00:00.00 Guy Marcozzi and Here we go. Stuart Osgood. It's great to see you. Thanks for joining the Geo Heroes podcast. 00:08.82 Stewart Osgood Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me to participate. 00:13.05 Guy Marcozzi well maybe you could just give us a real quick thumbnail on yourself to start off. 00:18.42 Stewart Osgood Sure. Well, I'm a resident of Scottsdale, Arizona. I I I'm the former president and CEO of Dowel, a position I helped for 20 years and just finished my 31st year working for Dowel and about 38 years overall in the AE civil engineering geotechnical business. 00:41.70 Guy Marcozzi And that's a recent transition for you, correct? 00:44.95 Stewart Osgood It is. is It is. It's something that I've been planning for four or five years ah kind of in the final throes of implementation. 00:52.36 Guy Marcozzi That's great. Maybe we can come back to that later in the podcast because I think it's fascinating and some of our listeners might find your path to retirement interesting. 01:00.73 Stewart Osgood Yes. 01:02.11 Guy Marcozzi So let's start at the very beginning. We're going to rewind all the way back and talk about you were you were like growing up. What were your interests when you were in school as as a young young man? 01:11.47 Stewart Osgood Sure. I grew up the youngest of seven children on a dairy farm in rural Vermont, was born in 1965. So it gives you an idea of kind of maybe the ah tumult I grew up in. But ah we were all a team as a family and worked very hard at eking out an existence on a small, full steam dairy farm in in and a little town called Setford, Vermont. I graduated second in my class in high school and looking to either go to the military academy or to on to a college somewhere 01:49.06 Stewart Osgood probably in the east and ended up getting accepted into the military academy. But unfortunately at that time they didn't have lasik surgery and your vision had to be 2100 or better uncorrected and mine was just a little bit worse than that. So while I got an appointment and was planning on attending King's Point, which is the Merchant Marine Academy down on Long Island, 02:11.00 Stewart Osgood I actually at the end to be dropped out because of my my vision. And so I was a hardship case and my state university, University of Vermont, took me. And so i I went there and was a very average engineering student in a small civil engineering program up in Burlington. 02:30.81 Stewart Osgood One thing that happened to me early on, Guy, that kind of changed the course of my life is I got a cooperative education job with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Lab, and they gave me an opportunity to work there whenever I could fit it in around school. That lab is in Hanover, New Hampshire, not far from where I grew up. 02:51.07 Stewart Osgood and I got to go to places like Greenland and and Iceland and the Azores and the Canadian Arctic and ultimately Alaska for work assignments. And so it opened up a world to a small town boy who hadn't seen much of the world in the 1960s and 70s. But by the time the early 80s rolled around, I was i having some pretty cool adventures and working very hard, but getting some great experience and getting really subjected to some fabulous mentors who are still very important to me to this day. 03:25.19 Guy Marcozzi That's a fascinating story. I want to dial it back just a little bit more to catch something more foundational. So growing up on a dairy farm in Vermont seems almost idyllic. 03:29.87 Stewart Osgood sure 03:33.95 Guy Marcozzi And as the youngest of seven children, my bet is that my picture of that is probably vastly different than your experience with that. 03:37.51 Stewart Osgood Well, 03:41.26 Guy Marcozzi Can you speak to any sort of formative that happened during that time in your life? 03:48.17 Stewart Osgood Yeah. you know, farming, I think is one of those things that is cool to do for a weekend or a week or maybe a month. But it's, you know, four in the morning milking cows, four in the afternoon milking cows, taking care of calves, getting in hay, making maple syrup, spreading manure, just taking care of the animals. And I guess the one thing I would say about it is that we were probably poor, but I never knew it and no one ever told me that. And team atmosphere of the family working together 04:23.24 Stewart Osgood Really set the tone for me to love to be involved with, I'll say team sports. This wasn't a sport because it wasn't for fun, but with, with a team environment and working together to achieve something greater than any one person could achieve on their own. And I think that set the tone for me to want to be part of a team and ultimately consulting engineering provided that opportunity. 04:48.00 Guy Marcozzi Going back to your experience with the core, the cold weather regions, that sounds fascinating. You mentioned some great mentors. What what some of the things that your mentors did for you that were impactful that you still recall to this day? 05:00.48 Guy Marcozzi you know A couple of little nudges or enlightenment that happened during that period? 