GeoHeroes-Carrie Rodriguez
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[00:00:00] 

[00:00:00] Guy Marcozzi: welcome back listeners. Today I'm excited to introduce Carrie 

[00:00:03] Rodriguez, who's here to join us today. Carrie, can you say hello to our audience

[00:00:07] Carrie Rodriguez: Hello.

[00:00:09] Guy Marcozzi: And you wanna give a little brief introduction about yourself?

[00:00:12] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. My name is Carrie Rodriguez, but many of you, if you know me at all, may have known me as Carrie Foulk for the last 20 years. I'm a geotechnical group leader at BSK Associates located in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

[00:00:25] Guy Marcozzi: And Carrie, you've been very active in GBA. Could you just give us a brief introduction of what you've been able to do so far through GBA?

[00:00:33] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, I started becoming active in the GBA about seven years ago, or possibly eight years ago. And I currently serve on the board of directors and for a short time I was leading the geotechnical business committee, and I have started to help get our emerging leaders program going right now, so that's pretty exciting.

[00:00:55] Guy Marcozzi: And you've been a relatively frequent contributor to our conferences as well. So many of [00:01:00] our audience perhaps saw Carrie in person presenting.


[00:01:03] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, I guess I'm not afraid of speaking in front of an audience, so I've gotten pulled into it a few times and I have a talk I've been doing at schools and things that I did for the GBA couple conferences ago. So it's been really fun.

[00:01:16] Guy Marcozzi: That's awesome. Welcome and thanks for being here with us today. I think listeners, you're gonna find Carrie


[00:01:20] Fascinating. Great story. Let's just talk about your early years. Carrie. What was Carrie Rodriguez, formerly Foulk like when you were younger?

[00:01:29] Carrie Rodriguez: So I grew up, my name was Carrie Thias, that was my maiden name. And I've been all over the place. I grew up. Pretty much just with a single mom. I was born in San Bernardino, California. We were there because my dad was in the Air Force and there's a military base there.

[00:01:52] Shortly after that, I moved up to South San Francisco with my mom and then moved to Salem, Oregon where I [00:02:00] spent my formative childhood years from about five years old to 14 years old. And then I moved back to California as a sophomore in high school and went to high school in Fresno, California.

[00:02:12] So that's also another lovely part of California. Like I said, I grew up with a single mom, but I spent my summers with my dad. He was a commercial airline pilot, and he lived in Washington and Minnesota, so I got to fly to Washington and Minnesota every summer. And over the winter too, which was lots of fun.

[00:02:34] My dad had three more kids and I'm really close to my half siblings. I was a typical independent kid of the. Seventies. I was flying by myself when I was five years old. And I was a latchkey kid at eight and so I did really dumb things growing up, like all us kids did in the seventies.

[00:02:55] Drive motorcycles into the sides of barns and things like that. Typical [00:03:00] latchkey kids stuff. But it was very formative. You grow up pretty tough when you're a seventies kid, I think.

[00:03:05] Guy Marcozzi: It sounds like you're pretty independent, but please go back and explain the logic of why you would ride a motorcycle into the side of the barn.

[00:03:11] Carrie Rodriguez: Because I didn't know how to ride a motorcycle.

[00:03:14] Guy Marcozzi: Okay. So that was not intentional 

[00:03:16] Carrie Rodriguez: nope. Just stole, a local motorcycle at the property I was living at, and yeah. Didn't know how to put the brakes on, so I went right into the side of a barn. Eh nobody knew about it. I'm not even sure if my mom knows I did that.

[00:03:29] Guy Marcozzi: Huh? But you're not carrying any physical scars from that day, are you?

[00:03:33] Carrie Rodriguez: No.

[00:03:34] Guy Marcozzi: Okay. So what were you like in school? 

[00:03:36] Carrie Rodriguez: I was a pretty shy kid until maybe about eighth grade, and I found my footing I think I was fairly quiet. But once I hit middle school, I blossomed a bit. I was very into choir. I was also into basketball, which really probably wasn't my own desire, but because I was much taller than [00:04:00] average, all the coaches would see me and track me down.

[00:04:03] So at the various schools I went to, I always ended up on the basketball team. I always say I was like the Dennis Rodman of basketball. I could rebound and I could block out and I could pass the ball to somebody that could dribble it, but that was not me. Didn't make a whole lot of baskets. I was into later on boys exercising reading and when I lived in Fresno into sun tanning.

[00:04:28] It was the eighties and we got out there with our baby oil. So that's, pretty typical stuff. 

[00:04:33] Guy Marcozzi: It's funny how I was just in I don't know, it's that 34 years we have a very different view of sun exposure.

[00:04:39] Carrie Rodriguez: very.

[00:04:41] Guy Marcozzi: Interesting. So you moved around a little bit with different schools as well. Was that hard?

[00:04:46] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. You take a kid from Oregon and put her into California her sophomore year. There, there were definitely some challenges, but I was lucky enough to find two [00:05:00] young ladies that had also moved at the same time and we're still friends 35 plus years later. So that was really great. But also I think being involved, being in choir and basketball in the beginning were helpful to meeting people, but it definitely made me

[00:05:16] stronger and not afraid of new situations. I've never shied away from moving and I've never shied away from starting something new.

