00:01.77 GBA Podcast but Hello listeners. Welcome back. Glad you continue to listen to the GeoHeroes podcast. Today is going to be an exceptionally fun discussion because we have with me today, Kurt Frays, good friend, former president of GBA, former CEO of GeoEngineers, and it was super interesting and knowledgeable man. So Kurt, welcome. Good to see you. 00:28.99 Kurt Fraese It's great to see you again, Guy. 00:31.51 GBA Podcast Well, we're interested to learn a little bit about what makes Kurt tick. You know, you've had tremendous success. Anybody that knows Kurt probably knows a lot about what Kurt's been able to accomplish. But I want to start off with like just your beginnings. You know, what was your early childhood like? where Where did you grow up? What were your interests when you were a just a little kid? 00:52.62 Kurt Fraese Well Guy, I'm a native Californian, started yeah yeah in Santa Monica, California, moved to Orange County and grew up there and was there until my 18th birthday when I left Southern California and went as far away in California as one could go without paying out of state tuition. So I attended what was at the time Cal State Humble 01:24.45 Kurt Fraese which is now Cal Poly Humboldt, and I studied geology there. 01:30.92 GBA Podcast So tell me about your formative years, you growing up, riding a bicycle, surfing. What did you do in SoCal? 01:37.93 Kurt Fraese Well, my parents ruined my baseball career early on. They insisted I take piano lessons, so I studied music. and did not play a lot of baseball. That made me a classically trained pianist, but also a rabid baseball fan because what is denied is what one seeks later in life. And so it was easy because the Dodgers that were my team. 02:05.19 GBA Podcast Well, that's a good team to root for. There's quite a few fans out there in the US. But are you still playing the piano? 02:10.72 Kurt Fraese I am. I play all the time and in my own personal leadership journey, music and the arts were a huge, huge part of my path. 02:12.73 GBA Podcast That's great. 02:23.50 Kurt Fraese And even in dealing with businesses, I see it through an artistic lens. 02:30.06 GBA Podcast So we obviously appreciate the time you spend into it now looking back, but when you were a kid, what were you thinking about when you had to practice and instead of other things? 02:40.62 GBA Podcast It was your attitude at the time. 02:40.87 Kurt Fraese Well, the main thing is I wasn't outdoors. And one of my personal loves is being outdoors and hiking and boating and playing sports. And so all that time behind the keyboard kept me from the mountains. But I solved for that in my teenage years. And I think it's what led me to geology. My parents allowed myself and my best friend 03:06.04 GBA Podcast No. 03:06.74 Kurt Fraese from 15 through 18 to go hike the Sierra Nevada mountains in the summer, just the two of us. And I fell in love with the landscape. 03:18.51 GBA Podcast and How old were you when you did that? 03:20.72 Kurt Fraese Starting when I was 15, we would plan these trips meticulously and we did a good portion of the John Muir Trail in those years. 03:31.55 GBA Podcast Interesting. So how about school? What were you like as a student? what What were your interests when you were, you know, pre-college? Even going back to middle school or high school even. 03:42.51 Kurt Fraese Yeah, I wasn't much of a student. I grew up in a family of educators and I didn't work particularly hard in middle school, high school, and that even bled a little bit into college. 04:00.30 Kurt Fraese until I declared my major as geology and then I worked like the dickens to get through. 04:06.51 GBA Podcast And you declared your major in geology going in, you knew that, or was that something that you came around to once you started classes? 04:14.28 Kurt Fraese I started as a natural resources major and I had a couple of people I really respected pull me aside and said, you know, there are many natural resources and perhaps a more focused path would be appropriate. 04:29.01 Kurt Fraese I listened to them. I took a introduction to geology course and then discovered that so much of geology was being outside and mapping and walking the landscape that I have almost immediately figured out that this was the perfect place for me. 04:53.68 GBA Podcast That's where you made the connection to all your pilgrimages as a 15, 16, 17 year old. 04:59.100 Kurt Fraese Yeah, and I think that what really sealed the deal is like a life cycle. There's also a rock cycle. And once I figured out that rocks could be reincarnated and cycle through their different forms, I was in. 05:17.45 GBA Podcast That's pretty awesome. So staying with the theme of you as you know growing up your formative years, was your first job? What did you what did you but you do in your work ethic outside of your hobbies? 