general idea that I would do these things over the course of my career, but just so happened that one of the principals started his own small company.

[00:14:15] His philosophy was very similar to mine . That was kind of one of my first risks that I took was to join his company. I was pretty comfortable at Geodesign, been there for about five years. My son was like two months old and I quit a secure job to go start this small company, which was he and I and his wife. But I never doubted we were gonna be successful. And it went great for a number of years. It went great until. I think you mentioned 2007, 2008 when the economy tanked. Being a small company, we weren't very diverse. We had a lot of private development clients and there just wasn't work to go around, even for a small company where at the time there was three engineers.

[00:14:59] So it [00:15:00] was the principal, myself and one other young engineer and his wife that did our books. I probably would've been there my entire career out of loyalty had that not happened. So in hindsight, it was probably a good thing, but at the time it was crushing to an ego where you've been someone that's accomplished things by doing everything, quote the right way.

[00:15:23] I worked hard, I went to school. Easy to work with and somehow I still didn't have a job that was, hard, that was hard for me to accept. So I only ended up being outta work for about two months. My daughter was pretty young at the time and I remember thinking at the time that initially I was very stressed every morning I was looking at job postings and figuring out where I could post my resumes to. And then I realized that I'm not gonna have much time in my life where I'm just doing nothing. So I tried to plan my days a little [00:16:00] better. I'd spend a couple hours sending out resumes, but I read, took naps. Went on walks with my kids and things like that, and it ended up working out. I got a job at Kleinfelder. Reason I got that job was because I was persistent. I'll say, they might say annoying, but I kept calling

[00:16:17] to follow up on my resume. 'cause I was starting to feel a little more desperate. And the recruiter I was talking to finally said, you know what, I'm gonna pass your resume onto the office manager because you've done a really good job of following up with me. And it turned out he and I thought similarly about engineering as a business. Although I was technical, I understood, how to make money doing engineering. Ended up starting there and then I was there for the next three years. I met Saiid and Arlan Rippe there. Arlan came to PBS where I am now called Apex, but Arlan recruited me over, after about [00:17:00] three years at Kleinfelder. And then I just mentored under Arlan for a few years and then took over managing the Geotech group, which at the time was five people maybe, and we're about 10 or 11 people now. You mentioned my day to day now. A lot more email, a lot more people management than I ever realized I would have to do. I went into engineering and was successful because I was good technically. But you know, what got you here won't get you there kind of thing. I've had to new skills in order to be successful. Managing a diverse group of people, working as part of a multidisciplinary company with a bunch of different services that we have to integrate with. And then, also getting our own work and serving our own clients. My day to day is spent largely doing people management, keeping tabs on projects and doing some project management [00:18:00] and thinking long term about how to continue to put the right chess pieces in the right place.

[00:18:06] Guy: Hey, before we leave the biographical piece of this interview, Ryan, I happen to know you have some interesting hobbies. Would you like to share any of those with our listeners?

[00:18:15] Ryan: Oh man, I'm not sure there's so many. I'm not sure what you're referring to. I've got a 3D printer I play with I do some other podcasting stuff on the side as it is kind of been a hobby to me. So learning to develop and use new tools to do that better and more efficiently has been really fun. I think you might be talking about my pumpkin paddling. Maybe I don't, I don't

[00:18:35] know, 

[00:18:36] Guy: one of the things I was thinking of. Yes.

[00:18:38] Ryan: My wife is an artist and an art teacher at the high school, and she does the poster for this event called The Giant Pumpkin Regatta. So Tualatin, where I live here in Oregon, has this community event every October where they bring in these giant pumpkins.

[00:18:55] There's competition for the largest pumpkin, but they hollow these out and there's [00:19:00] different races, and I've been doing it for probably somewhere between 10 and 12 years. I took a year off here and there. I've had pretty good success at winning. I've probably won seven or eight times. I think. I've lost track.

[00:19:14] But yeah, imagine me dressed up as Captain America paddling a thousand plus pound pumpkin around a lake that's bordered by tons of fans. My strategy was that no one's gonna cheer against America. That might be different now, but that was my strategy for getting crowd engagement. That all the kids and parents were gonna be cheering for me.

[00:19:35] So that helped motivate me.

[00:19:38] Guy: So you think that was your key to success having the fans on your side? 

[00:19:41] Ryan: I think that definitely helped. One thing is most people don't do it every year like I do, so they think it's some novel thing to participate in. I'm locked in, I'm figuring out how to win, being strategic. I make my way to the front. I look for the quote good pumpkin and I'm not just out there to have fun.

[00:19:59] I'm a little [00:20:00] bit competitive.