[00:05:27] Guy Marcozzi: Interesting. So when you were in school, and obviously I know that you're in the now where did you first become interested in. Geo professional activities

[00:05:38] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. 

[00:05:39] Guy Marcozzi: Or even what was your thinking in high school

[00:05:41] regarding going to college and what to study? Maybe that's a better question.

[00:05:44] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, so it's funny, I reflect back now on how I went about everything and how my children are, 'cause they're both in college right now and they had a lot of motivation or expectations from both their parents and there was a path they were absolutely going to be [00:06:00] going on, whether they liked it or not.

[00:06:02] And. It was not that way with my mom. She was pretty much Hey, I trust you to do what you feel like you wanna do. And so she never pushed me with grades, she never pushed me with activities, and I earned her trust by doing the right things. But, so I was just freewheeling it, figuring it out myself.

[00:06:21] And as, as a junior in high school, I took a AP chemistry class that I found really fascinating even though I'm have nothing to do with chemistry now, but my teacher really inspired me just because he was so passionate about it. And so I got super excited about, just figuring out how the world worked.

[00:06:41] It was just something got stuck in under my skin that I was like, I need to know how everything works. And that somehow translated to becoming an environmental engineer. I'm not sure where I got that idea. But I thought. Hey, if I become an engineer, I'll know how everything works, and [00:07:00] if I become an environmental engineer, I can save the world at the same time.

[00:07:04] And so with these, very big dreams, I decided I was gonna be a civil engineer, but. I was getting a little tired of school and not having a parent or parents that were pushing me. I didn't try very hard during the college application process. And I applied only to Berkeley, which I knew I wasn't gonna get in 'cause I wasn't class president and, all the things that were required even back then.

[00:07:32] And so I ended up going to a community college for two years, which was actually fantastic. And. I'll tell you the passion that you'll find in a college professor at a community college is very high level. Really passionate, wonderful people. And small class sizes and everything that really kept me on that path.

[00:07:54] And taking all my, undergraduate stuff at a community college was wonderful. And then I transferred up to [00:08:00] Seattle, to University of Washington and got my civil engineering degree up there.

[00:08:06] Guy Marcozzi: What did you enjoy about university of Washington?

[00:08:09] Carrie Rodriguez: How I ended up there was funny. My, my dad lived in Seattle and so he bribed me and said, Hey, if you come up to university of Washington, I'll pay for college for you. And so I said, okay. I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to go. And the Pacific Northwest, 'cause I grew up in, in Salem, Oregon for quite a few years.

[00:08:29] I was familiar with and I had this romantic idea. For some reason in my head, I decided it would be really cool to be on the crew team. I have no idea why that appealed to me, but I knew there was a big lake up there and I knew it rained all the time. And I just had these visions of, rowing a.

[00:08:48] A boat out on the lake with bald eagles flying around and being up at five o'clock in the morning and going out there. So that sort of drove me as well, which is really funny because that's the way it [00:09:00] was except with a ton of blood, sweat, and tears on the crew team. But I just really liked the beauty of the University of Washington and I did know that they had a good civil engineering program, the whole grunge era.

[00:09:15] Thing was just the icing on the cake. I really didn't know that was a thing. But I was in Seattle from 1993 through 1998, and so it was pretty amazing to, be up there during that.

[00:09:29] Guy Marcozzi: Oh, so you were there, right? At that time,

[00:09:31] Carrie Rodriguez: I was there. 


[00:09:32] Yeah, I would go, just go to a bar and show up to go to a live show, which they wouldn't say who it was and it would be some super famous grunge act, but they would just quietly go play at little bars so that they could go still do that instead of having to constantly be doing stadium this and that.

[00:09:48] They'd just go under a pseudonym and you could go and all of a sudden it was somebody super famous Alice and Chains or Soundgarden or somebody. So it was super fun.

[00:09:57] Guy Marcozzi: Oh, that's cool. What a great time to be there.

[00:09:59] So [00:10:00] you just walked onto the crew team it all worked out.

[00:10:03] Carrie Rodriguez: I did, which was really funny. So I actually still was like the tallest person on the team. But it turned out I was super scrawny.

[00:10:10] You, you need to be. A really big girl to be able to row crew. So my coach spent the entire time trying to put some pounds on me and that was pretty fun. She just told me to eat. And I got a lot stronger. First time in my life I've ever been able to do a pull up. And but I had the stubbornness to handle it.

[00:10:30] So a lot of these gals had been rowing. All through high school, and I never had done any of it, but I had the ability to deal with pain, and the stubbornness to wanna stay on the team. So I would get seat raced a lot, which I was super excited was actually shown in the book the boys in the boat, or sorry, in the movie, the boys in the boat recently.

[00:10:51] And what they do is they put you in a boat and you in a ape. Eight person boat and they do a race, and then they switch you out with the other girl in the [00:11:00] same seat and race again and see which boat wins. And so you have to make both boats win. And so I was stubborn enough to make that happen. But it was challenging but fun.

[00:11:10] Guy Marcozzi: That's pretty incredible. It sounds you had an independent streak and also a significant drive, self-drive too.

[00:11:15] Good for you. Good for you, Carrie. When you were in high school or college, did you have a side job? Did go out and get a job? And what kind of job was it? And what'd you learn from that?