05:30.68 Kurt Fraese Well, I'm going to tell you about two jobs. The answer to the trivia question as to what my first job was is I was a liquor store stockroom person. I stocked the liquor store's stockroom. And somehow that was legal in California when I was there. 05:49.85 GBA Podcast What could be wrong with a 15-year-old stock in liquor, right? 05:52.45 Kurt Fraese I don't know what could go wrong, but that was my first job. ah But I'll tell you the job that was the most formative still to this day. And that was I was a firefighter during my college years. I fought wild land fire for Cal Fire for three years. And it led to very long hours. It was physically demanding. It was in challenging terrain in all matter of harsh and dangerous conditions. It was like being in the military many ways. 06:26.43 Kurt Fraese It was a discipline and no-nonsense approach to work. And I think it formed me more than any other job I've ever had. And interestingly, it was the key, I think, to my getting my first consulting position at Woodward, Clyde Consultants in the Bay Area, that great firm, back in 1983. 06:51.98 Kurt Fraese A friend was working there. He tipped me off there was a position in their geophysics division. And it involved really long hours in the field setting up geophysical arrays and taking geophysical data 24-7. And when I went for the interview, they were describing all kind of difficult landscape and conditions and dangers, and they topped it off by saying, well, could I handle 100 hour weeks? There was time to sleep, but very little time for anything else other than setting these these geophysical arrays up. And I gave them somewhat of a pithy answer. I said, well, will it be on fire? 07:49.12 Kurt Fraese the next day I had the job. 07:52.47 GBA Podcast That sounds really interesting that you know today we struggle with you know recruiting folks and maybe we're just not using the right pitch. 07:52.38 Kurt Fraese and 08:00.20 GBA Podcast 100 plus hour work weeks might really bring them in. 08:03.35 Kurt Fraese Well, back in those days, you got comp time for anything over 40, so my comp bank was very, very healthy. 08:10.99 GBA Podcast Before we go too far into your career, I mean, it's fascinating that you did the fire response. Do you have ah a specific story from that time? like like Like a most dangerous encounter or most thrilling encounter or something? There's got to be some great stories there. 08:28.94 Kurt Fraese Well, anybody who follows firefighting and particularly wildland firefighting, they equip you with a blanket. It's a fire-resistant blanket. It looks like tinfoil. And if a fire overtakes you, you're supposed to do two things before it gets to you. You're supposed to light another fire. 08:56.51 Kurt Fraese that will burn a space so that you have black, and that's what they called it, to get into in your tinfoil shelter. So twice, once practicing and once for real, I got to try this approach out. And the time that it was for real, I had been dropped off on a ridge with three other guys. 09:24.15 Kurt Fraese and a helicopter then and we just had hand tools. And we got the radio message that the fire had turned and turned towards us and they weren't going to be able to extract us. So we followed our training specifically as to what we were taught and what we had practiced once. We set a backfire. It burned enough enough um so that there was an area without vegetation for us to get into and we deployed our, what we called them baked potatoes. And we crawled in. Luckily, the fire never really went over the top of us. It went kind of the a side of our burn. But my adrenaline was going and it taught me 10:18.22 Kurt Fraese that being prepared is an essential part of a successful ah success in any job, but in this case in a life-saving situation. And I've never forgotten that preparation. I would also say that ah ah you know the lessons taken away from that power fighting that were applicable throughout my career is showing up and taking pride in a job well done. I remember how much pride I had when we were able to put the fires out and or save a house or help save a life and being on time and showing up as your whole self and taking pride in what you do. And then I always 11:03.13 Kurt Fraese connected it to the big picture, and i've throughout my career, everything I've ever worked on, I've said there's a place for what I'm doing now in the big picture of society and the world, and I've tried never to lose sight of that, that even the smallest things make a difference. 