[00:20:00] Guy: Well then I won't ask you to give away your pumpkin racing, secrets, but I think, it's a great example of how, geoprofessionals are diverse and have lots of outside interests. And I just couldn't let the interview go without asking about that. Okay. Well now I'm gonna ask you to lie down on the couch and we're gonna, we're gonna do some self study of the geoprofession.

[00:20:23] So as you look at your career, what are the things early in your career, Ryan, that you felt like you're glad you did and really help you where you are now?

[00:20:34] Ryan: Yeah, I think one thing that served me well was just being willing to do things, especially things other people might not want to do. There's always things that have to be done that aren't the most fun. So I think for me, being the person that was willing to do those things, I feel like it was something that was said to me by a mentor early on [00:21:00] is, if you're willing to do the things that other people won't do. You continue to gain experience that they don't have and exposes you sometimes to people you wouldn't normally work with. I'm not sure what that specifically is, but I feel like I was always willing to volunteer for new things or take on new assignments. I think I actually learned that lesson when I was busing tables as a young kid, when. Again, I thought I was doing my job by showing up on time and working my hours. And then I realized some other kid that had been busing tables was now working in the kitchen. I was like, wait, what? What? How, how did he do? I did all the things and it's 'cause he was putting in the extra time. I would have him cover a shift for me.

[00:21:43] I'd be like, Hey, uh, I'll cover one for you. And he's like, no, you don't have to. So he was getting extra shifts by, taking mine when I couldn't. He was spending time talking to the cooks. He got promoted to be sous chef or whatever, and meanwhile, I'm still out busing tables. So I realize that just doing [00:22:00] what's expected of you isn't gonna be all it takes to get where you want to go.

[00:22:05] Guy: Yeah. But if you had, done that, then you would've been the sous cheff and you'd be on The Bear right now.

[00:22:10] Ryan: Oh man, I love The Bear. I wouldn't mind that.

[00:22:13] Guy: Huh? It could've gone down a different path. You talked earlier about your introduction to technology relatively early in life and using it to pragmatic ends. Has that stayed with you and do you feel it helps you now?

[00:22:26] Ryan: Yeah, for sure. I've always, had computers. So, at a young age because my parents were teachers I got the the teacher deal on the Apple IIe computer. So I had my own Apple IIe computer and took a programming class at the community college in the summer just for fun. Right? Pretty nerdy. And I had a group of friends that we were all into computers and doing weird things with them, trying to learn stuff and just playing around. I've always had a personal computer. I've always been interested in, trying to get them to do new and [00:23:00] interesting things. One example is in college there was a popular song at the time that had backward lyrics and I was able to record those on the computer and then we were able to flip the audio and figure out this hidden message in the song. So it's always sort of these, unique ways to use technology that interested me the most, I think.

[00:23:21] Guy: So you think like a big part of that is you don't have a fear of it, so you're willing to dive in and experiment, or do you feel like you were just blessed with some innate computer skills.

[00:23:31] Ryan: Yeah, it was never intimidating to me. I guess I always of it as something fun to do and I don't know if that's because of how I was introduced to technologies, when I was younger and allowed to play with them. So it wasn't like they were treated as this, like be careful, don't break it kind of thing that might make you less likely to experiment . For me, it was just another form of play I think.

[00:23:58] Guy: So you see that in the workforce [00:24:00] today where maybe a less experienced generation from a engineering perspective is more comfortable with technology. You're sort of, in the demographic middle. Do you see very different attitudes towards embracing technology and experimentation or, reluctance to try?

[00:24:16] What's your perspective on that in the profession?

[00:24:20] Ryan: Yeah I found it really depends on the people, because I've worked with some pretty senior folks that are pretty savvy in technology, whether it's with their phones or with their computers. And then similarly, I've seen, younger people less proficient at things. So I think it really depends on the individual.

[00:24:37] I don't think I could classify that by age or demographic necessarily, because I've seen so many people that sort of break the mold.

[00:24:50] Guy: That's interesting 'cause I think there is that sort of bias out there and you're right. I guess it comes down to people all the time. So how do you see [00:25:00] technology, engaging in the geoprofession? Do you see us being taken over AI or, what does the future look like in terms of technology in the geoprofession?

[00:25:09] Ryan: Yeah we talked about some really out there ideas at the Crystal Ball workshop recently, and to me it's exciting and cool. I'm not afraid that, our jobs are gonna disappear because of AI. I think we're definitely gonna do things differently as a result of new technology. And I think to your point when I talk to you is our job is just gonna look a lot different.