[00:11:25] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. I had several jobs. I even remember picking cherries and strawberries when I was like in the fourth and fifth grade to make a few extra bucks. But when I was in college, pro college high school, probably the biggest I. Job that I had that had the biggest effect on me was I worked in retail and I actually worked in retail in college too.

[00:11:44] So I worked at a company called Miller's Outpost, which is a California company, but it's sells mostly jeans and things like that. And I definitely learned that. I don't really like. Dealing with the general public. And so it really [00:12:00] inspired me to get some kind of degree that I would not need to work in retail and to specialize in something.

[00:12:07] But it definitely taught me to deal with, I. People in general which wasn't my favorite. And when I was in college, I also worked at the Emporium Cap which was in Marin County. It was a great big, department store that's out of business now. Yeah, I guess I learned what I didn't want to do.

[00:12:24] Guy Marcozzi: That's good to know too, and better to find out early.

[00:12:26] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah.

[00:12:27] Guy Marcozzi: So back to the schooling. I, there's a couple things there. Your first job, and I think you, you have a graduate degree that I'd like you to share, and I'm not sure which order you want to go in. Did

[00:12:38] you, uh, graduate, undergrad and go right to work?

[00:12:40] Or did you go right to graduate school?

[00:12:42] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. So that, that is also a long and winding tale, and I'll try to keep it short. But like I said, I went to the University of Washington. I did get a degree in civil engineering, but my focus was in structural engineering. Again, I think I was just getting a little. Worn out from school. I [00:13:00] think being in an NCAA sport didn't help a whole lot with that.

[00:13:03] In fact, I didn't continue through my senior year because there was so much travel and I had a hard time keeping up my grades once I was in the civil program. So I did not row my senior year and I focused on civil but structural engineering sounded really interesting to me. I liked geeking out on all the calculations.

[00:13:22] University of Washington has fantastic geotechnical staff, but I, the teacher I had, she wasn't particularly inspiring. We were doing compaction tests in the basement and it just wasn't very interesting. So I became a structural engineer, and at that. Focused on structural engineering.

[00:13:39] And at the end of my degree, Boeing Airplane Company came onto the campus to interview people. And so I interviewed with them. They gave me a job or offered me a job with what seemed like an ungodly amount of money at the time. And I said, sure. I had no idea what I would be doing [00:14:00] for Boeing because I figured it's airplanes.

[00:14:02] I thought maybe I'd be helping design their buildings or something. But it turns out structural engineering is the same on an airplane as on a building. So I was doing, bolt connection, analyses and things like that. And then so that was 1996 and around 1998, my boyfriend at the time who was also working at Boeing wanted to go to work for a nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico.

[00:14:28] And I made the decision at that point to either stay in Seattle and keep being a structural engineer or just do something totally different. And as I mentioned, I've never been afraid of change. And so I said, heck, I'll go to New Mexico and shoot, maybe I'll try something else. And I had a girlfriend who worked for a

[00:14:49] geotechnical engineering firm in San Francisco. So I called her up and asked her, Hey, how do you like this? And she loved it. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna try [00:15:00] it. So I looked for any geotechnical firm in Albuquerque and there were, I think two, and one of them was Kleinfelder. And so I interviewed with them and.

[00:15:13] They asked me a couple of questions. I'm still in contact with my original boss there, but they asked me, what's an outer bird limit? And I said, I have no idea. And they said, okay, what's an R value? And I had no idea. And so I said, but I promise you I'm a quick learner. It's been like five years since I took this stuff in college.

[00:15:34] And so they trusted me and they hired me on and. That's how I got started in geotechnical engineering. We moved pretty quickly after that, about 10 months because both of us wanted to get further degrees and the University of Mexico, which was one of the only options there, didn't really have what we wanted.

[00:15:52] We was my became my husband, my boyfriend, and then became my husband. We moved to the San Francisco Bay area and [00:16:00] I stayed working with Kleinfelder for a couple more years until 2001 and decided, I do like geotechnical engineering. Let me go get a master's degree. And so I applied to Berkeley for their geotechnical master's degree program, and they have a couple, but one is a nine month program that's meant for working professionals.

[00:16:23] And so I quit. And did nine months of really hardcore master's degree work at Berkeley and graduated with my master's degree there. So it was really great. Went back.

[00:16:34] Guy Marcozzi: That's, mean, Berkeley's a elite school, so

[00:16:37] good job and second's a charm, right?

[00:16:39] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I finally got into Berkeley and I still have very strong connections with those people too that I went to college with there.

[00:16:48] In fact, one's a professor at Berkeley now. So that was really great. And then I went back to work for Kleinfelder for a couple years and then I had kids and I [00:17:00] quit. And what for six years to be a stay at home mom. And so that's the, a stopping point in my career it was from 2006 to 2011.

[00:17:14] Guy Marcozzi: So getting back into the work, obviously we know that you're still in the profession, so at some point you jumped in and what was the thought process there and what were the challenges?

[00:17:23] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. So it turns out being a stay at home mom is pretty challenging. And it's not because it's really hard, wrangling kids. It's really keeping mentally fit because it can be pretty draining. Just, watching, and I don't say just, it can be pretty draining watching kids all day and, I've tried many ways to keep. Myself intellectually stimulated. And so I would read a lot and I literally read every classic I could, including War and Peace and things like this. And I would read, it's when I started reading The Economist [00:18:00] and I would say things like, to my girlfriends, can you believe what's happening in Syria right now?