11:22.45 GBA Podcast Oh my gosh, what a compelling story. And the preparedness theme certainly resonates with me. And Coley, that's not something you would easily forget. So that's really interesting, Kurt. I had not heard that story from you before. Just continue to amaze me as a fascinating individual. 11:40.87 GBA Podcast Let's pick it up now at Woodward Clyde. So you're in with, ah you know, at the time Woodward Clyde was a pretty well-regarded firm. Must have been happy to get the job. You're probably somewhat confident you could handle it based on, you know, what you just shared. 11:53.04 GBA Podcast But how do you go from there to, you know, becoming CEO of Geoengineers? And I'm sure there's a lot of steps in there and we have some time to share. but Please fill us in. 12:02.65 Kurt Fraese Well, this will sound counterintuitive, but confidence was never my strong suit early on. In part, because I had this prototypical view of applied geosciences and ah ah particularly the engineering side, I'm not an engineer, I'm a geologist, and yet I from the get-go was working with lots of engineers. 12:27.43 Kurt Fraese And I had this view that it's so math and theory heavy, and I wasn't a great student, I was going to get left in the dust. I struggle with math to this day. Numbers are not my thing. 12:46.43 Kurt Fraese Throughout my career, I've carried that around with me, and I don't mind talking about it, but ah ah I've always considered it a significant handicap. So I had to find other ways of making a career and progressing. 13:03.10 Kurt Fraese And one of the keys was whenever an opportunity came up, um I typically said yes to it. And many times when others were saying no. And that led, that would reply to some very interesting turns early in my career. 13:23.62 Kurt Fraese Our geophysics division and the geophysics we were doing um um was for the oil and gas industry. So our clients were oil and gas clients. In the mid 80s, there was a pretty big slump in oil and gas, and I got my first taste of potential layoff. But a new group at Woody Clyde specializing in dams and tunnels i had some openings and opportunities. 13:52.97 Kurt Fraese It just meant travel and a lot of field work. See the current, the same theme. And I readily said yes to that. And I jumped from geophysics to the Danson Tunnels Group, which was more classical geologic work in geologic hazards work. And what an opportunity that was. But it wasn't enough to keep me busy all the time. And there was always that threat that being a staff three geologist you know, there may be a some threat to the job. So in the mid to late 80s, I also began to say yes to taking on something that was very new to our industry. And this was the assessment and characterization of hazardous waste in the environment. 14:44.46 Kurt Fraese And the science and engineering applied to cleaning up that hazardous waste in various media like soil, groundwater, air, surface waters, and sediment. And towards the end of my time at Woody Clyde, I began to get some significant work i with Woody Clyde in that and began to build a resume. And I really wasn't aware of it at the time, but there It was in the early stages of this, so there weren't that many people getting these opportunities like I was. It was such a great firm as Woody Clyde. so And I was six years at Woody Clyde, and I can't say enough good things about it. It was the perfect place to start a career. 15:33.93 Kurt Fraese But my wife and I were living in downtown San Francisco. It would have been great if we decided to be a couple there forever. But when we started thinking of having kids, it just didn't pencil. And so we started to look where we could raise a family more affordably, and we chose Seattle, Washington. I went up there. I got eight interviews. 15:58.26 Kurt Fraese with eight geo-professional firms in the Seattle area. Woody Clyde, by the way, was going to keep me and transfer me to the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup, which was somewhat open-ended. I didn't know when I'd ever be home. 16:12.85 Kurt Fraese yeah Anyway, I got three offers from those interviews. I was gainfully employed. And one of the offers was from Geoengineers, a 38 person employee in Bellevue, Washington at the time. An irony there is that in the years, were in they at the time I was looking for work originally before I got the Woody Clyde position, 16:45.81 Kurt Fraese I got two rejection letters from geoengineers. So during my retirement party, I actually brought those out and shared them. 16:53.89 GBA Podcast saved him So connect the dots between you know jumping on as a relocating geologist to Seattle to becoming the CEO of a much bigger than 36 person company some years later. 