[00:25:32] Maybe we have the energy and time to put into more of the client management and the strategy behind what we do. Versus spending our time collecting samples and doing the analysis that maybe gets more refined and completed with some form of automation or AI using existing data. So I don't see our job going away.

[00:25:54] I see it just becoming maybe different in terms of what's important, what's [00:26:00] emphasized.

[00:26:01] Guy: What do you think the key skills are that we need to maintain going forward?

[00:26:08] Ryan: I think people just need to be open. I think if we put our foot down and say, no one can do what I do as an engineer, we're gonna miss the boat. 'Cause I think we can definitely continue to do what we do, but maybe improve the way it's delivered. Improve the way we collect information. So I don't think what we're doing is gonna go away, but I think technology is gonna make certain parts of our job more efficient so that we can focus on the more unique aspects of what we do. Kinda what we were trained to do. You know, we're not out collecting samples and drilling maybe as much but focus on, how do we get the client exactly what they need? Can we get it to 'em faster because of technology or can we improve the quality of what we're giving them because of technology? I think that's kind of where it's going.[00:27:00] 

[00:27:01] Guy: Any other, bigger thoughts on the profession, Ryan, from your perspective, how do you see the geoprofession today? Is it an attractive career? Do you feel like there's lots of reasons for people to enter this career, which they're concerned about? Just anything generally you wanna speak to?

[00:27:18] Ryan: For me, part of what led me to geotechnical engineering was the opportunity to be outside and interact with the natural environment. And that to a certain extent, I don't think that will go away. That's always gonna be what we do. I think it's gonna look a lot different than, when we were in school, I think things like programming that we took and never used is gonna become a lot more important part of what people do. I see companies kinda morphing into almost more of technology companies that do engineering, versus an engineering company that, has a Microsoft subscription to do what they do.

[00:27:59] I think [00:28:00] the requirements in the future are gonna be, that companies have to do more of that internally to be successful maybe. But I honestly think it's still a great profession. I think the fundamentals of what we do aren't gonna change soil mechanics are what they are.

[00:28:16] And so I think for young folks that are interested in math and science, especially if they're interested in the built environment, in the outdoors I think it's still a great profession,

[00:28:29] Guy: So if there were parts of the profession or your job today, or through your career. You wish would go away, what would those pieces be?

[00:28:38] Ryan: Email. I wish there was a better tool than email. I feel like I'm at the mercy of other people's priorities. When I look at email I feel like I spend too much time filtering through it. I feel like there must be a better way. And maybe that's implementing tools that are better at filtering things out and or prioritizing things for you so you don't have to [00:29:00] do that manually. Some of the administrative things like, following up on AR, reviewing invoices. If those processes could be streamlined in a way to make them less onerous in terms of how much time they take. It's become more interesting and exciting for me to think more strategically, more long-term.

[00:29:23] I'm more interested in how we get the most out of the people and the team we have versus specifically how we do our work, how we do our analyses. I know that's important to be able to accomplish what we do, but I think I like having a team where people like doing those things. I like doing those things when I was younger and now having them do that so I can focus on, the more strategic things. I love strategizing about how to win a project, but once we win the project I'm ready to move on to the next one. Executing and doing the explorations and the analyses is not what excites me [00:30:00] anymore. It's the thrill of the hunt. Maybe it's the competitiveness in me, I don't know.

[00:30:04] Guy: Yeah, I was gonna ask you as a follow up, but you sort of answered it, where do you take pride in your job right now? Like in what you're doing? What are the funnest parts?

[00:30:13] Ryan: Yeah,

[00:30:13] Guy: elaborate, or just say you answered that.

[00:30:15] Ryan: For me it's the people. I never thought about our business as being a people business. It was a math and science business to me when I was in college and early in my career. And you forget that there's people behind all these things. Our clients are people, their bosses are people, our subcontractors are people and I don't think we emphasize people skills or emotional intelligence enough. We focus so much on the technical and so I've had to learn that myself maybe the hard way. But it's been a lot more interesting to me. I feel a lot more pride when, someone in my group has success versus, Ryan did this, or Ryan won a [00:31:00] project. I don't get much thrill out of that, but seeing younger staff or friends be successful that's where I get more joy.

[00:31:09] Guy: You are a good person, Ryan. You are a good person. All right lemme ask you a few questions in rapid fire call it a speed round.

[00:31:19] Ryan: Sure.

[00:31:19] Guy: And just tell us what's on your mind. What are you reading right now that's exciting you?

[00:31:25] Ryan: So I usually read a handful of books at a time. I annoy my wife with a stack of books on the counter because I don't finish one before I start the next one because I'm on the to the next big thing. So I've got a big stack of books, but there's two recent books that stand out to me that I've recommended the most, and I lean on a lot.