[00:18:03] And they're like, I don't know what you're talking about, and I just needed a little bit more. And so once my son hit. Kindergarten, it just happened that Kleinfelder was like please come back. And so I came back part-time and it was literally one of those moms that just dropped her kids off worked, picked her kids up.

[00:18:21] So I maybe worked five hours a day or so, and then I came to BSK in 2013. And did the same thing here for several years, and then finally decided that the kids were old enough to walk home, let themselves in the house, and so I was able to squeeze it out to an eight hour day. So I would say, it was probably probably close to an eight year sort of interruption in my career, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

[00:18:48] Guy Marcozzi: Any lessons from your own youth that you apply to your own children?

[00:18:52] Carrie Rodriguez: Oh gosh. It's very tempting. It's funny because it's very tempting as an adult to say back when I was a [00:19:00] kid. And we tend to try to do that at work, I think too with the new generation, the, gen Zs and the younger millennials to say, oh, you don't know how hard we had it, kids these days are really sophisticated and they're like, yeah that's your problem. But I would say with my kids, the biggest impact I probably had on them that my youth had on them is that I was definitely like, Hey, you guys step up. You're, you take responsibility for this.

[00:19:26] Because I was a latchkey kid and had, to take on most of my own responsibility for many years. Giving them the not free reign necessarily, but the responsibility to, to do things like make their own food or walk home from school when the time was appropriate. So I think as a parent, you wanna protect them so much.

[00:19:45] But I think that doesn't do them any good. And yeah.

[00:19:49] Guy Marcozzi: So when you were in Boeing do you think that some of the attraction to that was your youth and your travel on planes at age five? And did that factor in or was that totally non-sequitur?

[00:19:59] Carrie Rodriguez: [00:20:00] I laughed that I ended up in the airplane industry because my dad, that was a huge part of my identity, honestly growing up is being like, yeah, my dad's a pilot. He's in the Air Force Reserves and he flies 747s and, as a commercial airline pilot.

[00:20:15] And so it was really cool. But honestly, I think I ended up at Boeing just because they are a very large employer in the Puget Sound area. And so it just worked out, but it was pretty cool. I have found it funny over the years to realize that I went from engineering something that flies in the air to engineering something that's under the ground, so I went very opposite.

[00:20:38] Guy Marcozzi: And you're undergraduate as focusing on structural. Has that helped you in your geotechnical endeavors?

[00:20:44] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, I think for sure it definitely helps to have that structural background. And it's funny how many people that I mention, Hey, I started out as a structural engineer that say the same exact thing. I think it's very common for people that go into civil engineering to be attracted to structural [00:21:00] engineering because you tend to go into civil.

[00:21:02] Because you are attracted to calculations or whatever, sciencey type stuff. And so structural engineering really scratches that itch. And, but I think a lot of people get into it and maybe they haven't found the right place that it really keeps it interesting. Geotechnical in engineering is interesting every single day, but having that background with a structural engineer, it does sometimes make it easier to talk to our structural counterparts on a design team.

[00:21:31] Guy Marcozzi: Fast forward to, from, you switched back from Kleinfelder and then you went to BSK, you're still part-time and now you're in the role you're in. What, fill us in on those details.

[00:21:42] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. Through throughout my career I've always been offered the ability to manage people. I love managing. I. People on a small scale I've found that I definitely, I'm a person that sort of shies away from conflict and so I, [00:22:00] it's never really been that attractive to me to manage large groups of people or even to manage segments of a company.

[00:22:07] And so I've kept myself on a technical track. I am the technical lead at BSK, and I really, I. Focus on keeping abreast of all of the technical details. And that definitely keeps you busy in California because we're constantly having to update methods to deal with earthquakes. So it's pretty interesting.

[00:22:32] So it know I manage a group of maybe six or seven people just directly, and I really like that. And then having the. The overall job of keeping the whole company abreast of the most up-to-date geotechnical papers and methods and things like that. It's that's where my sweet spot has really been, and I really enjoy that.

[00:22:56] I think another part of what I've been doing. Through [00:23:00] all these years. It's been 1998 till now, 26 years with a little five and a half year hiatus. I've, it's been a challenge all of these years, honestly, wanting to continue and be excited about being a geotechnical engineer. It's hard. Being a consultant is hard and it takes.

[00:23:22] A little bit of thick skin and it takes the ability to learn. From the hard lessons. And so I have, by way of making myself feel better about not always being super, super passionate about the exact thing I do, I try to get other people passionate about it because I know they will be and or have the opportunity could be passionate about it if they knew about geotechnical engineering.

[00:23:52] And part of what I've done over the last. Six, seven years has thrown myself into being an advocate [00:24:00] for geotechnical engineering. So I go talk at a lot of schools and conferences trying to. Inspire people to either become a geotechnical engineer or inspire people like you and me to get out there and get the word out.

[00:24:17] Hey, this is a fantastic profession. I've put myself in this position of being a spokesperson for it by way of keeping myself, I don't know. I guess feeling inspired by what we do and it is a very inspiring field, but sometimes being a consultant can be really hard.