05:01.35 Stewart Osgood yeah 05:06.63 Stewart Osgood Because it was a research an applied research institution for the military, you know the people there were remarkably dedicated to the profession of engineering and advancing the profession and our technology and our way of doing things. 05:23.39 Stewart Osgood And their dedication to the technical part of our world was terrific. They set a good example for honesty and ethics and integrity. And really, although I eventually ended up veering off into the business side of the business, it really kind of grounded me back in the fact that you know it really is about using our skills as engineers to better the world. And we do that. 05:49.43 Stewart Osgood Perhaps through the business side of things, but really through the technical side of things and applying technology to make human beings' lives better. And so I would just say that you even to this day, I look back on the people that I worked with. 06:07.70 Stewart Osgood a military setting, it was part of the Corps of Engineers and we were largely working on military bases and military installations, but people that were really wanting to advance the technology to help our profession do better things for humankind. 06:24.76 Guy Marcozzi That's a great story. I didn't know that about you. But that's a long ride from a small college engineering student interning with the Corps to becoming President and CEO of Dow. So can you fill in the blanks for us there? 06:40.100 Stewart Osgood Yeah. Well, I guess the one thing I would say that maybe if you're a young person listening, there are those things that happen to you on a Tuesday afternoon when you're 22 years old and they can change the course of your life. so so And I don't mean that in a negative way. I just mean that little things happen in nodal points in our lives that we don't really understand and they're important. And I think being prepared to take advantage of those, to assess those. And at an early age where you have really nothing to lose, jump in and take advantage. And I know this is nothing new. I'm just bringing my story forward to say those times after you've graduated when you are in your 20s and 30s, maybe you don't have the mortgage or the children or the spouse or the need to care for parents 07:35.78 Stewart Osgood You know, it's a special time of being able to use your skills and really take some risks, take some risks like some chances. When I left, when I graduated from college in 1987, I was offered a job in Boston for a firm called Metcalf & Eddie, which is one of the legacy firms that was eventually gobbled up by AECOM. 07:59.56 Stewart Osgood At the time Metcalfinetti was, well, CH2ML and Metcalfinetti were probably the two premier water, wastewater consulting engineering firms in North America. I don't think that's really much of of a stretch. I mean, maybe Camp Dresser McKee or CDM Smith now was also in that next. But took a job and got some really good experience working in in suburban Boston, in Wakefield, Massachusetts. But really, Metcalfinetti, in addition to their water-waste-water practice, had a military engineering practice as well. And so it kind of fit in with my background with the Cold Regions Lab and got a chance to travel to Antarctica several times on projects with Metcalfinetti, as well as some consulting jobs, again, in Greenland and Iceland and Canadian Arctic and Alaska. 08:51.93 Stewart Osgood I fell in love with Alaska on one of those assignments and decided to resign my position at Metcalfinetti and took a job with a small firm in 1992 called Dowel. 40 employees in Anchorage and one employee in a town called Redmond, Washington that no one had ever heard of. 09:15.02 Stewart Osgood Of course, ultimately, Bill Gates stuck his little company called Microsoft there and it kind of blew up the region. But at the time, one person outside of Alaska, 40 in. i Worked there until 1996, was offered to become a small owner in the company. Went and pulled equity out of my home to buy shares in Dowel, somewhat blindly. Really didn't know what it meant, but it sounded kind of cool at the time. And I didn't understand the risks and the upside, but I was recognized and it sounded like a good deal. So I jumped in. In 2001, I was 37 years old and Mel Nichols, 09:56.41 Stewart Osgood who was the president of Dowell at the time, came to me and said that he had been called to India to serve a mission for his church and that he'd surveyed the landscape around Dowell and decided that I was gonna be the president. 10:01.11 Guy Marcozzi Thank you. 10:12.73 Guy Marcozzi Hmm. 10:13.87 Stewart Osgood So I, again, I'm not sure I actually knew what that meant at the time. I mean, i i I certainly knew that you have to have the title, but I didn't know exactly everything that's included. And so I had some wonderful people around me Most all of whom were older than I was, but they were helpful to me and and and really kind of brought me up, if you will, in the system. And I was in that job from 2001, in January 2001, until September of 2023, when I stepped down and named my successor. 