17:09.79 Kurt Fraese Well, what was so special and still is about geoengineers is that employee ownership piece of it was something that I didn't have access to at Woody Clyde, and it just opened up my world. I had never considered myself much of a business person. I was focused on the field end of geology and engineering. But becoming an owner, almost from the get-go, when I joined GeoEngineers, transformed how I looked at this career. Suddenly, ah ah it mattered what the business was about and what it was doing and how it was run. And that just drew me in. And it also provided me some pretty strong lessons 18:06.56 Kurt Fraese You have your selling and your doing where you're getting work and pursuing business development from clients so that there's work to do. And that dominates most of your week. But there's still a company to run. And I recognized that running the company was really something that was beyond the normal work week. 18:31.80 Kurt Fraese and that it was absolutely necessary to allow the selling and doing to thrive. 18:42.25 Kurt Fraese And so I got into that piece of it pretty early on. I was, as an extracurricular on top of my environmental practice, I became the company's safety officer for a while. 19:00.47 Kurt Fraese got I became very involved in the company's strategic planning very early on. And through exposure there to the company leaders, I even got to take part in the first leadership transition as a member of the staff who was on the task force to help with the leadership transition at GeoEngineers. 19:25.48 Kurt Fraese And for me, at the time when I joined you engineers, it was really a practice centered practice like so many of our GBA firm started And Our first strategic plan in the early 90s. 19:42.75 Kurt Fraese was intended to take us from a practice-centered practice to a practice-centered business or a business-centered practice. In other words, to let business gracefully be integrated and take the next steps to being a sophisticated business. And what this all meant was it was leading geo-engineers to a place where we could then begin to grow and deliberately chart a path and a course forward. 20:10.02 Kurt Fraese I had lots of opportunities to be part of that. And when I retired from geo-engineers in 2017, the company had grown to well over 400 people and some 15 offices at the time. And the thing I was most prideful of was that the growth was really planned and deliberate and controlled. 20:36.53 GBA Podcast Kurt, I didn't know you in the early 90s, but I've come to know you pretty well since then. And two things that I see in you is someone that has a plan and works a plan, like pretty much nobody have ever met before, and also someone who's an excellent communicator, but particularly in the written communication. You really seem to find joy in you know communicating complex ideas. 21:00.13 GBA Podcast through your communication. So did you have those skills then, or did you develop them? I mean, they had to be in you. Were they naturally occurring, or they refined over the years? Because I'm sure that both of those things had a direct impact on the success of geo-engineers. 21:16.55 Kurt Fraese Well, thank you for those kind words. I wrote poetry throughout most of my early life. and That helped me with words and communication. I mean, was kind of a perfect marriage because also poetry, if you do it right, is almost like jazz music. There are not a lot of boundaries and rules. So I look at life and I look at business as the opportunity to explore things that and use your creative powers and your curiosity. 21:51.89 Kurt Fraese So that was ingrained in my writing. And then um um I did a geologic field camp back at Cal Poly Humboldt under the tutelage of Dr. Bud Burke, who was the best writer that I had ever known still to this day. And like most stories about writing, he ripped my stuff to shreds. 22:19.25 Kurt Fraese But he taught me a valuable lesson that writing can always improve, always. No matter how many times you look at it, you can always do something to make it better. He taught me less is more. And he taught me not to take it particularly personally. 22:37.95 Kurt Fraese So there are many other great lessons, but I think Throughout my career, that was one of the cornerstones that allowed me to overcome some other shortcomings like my lack of mathematical prowess. 22:55.88 GBA Podcast I don't know if you'll be willing to share this, but I'm going to throw this dangle, this hint out there. When you retired from geo-engineers, it was ah planned. 23:06.26 GBA Podcast And in part, based on your own personal plan, would you would be ah willing ah willing to share any of that with our audience? 23:12.01 Kurt Fraese Yes, if you don't mind hearing it again, Guy, this is one of my favorite stories and it put quite simply, my dear wife Roberta and I got married in 1987 and to celebrate our first anniversary in 1988, we went to Vancouver Island and we did a strategic retreat for our marriage. 