[00:24:37] Guy Marcozzi: That's true that I think everybody listening in this podcast can understand some of the challenges there. But Carrie, fascinating story of, what you've been through to get you to this point in life. And I appreciate you sharing that. I like to shift gears now and talk a little bit about. The geo profession more generally. And I think you gave us a great segue there of, being this, I think, terrific [00:25:00] ambassador to those outside the professions to enter the profession. So the first question I have is from when you started your career more in the geo professional side till now, how do you what's the same and what's different?

[00:25:14] Carrie Rodriguez: I think what's different is that people have a lot more autonomy on how they wanna direct their careers. I think back when I started, in the late nineties, whatever your boss said was, what went and whatever it was. And we just obeyed, and I think now kids these days have a lot more self-possession and they they feel free to ask questions and be like, why can't we do it this way?

[00:25:45] And they're not feeling like they need to work. 10 hours a day to, to get ahead. That was an absolute must, I in the past. And I think that's what's changed is that the younger professionals coming in have brought a [00:26:00] lot more autonomy to, to, to what they do. And I like that.

[00:26:03] And that there's a lot of moaning about that, I think, among older people. Oh, we, we can't get 'em to work past five or whatever. But I think, I think it's probably changed for the good. They figured out maybe how to balance life and work a little bit more. You know what has stayed the same?

[00:26:20] Geotechnical engineering being, the foundation of a civil society. And this is what I say to young students trying to decide what they wanna do with their lives. What we do is so important to a civil society outside of say, good governance. Having civil infrastructure that works keep us, keeps us civil as people.

[00:26:43] And I think the younger generation. Gets that. And they also are adding to that adding wanting to make a difference in their local communities and they're adding to it that they want to make a difference to the environment and they wanna figure out how does civil [00:27:00] engineering and or geotechnical engineering fit into that that idea of their future?

[00:27:05] Guy Marcozzi: For our listeners there, and you've been a tremendous advocate for the profession and you've really put yourself out there. For those that don't know, Carrie, she's very passionate about this, but say somebody wanted to do it, do you have some advice for other professionals? What resonates?

[00:27:20] Carrie Rodriguez: How do you approach, outsiders? Who do you approach?


[00:27:23] If you wanna get involved in spread, the geotechnical bug, it's funny, all you have to do is just knock on a few doors. I think local community colleges and even local colleges, local high schools, even local middle schools, are very happy to have a guest lecturer.

[00:27:43] Carrie Rodriguez: They even have it in their curriculum. Many of the schools do. They have, a intro to engineering course and a good portion of it is. People coming in from industry talking about what they do. And so just knock on a door, send an email, and you can [00:28:00] be busier than you ever wanted to be.

[00:28:02] Spreading your passion and sharing your passion about whatever it is you do, whether it's environmental, it engineering, geotechnical engineering, whether you're materials testing and inspection, the, all of that. The teachers, lecturers, professors, they want. They want that. And I just sat down with a friend of mine, her daughter is actually a freshman in civil engineering at University of Washington, which I was just so proud of.

[00:28:27] We sat down for coffee last Friday, and she told me that one of her favorite courses was her intro to engineering courses where people were coming in and talking about what they do. And she wants to be an environmental engineer and so she got so excited this gal came in, was talking about her job as a water waste water, a professional and.

[00:28:52] She got super jazzed and I was like, ha, it's working like it, it does make a difference when you go in and just talk to these [00:29:00] kids. She's the far end of that. I've gone recently into, I. A middle school class and kind of talked about similar things, but we brought in Brock to talk about geology.

[00:29:13] We brought in the geo kit that are that we developed at the GBA last year. The kids got super jazzed and the teacher told us that. A few of them were like, oh gosh, maybe, I wanna do that, in life. So these are middle schoolers, and you don't even know if they're listening, right?

[00:29:29] They're still bouncing off the walls at that age. Just jump in. The need is so great. And you will be accepted with open arms. People need people to come out and talk to the younger generation.

[00:29:42] Guy Marcozzi: So it sounds like the key ingredients are some initiative to get started and then just bring passion and it takes care of itself.

[00:29:48] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, absolutely. And a big part of what I do is I tell my personal story just so that the students in particular, like the the community college and college level, students can hear [00:30:00] if they're feeling doubt about what they want to do, or they don't know, really know what they want do, or they feel like they've already maybe messed things up, quote unquote, or not gone, in a straight path.

[00:30:10] It's okay. It doesn't have to be a straight path, so I like to try to humanize it a little bit.

[00:30:16] Guy Marcozzi: That's awesome, Carrie and your passion comes through here as well. So globally, looking at the geo profession and based on your experience to date and your thoughts on the future, where are we gone, what do you think our biggest challenges are and what are the biggest opportunities?

[00:30:32] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah like I noted before, I think the biggest opportunity is really harnessing the energy of the younger generation when they're talking about making a difference in their local community and. And the environment. I really think that's our biggest opportunity to stop and listen and because as we're, getting older or even starting to think about retirement, they're just starting and they have so much passion and even 

[00:30:56] though their way of approaching work may be a bit [00:31:00] different. They have the ideas and they have the initiative. They have the know-how, they know they're not scared of ai, they're not scared of any new technologies. And so really listening to the younger generation I think is where we have the most opportunity.

[00:31:15] Absolutely. And.