[00:31:47] One is called Unreasonable Hospitality. It's by a guy that started a high-end restaurant in New York and kind of lessons learned and how they went to a ridiculous level to serve [00:32:00] their customers. And so I really find it interesting when there's a topic outside of our industry where I can find something that I can apply.

[00:32:09] So this idea of ridiculous hospitality, I started thinking about, what makes us unique in serving our clients? What can we do that other people aren't doing? And think at a ridiculous level what would you do if cost was not not an issue? So that book just opened my eyes to this idea that taking care of your customers, quote your clients is really important. What can you do that's unique? What makes you unique for serving your clients? Because a lot of us technically do all the same things. So if you can serve your clients better you're likely to do more for them.

[00:32:44] So that's one. The other book is called Breath by James Nestor. I'm a bit of a science nerd to a certain extent when it comes to like the human body and performance and things like this. And it's all about [00:33:00] breathing. And I think the biggest takeaway from that is breathing through your mouth is not physiologically healthy for you.

[00:33:06] Breathing through your nose is a lot better for you. That's kind of the, the bottom line of the book and it's one I've recommended to people and they've told me that it changed how they do things. Like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. He talks about taping your mouth when you sleep so you breathe through your nose.

[00:33:22] Sounds scary, but it's actually not that bad. Just for improving health and sleep. So if people are interested in human performance in the body, it's a really easy read and really interesting.

[00:33:33] Guy: Those are unique book suggestions. So, pretty awesome. Thanks.

[00:33:38] Just overall, how are you feeling optimistically for our profession these days?

[00:33:44] Ryan: I'm definitely an optimist in general. And so I would say four. I feel like it's hard for me to give anything a perfect score. Maybe it's my own ideas that I could always have done something better. So I guess I would say four. I'm optimistic. I think [00:34:00] things are going to pivot. I'm not sure what the economy holds, but the fact that our services are gonna continue to be needed we have a smaller pipeline of folks coming into the industry. I don't see our services going away. So I think there's always gonna be a role for what we do.

[00:34:16] Guy: That's cool. Are there any, tangible projects that you worked on, Ryan, that you could point to that you, you feel great about? 

[00:34:25] Ryan: Uh, 

[00:34:26] Guy: for humanity that 

[00:34:28] Ryan: I just really don't think about projects that way. You know, uh, it's kind of humbling when you take your family around and you point to a project and you're like, I worked on that project and it's like some eight story high rise with a two story basement. And they go, oh, what, what part did you do?

[00:34:43] Did you do that? The building or, you know, the, the cool windows? And you're like, well, you can't see what I did it. It's buried. But it was really technical and cool.

[00:34:54] Guy: I think a lot of people can empathize with that, right? Like, yeah, it's there. It's there. What is it? Did you do that? No, [00:35:00] not that part.

[00:35:00] Ryan: yeah, I surfed for a while and I'd come home so excited and I explained this perfect wave to my wife and, you could tell she lost interest and her eyes would roll back in her head pretty quickly.

[00:35:10] And it's, I feel like it's the same thing when I try to explain geotechnical engineering to my family and friends and why this project is so cool. I lose some pretty quickly. So yeah, I just, I, I don't think, I don't think about projects that way. I guess. I don't take a lot, a lot of pride in it.

[00:35:28] If anything it would be, building a group has been a fun and challenging thing. Building a network in GBA has been pretty cool. Everybody talks about the networking of GBA, but it's really been, I don't wanna say important, but yeah. For this sort of next part of my career, it's been really rewarding to learn so much from so many people from different backgrounds [00:36:00] across the country, different size companies.

[00:36:02] It's been super valuable and it's been fun to be a part of that.

[00:36:07] Guy: Yeah. That's pretty cool. These are great points, Ryan. And you know, this is the GBA GeoHeroes Podcast, so we should take a moment there to reflect on the ability, the platform GBA has given us here. Okay. When you look back on your career through now, is anything you'd do differently when with benefit of hindsight.

[00:36:31] Ryan: I've thought about this question a lot 'cause I've heard so many people answer it. And I think I agree with a lot of people who've said they wouldn't change anything because the bad things are, what got us here. And I definitely agree with that. I never would've picked this path had it not been for some of those negative experiences, you know, losing your job collapse along sound pretty terrible.

[00:36:55] But in hindsight those things serve me well. So, you know, [00:37:00] not having those happen, I might be in a completely different place than I am. The one thing I do think about often is, should I have done something else with technology? Would that serve me better now had I followed that path. In grad school, I remember I built a webpage for one of my projects and the professor was like blown away 'cause it was early days of the web. And I taught myself HTML and then I remember giving a presentation where we didn't have the ability to project slides from a computer yet, but what we had was an overhead projector with this device that you hooked up to the computer that you put on the overhead projector to show your slides, you know?