10:48.96 Guy Marcozzi A little bit of growth in that time for Dow, correct? 10:52.99 Stewart Osgood Yeah, when I left, we were about, still are, about 130, 140 million in revenue, 580 and 20 offices. And about, I would say, where virtually 100% of our footprint was in Alaska, when I took over, when I left, about 30% of our footprint, our financial footprint was in Alaska. Still an important part of our repertoire and our client base, but really we focused on growing mostly in Western North America and we're reasonably successful at doing that both through organic means and through acquisitive means. 11:31.27 Guy Marcozzi That's terrific, Stuart. That's really a success story. When you reflect on that growth from 40 people to 580 people, I'm sure that wasn't linear. So what what are the step functions in there? Like what were the transformative transitions? 11:46.14 Stewart Osgood I would say that under in my tenure we did About every two or three years, we tried to do an acquisition. So I've got seven acquisitions that we did. I would say that six of them were successful. One of them was not successful. 12:06.31 Stewart Osgood But I'd also say that we learned from the difficult ones as well. I mean, you know it's the the Edison thing. I haven't failed. ive found a thousand ways that don't work. and And we found six ways that worked. And we found one way that that doesn't work. and So it's part of our culture now. And I think that we're not going to repeat some of those mistakes that we made in the one acquisition that was troublesome. 12:30.82 Guy Marcozzi I think six out of seven is actually pretty good in the industry for successful transitions and acquisitions. But I don't know that as a fact, but from talking to people. 12:39.47 Stewart Osgood Sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so we had little steps in there along the way. I also want to say, Guy, that you're exactly right. It's not linear. and And probably one of the more difficult things that we had to do was along the way, we kind of did the opposite of M and&A and that we divested in services and elements of our business that were not going to be part of our future. 13:08.21 Stewart Osgood In any business, it's tough to stop doing things, right? It's asking those uncomfortable questions like, what have we outgrown? And there was some pain in there, but it was pain that was necessary for us. And so we stepped out of materials testing, would say largely. used to have a big materials testing group and because of the commodity nature of that and some of the competition we were feeling, we decided that we were going to give that portion of the market to somebody else. But that meant taking 50 or 60 people out of our company. and and And we had some other offices, frankly, that were not going to be part of our future either because of the nature of the business or just the lack of commercial activity in the areas they were serving. And so we took some steps back in those areas as well. And and and I guess if I 13:58.40 Stewart Osgood could leave you with one thing on this whole merger and acquisition is that I think that taking steps back are important, asking yourself uncomfortable questions like, what have we outgrown? And then being willing and having the fortitude to leave those things behind. It creates oxygen and space for you to focus on the things that are part of your future. 14:21.03 Guy Marcozzi That's ah really really insightful. Thanks for sharing that, Stuart. just doing mental math from your story. I'm figuring you're in your late fifties, which is a very young man to move towards retirement. 14:32.36 Stewart Osgood ship 14:32.54 Guy Marcozzi And on top of that, you said you've been planning this for four or five years. So could you open up the window into your thought process there in terms of, you know, how do you know when it is time to transition? 14:36.77 Stewart Osgood Sure. 14:43.35 Guy Marcozzi And then what are your thoughts? 14:44.50 Stewart Osgood Right. 14:45.07 Guy Marcozzi And so in terms of positioning your firm to be successful beyond you. And, then I'm going to ask you to follow on a heads up. 14:52.27 Guy Marcozzi What do you, do then? but so it's a long-winded three-part question. 14:53.48 Stewart Osgood Right. Right. 14:57.60 Stewart Osgood Well, I am in my late 50s. I would say a guy probably given your position, you can probably identify with this at some level. You know, 20 years is a long time to be in charge of a company. And, you know, I started to get a sense that the group maybe needed to hear a different voice. They maybe needed to have somebody that was closer to the median age within the company. 