[00:31:17] Guy Marcozzi: connecting the intergenerational, I'm gonna say conflicts, but different perspectives. Is the challenge, and you think

[00:31:23] it could be overcome by just trying to meet 'em where they are?

[00:31:26] Carrie Rodriguez: Exactly. Yeah. And you know what I've always said is if you're gonna bring up a problem, then bring me the solution. And so whoever brings it up, and I would say we and I talk people. In general that have been doing this for 20, 30 years. To bring up things maybe as a problem, but with no solution.

[00:31:45] And I know that we've definitely been trying to figure out how to work with a younger generation that works differently than we do. We were worried about millennials. And which seems hilarious because they're like the hardest working [00:32:00] people that I've come across. And now, we're worried about Gen Zs, which my kids are in that group.

[00:32:06] It's silly because they're really passionate, awesome young people. We just need to meet them where they're at and figure out how to not try to stick a square peg in a round hole. As far as disruptive technology I, disruptive to the geo professions. I'm very ambivalent about social media.

[00:32:26] I stopped, I. Being on social media maybe three months ago, and I know I'm missing out on a few things, but I think it can be pretty disruptive to society in general. Just because if you're, you get these algorithms that are focusing your, your thoughts into one direction instead of seeing things broadly.

[00:32:46] So I get grumpy about social media being disruptive to the way we do things, but I also think it's actually a huge opportunity. So I can't really be that grumpy about it because I think I. Our way of reaching the younger [00:33:00] generation or the public at large is actually through social media and it you could, paint that with a huge, broad brush, but just geotechnical engineers and geo professionals in general getting online and figuring out how to connect with the world at large.

[00:33:13] One of our missed opportunities as the geo professions, and we bemoan this a lot too, is, hey, nobody respects us. Nobody even knows who we are. Why aren't we more well thought of or more well known, like architects or whatever. And I think our opportunity is to get out there again, meet people where they are, which is online and through social media.

[00:33:37] Guy Marcozzi: So just driving that a little bit further, and you talked about, intergenerational communication hiccups and social media as a, a standard for communication or driving change in the way we communicate. How do we need to be communicating with our clients today and how do you see that going into the future?

[00:33:53] Just engaging with folks outside of our office.

[00:33:56] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah. That's a hard one 'cause we're gonna have to just go [00:34:00] with the flow. We're gonna have to figure out what is the next thing and keep using it. Whatever it is, whether it's social media using ai I. But I think person to person contact is still bar none the best way of being in contact with people and getting the word out about our profession.

[00:34:22] And even meeting with design teams, meeting with decision makers, et cetera. I think it really is that face-to-face contact that's never gonna grow old. I think that's the most important thing. And part of what I do tell younger students is get involved, join ASCE out here in California, join CalGeo as they get a little older, join GBA, get involved because that face-to-face contact is never gonna be out of date.

[00:34:53] Guy Marcozzi: So looking ahead, put your crystal ball on or look into your crystal ball. What do you think the profession [00:35:00] looks like in five or 10 years? Anything significantly different than today, or you think largely the same with some tweaks?

[00:35:07] Carrie Rodriguez: I think that. In five years, it's gonna still look fairly similar to where we are now. But I think we're gonna be a heck of a lot more efficient. And I really think that is through ai. I know again, people of my generation may tend to be a little afraid or, not trust ai, but I think it really is what.

[00:35:29] AI in general is gonna do, is it's just gonna make us more efficient, whatever that looks like. And so maybe we'll need less staff to do the same job. And maybe that's a benefit because as I've experienced going to career fairs and things like that, there are fewer people coming into this profession.

[00:35:48] They want to go into the high tech fields. And so being able to be more efficient, I think is where we're gonna be in five to 10 years. I think you and I see a ton of that just [00:36:00] through our context at the GBA. People talk about it a lot and you see it happening almost without realizing it. And so I think that's where we're gonna be.

[00:36:07] I am not a futurist. And way down the road I think literally look to science fiction writers. They seem to have this stuff nailed down and so I would hate to make any guesses on what it'll be super far in the future. 'cause it's amazing how quickly things change. And so I think that's super.

[00:36:25] Exciting. But in our careers, in our lifetimes, I think just really will be a big improvements in efficiency. It's not very exciting, but I think that's really where things are gonna go.

[00:36:36] Guy Marcozzi: That's terrific, Carrie, I appreciate that and I appreciate you sharing. You Your view on the geo professions at this point, I want to switch to the next phase of our interview and really go into the do speed round. Again I'm just gonna ask you a series of questions and, just tell us what you think and, take as long as you want, but they're more focused.

[00:36:55] So first question is are obviously a smart person. What are you reading? What's interesting to you? [00:37:00] What's your favorite book?

[00:37:02] Carrie Rodriguez: So I read everything and every everything. That is one of my hobbies, but my favorite book ever. And I would say one that's made the biggest impact on me in my adult life has been, it's a collection of essays by John Muir. It's called Eight Wilderness Discovery Books or something like that.

[00:37:21] I don't know if there's been many people like him that have lived on this planet, but he's a pretty amazing guy. He was nuts and so he, he's just so inspiring to me. The two things that stand out that I can easily remember reading about is in the middle of the Civil War, he decided that he was gonna walk from Wisconsin to Florida.