23:37.43 Kurt Fraese And out of that came a strategic plan for our marriage. 23:40.85 GBA Podcast This just fascinates me, this story. 23:42.39 Kurt Fraese okay And we still have it, we never lost sight of it. Back then, the one thing people would have recognized was that it had one big, hairy, audacious goal, a BHAG, to make a major life change in our mid-50s. 24:05.03 Kurt Fraese And we haven't exited our 20s yet, but the reason we put that as our and landed on it as our as this BHAG was that we felt that too many people only had two chapters growing up and then working. And what's left of them after working. And we wanted to have a third chapter and we wanted to be the authors of that. So we never lost sight of that goal. 24:33.55 Kurt Fraese And as we became more sophisticated, she had a career at the University of Washington and had hundreds of people reporting up through her. She is chief administrator for gastroenterology there. And we became a bit more sophisticated in our planning, but that initial framework stuck. So I was very open with geo-engineers throughout my career about my overall plan to retire early. And when I took the reins in 2007, I knew exactly the day that I was going to retire. 25:15.28 GBA Podcast When I first heard that story, it was really ah ah shocking, and then it led to some changes in my own life. I'm just taking charge of things, so I thank you for that, Kurt. In the interest of time, I'm going to push this ahead a little bit, but from when you retired a CEO in 2017, you haven't gone away. You haven't gone gently into that dark night. 25:36.84 GBA Podcast What have you been doing? and I know a little bit of the answer. I think you've been doing a lot. Can you share what this next chapter really looks like? 25:44.68 Kurt Fraese Well, yeah, and it's been such a blessing and a privilege to be able to stay involved with geo professionals. I think you know how I feel, Guy, that geo professionals are the second most important profession on earth. 26:03.33 Kurt Fraese They make up the second most important profession on Earth. The the first most important profession is teaching. there'd be no other professions if it weren't for teaching. But I can come close to saying there'd be no other professions if it weren't for geo professions as well. Every profession relies on what it is we do and we deliver. Unfortunately, we don't always see it. 26:29.49 GBA Podcast Mm hmm. 26:30.64 Kurt Fraese So at this I pivoted to in part staying involved with geo professionals and being a business advisor because it allowed me to be even more evangelical about this. Geo professionals are the essential experts who create opportunities and solve our challenges at the intersection of human enterprise and the earth's resources. And 27:01.60 Kurt Fraese It's important we recognize that. It makes our world better. It makes individual lives better. And we help build humankind's connections to the earth so that we all can thrive and sustain ourselves. So how what better to do than continue to help my friends in this industry? 27:29.74 Kurt Fraese I built a pretty vast network through my time and I have made myself available to assist with business issues and leadership issues and strategy issues. I've sat on a number of boards of directors and I have taught, I've taught an engineering geology course at Cal Poly Humboldt. 27:59.05 Kurt Fraese I've done peer reviews, I've coached executives on special assignments there, and I've done a heck of a lot of i facilitation in various forms. Strategy being one that also helping boards with some of their issues and helping people on their leadership journey. And I believe that every person, every day, no matter who you are or what possession you hold, 28:25.65 Kurt Fraese has leadership opportunity. I used to wad up a post-it note and throw it out in the hall at geo-engineers and watch people walk by and see how long it took before someone picked it up. 28:43.00 Kurt Fraese And invariably people would walk by and not pick it up, but then somebody would pick it up and throw it in the trash. And I'd say, hey, can you come in here for a second? And they thought, oh, I'm in trouble or something like that. I said, I just want to commend you on being a leader. That was a leadership action and a leadership moment. Why did you pick it up? And that led to some very interesting conversation. 29:12.54 GBA Podcast Back to the communicator part. Kurt, I also know you, aside from peer reviews and serving on boards, and you're also active in the GBA peer group. You see a lot of firms. and Also, I don't think you mentioned, you're also involved in some non-profits on boards for some non-profit organizations. 