[00:37:42] And I was like the only one to do that. And so I've definitely incorporated technology into what I do. So I'm not sure it's limited me in any way, but that's the one thing I do wonder. Would I been somewhere else had I followed more of a computer science or technology [00:38:00] driven course? 

[00:38:03] Guy: Yeah, it's fair to see how you would be thinking that. It's been pretty transformative era there. But we're glad you're in the geoprofession and not taking those extra shifts at the restaurant and being a master chef now, 

[00:38:16] Ryan: Ha. 

[00:38:17] Guy: that could be cool too. As we get ready to wind the interview down, Ryan, is there any any advice you'd give for others in the geoprofession about how to embrace this profession and thrive and be excited about what you're doing?

[00:38:33] Ryan: Yeah, I think don't be afraid to take risks, I think is important. Don't be afraid to do the things that other people don't want to do. It's a lot less crowded for you when you do those things. Everybody's doing the things they're supposed to. So what can you do that other people aren't?

[00:38:48] Even if it's not directly related to your job, things can serve you well. I think about some of the jobs and volunteer things I did as a young person and [00:39:00] how that served me. One of the strangest things I did was volunteer to help out for a bodybuilding competition. I was setting up the lights and stuff like that for bodybuilding competition.

[00:39:11] That was just a volunteer thing because I liked working out and I was at the gym and they were looking for volunteers. But there's all sorts of opportunities where I think you develop skills that you might not otherwise. And I don't think you can set a path and figure out what those are and be strategic about, I'm gonna volunteer for this 'cause it's gonna gimme this skill. I think you just have to follow your interests and don't be afraid to experiment.

[00:39:38] Guy: Good advice. Good advice. So final word, Ryan, what do you think? Anything you wanna tell our listeners before we sign off?

[00:39:47] Ryan: Man I feel like I should say something about GBA. 'cause I'm such a fanboy, I feel like it's really served me well. But it goes along with what I said earlier about getting involved. , And for me, getting [00:40:00] involved doesn't mean just going to meetings. A lot of us have done that. Through ASCE and other groups and you learn by participating as, a passive registrant in those things. But I think by getting involved in committees or leadership within some of these organizations where you get the biggest benefit. And that's served me well not just with GBA, but elsewhere.

[00:40:25] So yeah get actively involved. It's probably not what engineers feel like they should be doing. And in fact, we will go out of our way not to have to talk to people sometimes. So putting yourself in those situations that make you a little uncomfortable, that's when you're gonna grow. We don't learn much unfortunately when things are going well. 'Cause that's what we're supposed to do. It's when things go bad and you get through it that you learn your lessons.

[00:40:52] Guy: And GBA offers lots of opportunities to feel uncomfortable with assignments, right?

[00:40:57] Ryan: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.[00:41:00] 

[00:41:00] Guy: So before we sign off, just a quick note on the whole GeoHeroes podcast. Again, I mentioned earlier that Ryan was a big part of this and has been the producer and creator, but Ryan and I have been chatting about, next stages.

[00:41:14] I think this is the end of chapter one, and actually this is a teaser for potential chapter two. Any thoughts on that, Ryan, as we look ahead? What this could or should be, or is this the end?

[00:41:25] Ryan: Oh yeah. I feel like there's still so much untapped wisdom within the GBA footprint, right? There's so many great stories and none have been repeats to date where you think there would be more similar stories that followed the same path, but they were all so unique. So I feel like there's a lot more great information in people's stories that we've left unmined so far. So I think a season two, exploring that in a different way would be not just interesting, but I think valuable to [00:42:00] GBA and our listeners.

[00:42:03] Guy: So listeners this is probably the conclusion of this first chapter. We'll probably go in a little bit of hiatus, but if you think there's interesting things that we should be covering through these interviews is there any way we can get those ideas share 'em with us and maybe we can make something of it?

[00:42:20] Ryan: Yeah, I would say they could email you or I directly, or they could email, in response to the multimedia delivery committee. But there's lots of way to get that opinion to us, or just pull us aside and tell us what you think.

[00:42:34] Guy: We like to think we're approachable. Okay, Ryan, thank you for submitting to the interview yourself turning the technology around and making you the focal point. You did a great job. It was really great to learn more about you

[00:42:46] Ryan: Thanks guy. Appreciate the opportunity. It was fun.

[00:42:49] Guy: and to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in and you're loyal support of our podcast. Goodbye.

[00:42:55] Ryan: Bye.