[00:37:41] And so he just walked on his own two feet from Wisconsin to Florida, knocked on people's doors at night to say, Hey, can I sleep on your floor or whatever, in the middle of the Civil War. Two other things. Actually. He saw a grizzly bear in a field one time and thought, I'd like to see how they run.

[00:37:57] And so he went up to it and ran up and [00:38:00] whacked it on the behind to watch it run. And of course it didn't. It turned around and looked at him like, what are you thinking? And I. Oh, and he did, he lived to tell about it. And then the third thing he did is he, there was a huge windstorm and he thought, you know what?

[00:38:14] I wanna experience this from the top of a tree. So he climbed to the top of a tree in the middle of a huge windstorm and, swayed back and forth. He was just. A really nutty guy, but it, in the end, he was actually a frustrated environmentalist. He created the Sierra Club and the last big thing that he really wanted to do in his life was to stop Hetch Hetchy which is adjacent to Yosemite from becoming a, from being damned and becoming a reservoir, and he lost that battle. Hetchi is now a reservoir, but he was a staunch environmentalist and lived his ideals. It was amazing. He'd get tired of real life and he'd just go walk from Martinez to the Sierra Nevadas, which is maybe a 200 mile walk, but that was just [00:39:00] normal for him.

[00:39:00] So his books recounting all that stuff was, is magical. And I love it and I would recommend it to anybody.

[00:39:06] Guy Marcozzi: You are very well read, Carrie. So that's and you speak with a lot of passion towards it. I thought you were gonna tell us about The Economist or 

[00:39:12] Carrie Rodriguez: yeah 

[00:39:15] Guy Marcozzi: that's great. I'll have to put that down in my readings.

[00:39:17] Thank you for sharing that. So we look at the big picture. How do you feel about the world right now and our profe let's narrow to the, our profession

[00:39:24] Carrie Rodriguez: In index, one being low, five being high. How do you feel about things today going forward? 

[00:39:29] As I mentioned before I, I. If I bring up a problem, I want to have the solution. So I tend to be, I'm a little bit of a worrywart, as my kids will tell you but I'm always looking for the solution to whatever it is I'm worried about. So I would definitely say that I am like a five on the optimism.

[00:39:48] Carrie Rodriguez: I'm very optimistic because the corollary to that would be. Going down a rabbit hole of pessimism and I refuse to do that. There's a lot of things that you could grab [00:40:00] onto and say, I'm gonna be pessimistic about this. But if you're optimistic, you're always looking for the solution. How can I make things better?

[00:40:08] So that's it. I think in our industry, w. We are in such a fantastic position to create good things. We actually have the power and so that's really exciting to me that not, if we've got something that we're grumbling about that we're pessimistic about who, who's got the power, we do we're really in a powerful position almost no matter how you look at it.

[00:40:30] Whatever. Whether you're looking at the environment or governance or any of that we as a geo profession, I think have really big strings We can pull in, really big actions we can take. So I'm optimistic about that.

[00:40:43] Guy Marcozzi: What an inspirational response. Thanks for sharing that. Alright, next one. In your professional life, what's the biggest impact that you've had, being in the geo professions what do you accomplish that you're the most proud of? I.

[00:40:54] Carrie Rodriguez: Ah, that I've done. Okay. I would say, I think just sticking [00:41:00] with it is probably my biggest accomplishment, honestly, because I, as I referenced earlier, I've had a lot of self-doubt over the last, 20 some years. It's not easy being a consultant. It can be exhausting, it can be, it can keep you up at night.

[00:41:16] And so I think sticking with it. Getting, my GE moving to BSK from a situation that I wasn't as happy in. And then ultimately, honestly, getting involved with the GBA I think has have been things that I'm really proud of and by telling my story and sometimes talking about being a female in the business or talking about staying home with kids in the business. And in that way, hopefully inspiring others that, hey, it's not always gonna be perfect, but keep going, and wake up every morning with a renewed, purpose or a renewed reason to come into work.

[00:41:57] And sometimes when it's exhausting or [00:42:00] frustrating or stressful, you do have to look for those things every day. Be like, okay, what's gonna be awesome about today? And so I'm actually just proud that I've, that I have stuck with it is honestly my biggest accomplishment. We can all talk about all the great geotechnical stuff we do, which is a given, you're a geotechnical engineer or a geo professional.

[00:42:21] You've done really cool projects and things that really make a big difference. But it usually comes down to something personal. And that's what it's for me.

[00:42:29] Guy Marcozzi: Thank you for that. That was a really honest and genuine answer and it is a hard profession and that's great perspective. So really appreciate you sharing that Carrie.

[00:42:40] Carrie Rodriguez: Thanks.

[00:42:41] Guy Marcozzi: So corollary to that question is if you had to go back and do it all over again, is there anything you'd change?

[00:42:48] Carrie Rodriguez: When I was younger I used to say, oh, I should have been a rock star. Just something cool and way more interesting and stuff. But but that's silly. But actually when I think about it, [00:43:00] I. A lot. I think I really would've enjoyed professionally we're talking, I wouldn't change my personal life, as soon as you have kids you're like, Ugh, wouldn't change a thing.

[00:43:08] But professionally I think I would've enjoyed being a journalist, honestly. I love reading journalism. It's one of my favorite things to do, the economist, whatever. Good journalism. I love getting super nerdy into details. I love long podcasts on one, little topic so that you can really learn all the deep stuff about it.