29:30.88 GBA Podcast So you have this broad perspective and this is a great time to segue our conversation to think shift more from, you know, Kurt to the geo professions and you have this, you know, broad experience working for a large firm. 29:44.35 GBA Podcast working with a small firm and growing it, becoming a CEO there, voluntarily leaving that post in a pre-planned move, and then consulting with a broad array of other folks. So there's probably nobody that I can think of that has this broader current perspective of our profession than you. Let's talk about the GA professions. Where are we going? 30:06.48 GBA Podcast you What do you think of all this talk about you changing technology and its effects on our profession or you know the demographics of our profession in years to come? and are your thoughts on these big topics? 30:19.92 Kurt Fraese Wow, we could go on for a long time on this. So I'll try and slice it into just a few really key things that have consumed me and my thinking. and One won't surprise people who know me well. 30:35.77 Kurt Fraese I've already mentioned that we don't always see the value that we offer. And we often undervalue ourselves. And in the marketplace, we've allowed many bad things to happen there. 30:46.84 Kurt Fraese I believe central to this is we still suffer from the tyranny of the chargeable hour. Our business model i is very good at strangling us and limiting us. 31:01.80 Kurt Fraese And in a world where technology is truly the next horizon, and I don't just mean something you call IT, 31:13.49 Kurt Fraese but something that will truly challenge the dynamic, we're going to have to find other business models. 31:25.19 Kurt Fraese And if at all possible, hopefully at some point, truly free ourselves from one of the worst ways of measuring value I could ever imagine, which is saying one hour of work is worth x or y. 31:43.53 Kurt Fraese So central to that, um um I think that technology may actually provide us a way out because the way that technology um um has created new business models for many firms, it may be a path forward for us to be able to explore other ways of making money. 32:06.73 Kurt Fraese I think we have somewhat of an esoteric challenge 32:07.44 GBA Podcast Thank you. 32:11.82 Kurt Fraese that right now we have various levels of sophistication with technology, ranging from pretty rudimentary to some firms who've really leaned in. But we're still geo-professional firms who are leveraging and using technology. Some have mastered it. But we better be aware that there are technology firms that are right now looking at mastering the geo-professional steers service. And I think that it's very important for us to consider i leaning heavily into technology, perhaps even to the point of being technology firms who are the masters. 33:03.87 Kurt Fraese at the geo professions. 33:06.65 GBA Podcast and 33:06.90 Kurt Fraese And to me that's kind of the ah ah big thought when you look out to say 2050. 33:13.97 GBA Podcast Fascinating that you're suggesting that the the threat of technology is also the lever that could change our business model for for the better. Kurt, I forgot to mention when I was saying earlier about your sort of broad perspective on our news industry. 33:30.46 GBA Podcast You're also somewhat of an international person as well. wouldji I'll let you introduce that as you want to share with our listeners. But my question really is, when you look at the geo professions in the context of ah the entire world, not just the US market, do you see any insights there that you think we're sharing with our audience? 33:56.09 Kurt Fraese Well, I'll just ever so briefly touch on what you alluded to. Part of my life journey with my wife was to not only think long-term in terms of strategy, but also think and act globally. So through her sheer brilliance and tenacity, we had the good fortune of ah of ah establishing a home in Paris, one in St. Andrews, Scotland, 34:26.59 Kurt Fraese And then when we retired, we immigrated to Canada. And I live on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. 34:34.97 Kurt Fraese And I only bring that up to to somewhat put into context the perspective I'm about to share. And that is the world right now is suffering from a lot of short-term and and also an unwillingness to sacrifice for future generations. 34:55.13 Kurt Fraese Everything seems to be through, not everything, but many seem to be processing things through a lens of short-term gains versus longer-term needs and long-term value. And I think i there are aspects 35:21.74 Kurt Fraese particularly what I've seen in Europe, where there's a bit more of a longer term thinking. And particularly when it comes to infrastructure, 35:36.31 Kurt Fraese it just doesn't seem to, from my perspective and experience, it doesn't seem to, 35:44.23 Kurt Fraese be as difficult to envision big, longer-term projects that pay off down the road. 35:53.42 Kurt Fraese And it's not that we can't do it in the states that we have. And in fact, when we do do it right, it's remarkable and often leads the world to think moonshot. But boy, what a lot of faith it takes to do a moonshot. 