15:31.23 Stewart Osgood maybe could identify more with some of the social pressures that we face, et cetera. And maybe with me, it was getting a little bit, I won't say repetitive, because it didn't feel repetitive, but it also felt like maybe the job was starting to get too easy for me. And so all of that got me to arrive at the decision that 20 years is a long time. The company needs a new voice. They need somebody closer to the median. 16:00.08 Stewart Osgood And I became more comfortable with this notion of planned obsolescence. And I know a lot of people struggle with that. It's tough to be obsolete in your own company, but it's also necessary. And I ah ah feel like it became pretty obvious to me at one point that now's a good time for me to make this plan. 16:25.02 Stewart Osgood Now's a good time for me to implement. And I am completely comfortable and mature enough to handle being obsolete. And all of those things kind of converge together. And I went to my board and said, you know, let's make a plan. Let's put something in place. And so we started a very robust program of identifying internal talent and vetting candidates. We went from 12 to five to three to two, and then selected the CEO. 16:53.90 Stewart Osgood And I'm happy to say that two or three years into announcing this plan, we've, well, I can say we've either lost one person out of it or none. And really none of the finalists that that came forward. So I think so far it's, I'm reluctant to declare victory, but I think so far it's been a really good thing for the company and I'm happy to be obsolete. 17:20.27 Guy Marcozzi There's so much to pack into there, and it could probably be its own podcast on how to transition. So maybe we could put something together in the future. But what's the future look like for you, Stuart? I know you've been focused on making that successful because your loyalty to the firm and the person that you are. But you know you're still a young young man, and presumably you're going to be around. And I happen to know you're a pretty active guy. So what are you thinking? 17:44.93 Stewart Osgood Well, so just a couple of things to kind of maybe tide me over. I've bought a house and um essentially torn it down in northern Arizona. And I'm kind of to build myself a little ah cabin, ranch, something up at 5,000 or 6,000 feet in in in the Ponderosa Forest of Northern Arizona. So kind of fooling around with that being my own general contractor. I'm going to spend a little more time on the bike. I'm going to read a little bit more, not reports or specs 18:19.70 Stewart Osgood or letters of intent, but I'm going to read more just for pleasure. 18:20.85 Guy Marcozzi Okay. 18:23.23 Stewart Osgood And I'm going to spend more time with with my spouse and just get caught up on some things that have kind of taken the back burner as I've been kind of hauling in on the DAL train. 18:33.89 Stewart Osgood so I'd like to tell you that I have some plans for Middle East peace and curing cancer or addressing the homeless issue. I really don't, but I do know that there's something else out there for me and I look forward to applying my time and resources to serving the community in some way. I just can't tell you exactly what that is now. 18:55.55 Guy Marcozzi No doubt in my mind, you will be curing cancer or solving the Mid-Eastern piece. But um you mentioned in there about biking, and I just go there. 19:04.07 Stewart Osgood Sure. 19:04.41 Guy Marcozzi You're not the beach cruiser guy. You're like a serious biker, if I understand that correctly. 19:09.82 Stewart Osgood Yeah, I used to be, you know, I ride five to 7000 miles a year, even when I was working. And you know, now that'll probably be 10. But yeah, I like to ride every day, it, it quiets my mind. And I've, ah ah I'm a person that gets both strength and vulnerability and pleasure out of the heavy work associated with cycling. So I do push myself a little bit, not because I'm going to ride the Tour de France or anything, but I i 19:42.04 Stewart Osgood I'm a pretty good 60 year old bike rider and that's fine with me. And it's also good from a social perspective. I have friends that I ride with and and and so it really gets me out and meeting new people, which is also fine. 19:56.24 Guy Marcozzi That's great. I want to transition here where we go from talking about you your biography and more towards the geo profession. So you're an experienced guy, you've seen a lot, you've done a lot, you're well respected. 20:05.01 Stewart Osgood Sure. 20:12.36 Guy Marcozzi So when you think about our business, you what's the big picture? you What's the state of the geo professionals today as you see it? 20:20.35 Stewart Osgood Right. 