[00:43:31] And in my my heart of my alter ego. I would've loved to travel. I actually don't really like to travel that much. I like it in short spurts, but my alter ego, Carrie, would've loved to travel with a little danger mixed in. I love, hearing these journalists from that are based in, who knows Ukraine or Africa or somewhere, and they're just.

[00:43:52] Like right in the heart of it. So again, it's an alter ego thing. I'm probably a little too shy and too conservative to do any of [00:44:00] those things, but my superhero person, I would've been a journalist.

[00:44:04] Guy Marcozzi: I'm not surprised that you have, other thoughts that way because you're a multi-talented person, you probably could have pivoted in a number of directions, Again, thanks for sharing. I think that's really great in insight and, you know, maybe gives hope to other people in terms of, hey, there's not just one path.

[00:44:18] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah.

[00:44:19] So reflecting on that what type of advice would you have for somebody who's just entering our profession today? 

[00:44:26] I give a lot of advice when I do go talk in these classrooms, especially those that are in the civil engineering path already. I tell them to, always be curious, never stop learning. So I have a list of, never stop learning.

[00:44:41] Carrie Rodriguez: Always be curious. Read anything and everything you can about civil engineering in the news. And never be afraid to do menial tasks. You don't know what lesson you may learn from it down the road. And don't shy away from. The difficult [00:45:00] situations always it has never not been true that whenever we've had a difficult situation here at work, we've learned something incredibly valuable and almost always have created a fantastic.

[00:45:12] Client for life. When they go through it with you, they really learn to trust you. That, hey, you're not perfect. Things didn't go perfectly, but here's how we dealt with it. So I would say don't be afraid of those situations. Know that as a geotech or as a geo professional, that you're gonna have to have a fairly thick skin, which is something I've had to work on and a willingness to.

[00:45:35] Again, learn from your mistakes. But if you do that and you stay brave, I actually heard somebody say that about a year ago to be brave. Geez, maybe it was even you. That you you really can. Become a trusted advisor to your clients because you have to be brave. You can't shy away from the hard stuff.

[00:45:56] And you really will become a trusted advisor to your clients [00:46:00] and your colleagues. So that's my advice.

[00:46:04] Carrie that's pretty insightful stuff. I'm gonna actually have to listen to the replay to pull all that apart, but, some of that really resonates with me, so thank you for sharing that. I'm gonna flip that question though because you're given such great advice, through your career. What was the best advice that you received? Tell us a little bit about a mentor along the way, A short story on that. 

[00:46:24] I think almost anybody that would've worked with this person would say the same thing, but my manager for a while at Kleinfeld, or his name was Don Gray. And, the ultimate outcome of his mentorship with me is when I was taking the GE and I had, at the time I took it, there were, four multiple choice questions and usually one or two you could get rid of, and three and four were almost exactly the same.

[00:46:49] Carrie Rodriguez: But you had to decide which answer was best. And I literally wrote down what would. WWDD, what would Don do? [00:47:00] And because he had taught us how to think, so not just what the answer was, but how to think and that. Truly, I think is why I passed my GE the first time through. Because I would sit there and think if I was in a, in Don's office asking him How do I deal with this problem?

[00:47:19] What would he have said to me? And that's how I approached it. And so I think. His mentorship for it was probably five or six years made a huge impact on how I am as a, as an engineer, how I approach engineering problems, honestly, how I approach clients and design team members because he really was thoughtful in his approach and taught us how to see the big picture and how to work through the problem, not what is the answer to the problem.

[00:47:51] Guy Marcozzi: I hope Don Gray finds a way to hear this podcast 'cause I'm sure he will feel great about you retelling that story.

[00:47:58] And, and we'll have to do a whole nother podcast [00:48:00] series on what Don actually

[00:48:01] Carrie Rodriguez: Yeah, he Probably don't have have enough time here today for that. So I think that's pretty much the end, Carrie, of, our scheduled time.

[00:48:09] Guy Marcozzi: I think you've been terrific. It's been fascinating to listen to you. I've admired you anyhow, but as I get to know more details, you're just really a impressive person. Is there anything that you wanna say to our listeners before we wrap up? Floor is yours.

[00:48:22] Carrie Rodriguez: I just wanna thank you for this opportunity, first of all. It's really great. I can forever say I, I'm a geo hero, but no, I would say, and of course this is a total sales pitch, but I'm super passionate about it. Get involved with GBA. It's just such a fantastic organization.

[00:48:38] And whenever I feel down or a little exhausted about being a geo professional, I go to a GBA conference and I come back. Super pumped up. So that's my ending thought.

[00:48:51] Guy Marcozzi: Maybe you could get the the GeoHero theme song in the beginning of the end of the podcast to once you ringtone, to

[00:48:57] Carrie Rodriguez: Exactly. I love it.[00:49:00] 

[00:49:00] Guy Marcozzi: A big shout out to Ryan White for putting that

[00:49:02] together if anybody listens to the beginning of the end of these things. That's great stuff.

[00:49:07] Again, thank you Carrie.

[00:49:07] Appreciate you being with us today. Incredibly interesting listeners, I hope you found it interesting as well, and we're gonna sign off. So thanks again for tuning in.