36:10.74 Kurt Fraese what a lot of resource it doesn't take. And not everybody who starts a moonshop is there to see it in the end. There's so much sacrifice and belief that what is being done today for something better tomorrow is worth it. And so when I travel, I'm looking for these threads of people who are taking the long view. 36:33.06 Kurt Fraese for the betterment of our businesses and our societies and looking for some traction there because I think it's so very important, particularly when it comes to issues like climate and many of the other things that press us these days. 36:50.16 GBA Podcast How did your professionals get involved in that, Kurt? Like what could our listeners be thinking about doing in their own lives? 36:55.73 Kurt Fraese Well, I think you can't call yourself a professional unless you dedicate yourself to community service. And my standard was both locally and nationally or globally. So I made sure I was active nationally, but I was also instilling on a board a land trust in Seattle called the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust that allowed me to work with people who like mine towards a common good. And just as one example as to what that did and it made me, snap it's a 60 person board, the Greenway board. 37:40.74 Kurt Fraese And it brought me very, very central to matters of human relationship with the environment and in a bipartisan way, which also was very fulfilling. About four years ago, the Greenway became a national heritage area, which took an act of Congress and had to be signed by the president. Took seven years to get that through the congressional minefield. 38:08.93 Kurt Fraese But it was bipartisan legislation and being part of that process Was remarkable and so it taught me that if you are Persistent enough and you have resolved and you work hard getting back to those common themes. I brought up much earlier That you can overcome so many obstacles even in government 38:31.69 GBA Podcast So how, how could, One of our listeners could be a maybe early career staged, you're professional. How do you go from an aspiration to get involved in something like that, land trust, or really any community minded thing to actually getting involved? Do you have any suggestions? 38:49.25 Kurt Fraese I do. I think it's essential that you spend some of your time, resources, resources, ah volunteering. Most nonprofits need volunteers. And I've always taken a broad view that any community help that you can give, whether it be directly associated with our profession like GBA or whether it be coaching a soccer team or volunteering at your church or planting trees. Anything you do counts because you're getting out there and you're mixing with others who are undoubtedly professionals and who know people. 39:34.56 Kurt Fraese Never waste a relationship. And when you volunteer in your community, there are new relationships around every bend. it gives back to you far more than you'll ever give to it. 39:49.40 GBA Podcast I couldn't agree more and I don't mean to editorialize, but I will throw in that it's been my experience that all of these organizations really appreciate when GE professionals become involved because we have these pragmatic skills of problem-solving being able to implement action plans and things like that that come with our our nature and those are generally greatly appreciated. so I think your advice is dive in the water and good things will happen. And and I think you're right. 40:19.21 Kurt Fraese And I would say two more things on this. One is look to join a committee or a task force. That's a different kind of volunteering in that kind of organization, but it's where the action is. And then for all things in your career, whether it be the volunteering in your community or the grind of your day-to-day work or the planning of the future of your company, 40:49.37 Kurt Fraese It is essential that you divorce yourself from your academic name. We get so wrapped up into thinking of ourselves, myself a geologist or geotechnical engineer, being a geotechnical engineer, that we often will allow that to be self-limiting. So we may answer the question like, well, what they don't need geotechnical engineers down at the soup kitchen. you know Where does it connect to our business? 