20:25.54 Stewart Osgood Well, I think, let me say I think that basically the business has stayed, I know in many ways people want to hear how much of it has changed. I think in many ways it stayed very much the same. And I don't say that because it's stale, but I mean that the basic underpinnings of geotechnical engineering and good geotechnical design and good civil engineering design remain the same. We have different ways of getting our ideas down on paper and perhaps using AI and computer-aided drafting and BIM and other things, but really the bedrocks of our profession have stayed the same. And that's not surprising because they're based on physics and and soil mechanics and other things. So I think we still, 21:14.28 Stewart Osgood We still attract very good people to our profession. and I think that we have wonderful young leaders in our groups that are leading businesses and leading the profession forward. So I'm very optimistic about kind of the whole quality of the people and kind of staying true to what we know and doing good work. I think I've seen no deterioration of that. 21:41.48 Stewart Osgood I guess I would say that if there's one thing that bothers me about our business, it's everything in our business seems to be built around don't take risk, don't innovate. And I mean, think about it. 21:56.88 Stewart Osgood Both the way we get paid is don't take risks, right? Lots of people doing T and&M and with the not to exceed. So it's like, just put the hours down in your time sheet and don't try to find a way to kind of improve upon the efficiency of the system. You know, there is some lump sum contracting, which may be encouraged that level of of innovation, but But my sense is that it's maybe only 30% of our industry and maybe more common on the private side than it is certainly on the public side. And then we have this crazy thing that we all kind of hide behind, which is the standard of care, right? We have to comply with the standard of care. And if you think about what the standard of care says is that everybody has to do everything exactly the way everyone else does. That's how you stay out of trouble. Don't veer off the path. 22:46.36 Stewart Osgood Because if you veer off the path and something goes wrong, there's going to be Mr. Attorney standing there saying, you didn't meet the standard of care. Because I got six experts that say that's not the way that they would have done it. So there's a homogeneity that is in our business that's probably always been there. But I wish that we could find a way to encourage innovation as opposed to having the entire system set up to turn the crank, do the same thing over and over and over again. 23:14.99 Guy Marcozzi That's fascinating, Stuart, you know, and that guess is, you know, kind of where we are at a crossroads. There's a lot of change out there. And what what do you see that change being, like as you survey the landscape, you know, going forward, particularly as it relates to our profession, you know, whether it be demographics or technology or geopolitics or whatever, what what you think is going to make the biggest impact on our businesses going forward? 23:34.79 Stewart Osgood Yeah. 23:39.18 Guy Marcozzi And it's not necessarily a negative impact, it's just change. 23:40.100 Stewart Osgood Sure. Yeah. I think the alternative project delivery mode is going to change us because That's the one beacon of light for being inventive, pushing efficiency into our system, veering off the beaten path, looking for a better way. And I think by having all of us work with contractors who do this every day, how do we do less work? That's how you are successful as a contractor, do less work. 24:15.74 Stewart Osgood That doesn't mean cheat the system. It means can we find a way to do this with less moving parts, less effort? And I think the contractors can teach us much in that regard. And I hope that by mixing in some alternative delivery, such as CMGC or CMAR or design build or progressive design build, we're going to see more of that delivery method disrupted. And it's going to be a good thing for all of us. 24:44.81 Stewart Osgood And so I'm really encouraged by that. You know, as far as disruptive technology, I'm going to spare you kind of spitting out all the stuff that you're going to hear from everybody else. Certainly there is technological improvements that are out there. In my 30 years, always these disruptive technologies have turned out to be about 30% of what they were projected to be at the start. 25:08.60 Stewart Osgood so My guess is there's a role for AI going forward. I think that it's overhyped to some degree. but But I might be wrong. And I'm very excited to be on the sidelines. And maybe I am wrong. But I don't think AI is going to replace all engineers' jobs in the world. And suddenly, we're going to need one engineer for the 10 that we need today. 25:29.60 Guy Marcozzi How about changes in demographics, you know, with, you know, your generation, my generation, you you know, retiring and, you know, new and different. 25:35.75 Stewart Osgood and Sure. 25:39.79 Guy Marcozzi And I think it's not just more or less people, it's different people, you know, entering the profession, you know, when you at diversity, think of non-traditional engineering backgrounds, and culturally different people. 25:52.25 Guy Marcozzi Do you see any impact there on our profession? 25:52.32 Stewart Osgood Right. I do. And I think you and I would both, I kind of know a little bit about you. I think we both would say that that's needed and probably long overdue. 26:07.26 Stewart Osgood to get new perspectives and new ideas and new life experiences being brought to the profession. So I think that's good. The other thing I would say is that for my firm, you know, we talked about size, right? That's growth, okay? Well, we talked about just getting bigger. But with that getting bigger, we've brought more people to the party because we we now have archaeologists on our staff and we have landscape architects on our staff and we have all of these specialty environmental services folks on our staff that are helping us deliver projects, right of way experts. And the list kind of goes on and on. And so we also get diversity because one is I think those professions attract a different type of person, a different skill set, but really a different perspective that they bring to maybe a very narrow lane of 27:00.27 Stewart Osgood civil engineers with pocket protectors and white shirts and and and and a blue jacket. So I think that diversity of expanding our business and bringing in new service offerings also make for a richer discussion in the firm. 27:19.12 Guy Marcozzi So for our listeners, I should note that Stuart's interview is one of our early ones, right? So we're starting to figure this out. And Stuart, if this goes well, hopefully these podcasts will remain in the GBA archives for 50 years. So I set that up to kind of lead into this next question. In 2030 or 2050, what does geo-professional businesses look like? 27:48.98 Guy Marcozzi This is so people in the future can laugh at us. 27:50.95 Stewart Osgood Well, I'm just going to say that I think that all of these lines and lane markers that we have now between consulting engineering and contracting and planning and all of that, I just predict that those lines are going to continue to get blurrier and blurrier. And we better figure out a way to work with the public sector, with contractors, with maintenance folks, with operators, and with our competitors to deliver projects. Because I just don't see that the brighter lines that we see now are going to actually survive as we grow and get better at what our offerings are. 28:30.87 Stewart Osgood I hope that's not too obtuse. I just see us being a much more integrated project delivery team across the boundaries of companies and outside those lane lines that we now find very safe and comfortable. 28:46.65 Guy Marcozzi Yeah, this podcast is really about you, but I would echo your comment earlier about, you know, over my career, things have changed a lot, but a lot has stayed the same. And it's kind of amazing, you know, when we're not flying around in cars and, you know, there's a lot of like futurism that didn't really make it all the way. 29:06.97 Stewart Osgood right 29:08.56 Guy Marcozzi But it still has changed a lot. Anyway, I want to shift the chapter now and we'll go to the speed round, Stuart. So just ask you a couple of questions, get our listeners to learn a little bit more about you and just ask you a couple of questions and just tell us what you think and off the top of your head. So favorite book or something that you've been reading recently that really excites you? 29:32.73 Stewart Osgood um 29:35.18 Stewart Osgood Maybe because of my background, that have a bit of a buff on Arctic exploration, particularly late 1800s, early 1900s. And there's several books written by a Brit named Roland Huntsford who wrote about Shackleton and he wrote about Robert Falcon Scott and Roland Amundsen. And I'll just say that, you know, the books that he wrote a book called The Last Place on Earth, 30:01.88 Stewart Osgood is about Scott and Amundsen racing to the South Pole. It was the last place that was ready to be discovered on Earth where no man had ever set foot. It was the moon, maybe, of the 1900s, the early 1900s. And then, of course, most of us are familiar with Shackleton and his exploits in Antarctica as well. and I really find those people to be the astronauts of the early 1900s and really marvel at kind of what they did and what they endured, largely for fame, not for riches, but just the draw of of discovery. 30:38.72 Stewart Osgood So um yeah, if you haven't read any of Huntsford's work, I highly recommend it. 30:46.49 Guy Marcozzi You've given me some good recommendations before, so I'm writing that down, and I'll track those down. 30:52.65 Guy Marcozzi Big picture, you know we hear a lot about changes, elections, blah, blah, blah. Sort of lot of concern, but where you in your optimistim 30:59.97 Guy Marcozzi One to five, one being pessimistic, five being really optimistic. Just generally, do you where do you see us? And by us, I mean the state of the world, not necessarily geo-professionals. 31:10.24 Stewart Osgood Right. 31:12.92 Stewart Osgood Yeah, I'm a four the optimism index. I won't go through the list of things that kind of tend to get you down if you're paying attention to reading the news. But I think that overall, we have a pretty good history of figuring things out over time. And I hope that mankind will continue to do that, even though at times we have way too many people dying needlessly in crazy wars and other things. But But im I'm optimistic about the future and mostly guys because I don't know 31:48.45 Stewart Osgood I'm not really sure how you would be pessimistic about the future and continue to thrive in this world. So you have to find good things and good things around you, put good things into your head. And sometimes that's tough to do, but ah I I encourage everybody to do it. 32:06.98 Guy Marcozzi It's very insightful. So biggest impact that you've had in your career and your adult life, even in your career, like just where do you feel like you made a difference here on this shiny blue planet? 32:18.98 Stewart Osgood Yeah. Well, you know, I feel kind of the way about being an engineer, being a parent, being a member of Dowell, being a member of those of us that are fortunate enough to have been born into the United States. I think all of us need to really set a good example for those around us. And so, you know, I believe that is one of the greatest things that all of us can do. And and that, setting a good example, I think it's just trying to a just life, an honorable life, and make sure that people that are looking up to you see that and and try to emulate that. Again, because the opposite is not good. If 33:07.58 Stewart Osgood You're preaching one thing and you're setting an example that's completely at odds with that. It's a pretty empty, empty approach to life. So I'm just going to say, I hope people would say Stewart set a pretty good example for it, for me, for us, for the company. 33:23.56 Guy Marcozzi That's great, great stuff. So you're a successful and admirable guy, really. You're a geohero, right? you're on the upper pantheon of geoheroes. But even as you look back on your life, you is there anything you would do different or it would change? Do you look back with, let's say regret or maybe enhanced wisdom that you would tweak something along the way? 33:49.16 Stewart Osgood I'm going to answer that just a ah ah little bit differently. I'm going it it's kind of an answer to your question, but, but one of the things that I've always wondered is, is what I have done better and been more fulfilled in a contractor builder role as opposed to a designer engineer role. you know, I could have used the same business skills that I used in engineering, but I like to be outside. I like to work with my hands. I, I like to work with tradespeople. 34:17.42 Stewart Osgood And I get tremendous satisfaction out of seeing things put together. You know, I'm the guy that goes to IKEA and buys stuff and I'm glad that it's all broke down and I have to put it together because I get some satisfaction out of putting things together. So i I'm not a big regret guy, but I wonder if perhaps I would have had some different or even greater fulfillment out of being a contractor as opposed to an engineer. 34:44.86 Guy Marcozzi I can see that. I didn't think of that earlier, but I can i see that. So a final question, Stuart, because this has been terrific. I'm really happy that you were amenable to doing this interview. I'll finish with just one last question. you you've sort of given some nuggets along the way. But if you had one piece of advice for those entering the profession specifically, the prospective new geo professionals, what would it be? 35:15.54 Stewart Osgood I think that going back to maybe one of the points I made earlier just that you know early in your career in that period of you know 22 when you're graduated maybe up until a point where you're into your early 30s or around 30s where people start to get serious about about family and such you know take some chances and and try to get out there and and kind of experience as much as you can maybe it's on the construction side maybe it's geographic 35:48.05 Stewart Osgood kind of opening up your boundaries geographically into trying something new. It's a great time when the risk is relatively low. Most people are footloose and fancy free. And I know this doesn't apply to everyone because we all have our special circumstances. But when you find yourself in those environments, go ahead and take a leap or two. if you fall down, it ends up being not particularly successful. 36:13.59 Stewart Osgood Get up and dust yourself off and everything's going to be OK. So I guess maybe this all goes back to me being talking about risk taking guy. And I think I hope that as a profession and as individuals, we can take more risks and deliver more rewards as a result. 36:33.40 Guy Marcozzi Great advice. Great advice. Well said. Well, again, thank you, Stuart. I really appreciate you taking this time. I learned a lot. I thought I knew you, but I learned a lot. I know it takes a lot to share you details of your personal life. You're not really one that tends to talk about yourself a lot, so thank you for sharing that with all of us. 36:53.53 Stewart Osgood It was a great conversation. Thank you, Guy.