41:16.82 Kurt Fraese That's not the point. i I happen to believe that all of business is a contact sport and that there's karma involved in it. And you have to put in the con and make the contacts and not be too judgmental as to the value of the contact. You go in with an open heart and a lot of energy and magical things will happen. 41:41.39 GBA Podcast Wise words, Kurt, wise words. So back, I could spend, and you listeners might know that I have a tremendous respect for Kurt. So this could easily be a three hour podcast, but we're going to kind of keep it to something a little bit shorter than that. 41:57.31 GBA Podcast Kurt, I just need to ask you, you know what do you where do you see our profession in five or 10 years? like we're Think past like here and now and as far out as you can imagine, what what you think the GEO profession looks like? 42:11.38 Kurt Fraese Well, here's the good news, the best news I can share all day. The demand and need for our services will be even greater than they are today. And it's pretty substantial today. 42:27.46 Kurt Fraese If you think just about the climate crisis and the shape of our underbuilt, under maintained infrastructure, and if you think about the amount of money year in and year out that tends to be more and more and more money going to rebuild and repair damaged infrastructure. And I mean infrastructure in the broadest sense, be it homes or roads or airports or our water systems and all of that. This is not gonna let up. 43:00.97 Kurt Fraese and GBA had a wonderful crystal ball workshop a couple of years ago on this very topic. You can pay us now or you can pay us later. What we mean by that is we can design things to be adaptable and resilient to our the effects of our raging climate or i we can be paid to pick up after things are wiped out or heavily damaged. And the reason I'm so bullish on our profession is that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, it's going to be more significant this dynamic. 43:48.78 Kurt Fraese And that's without getting into society's needs in terms of for enterprises to thrive and survive. And that central connection of expertise that we make in our relationship with the earth. There's not gonna be a let up and whether people know it or not, we're gonna be at the center of 44:17.45 Kurt Fraese allowing this relationship with our planet to ah ah carry on. And we indeed will be heroes in that work. 44:23.29 GBA Podcast good 44:29.32 GBA Podcast Advice on how to prepare for that for individuals? 44:34.17 Kurt Fraese I absolutely think that we have to, um it's going back to many of the things I've already said, we have to connect with our communities and community planning better than we have. 44:46.51 Kurt Fraese Yes, we have to get involved in politics and being part of those who make the biggest decisions of all, which is where we get money and where we spend money as a nation. 45:00.12 Kurt Fraese It means doing some things that we're not always comfortable with, but getting out there and being part of the policy discussion. 45:10.21 Kurt Fraese But first and foremost, it means always seeing ourselves as integral to the solutions that will be necessary. 45:16.48 GBA Podcast Mm hmm. 45:17.26 Kurt Fraese And never forgetting that and getting any ground there. 45:22.08 GBA Podcast That's great advice Kurt So now I want to shift to the the last phase of our interview and talk about this is our speed round So I'm gonna ask you a few questions and then quick succession and I just want you to share You know, whatever's on your mind. The first one should be an easy. Well, probably be a hard one for you because I'm gonna ask you your favorite book and I'm sure you have many favorite books. So What what's your favorite read? 45:47.59 Kurt Fraese Well, I'd like a friendly amendment to make it two. Can I be granted that? 45:50.84 GBA Podcast Sure, that that would be fine. 45:52.43 Kurt Fraese Okay. Endurance by Alfred Lansing. It's the story of Ernest Shackleton, perhaps the greatest true adventure story of survival ever. 46:05.13 Kurt Fraese Shackleton lost for some two and a half years in the Antarctic ice and did not lose a single member of their crew. 46:16.55 Kurt Fraese It's just a remarkable. So that, if it had to be one, that would be it because it's a tremendous leadership story. 46:26.47 GBA Podcast great Great read. I read it on your recommendation. 46:29.39 Kurt Fraese yeah I've suggested it to many. of The second one, I've also suggested a many and I've made a habit of giving it to people. And it I attended ACEC's executive executives institute course number 12. So I was class 12 of SEI. And it was the single best thing I ever did educationally relative to business education. And I think they had us read some 21 books in this 18 months that we were 47:05.32 Kurt Fraese doing that. And the one book out of the 21 that stood out is one called Orbiting the Giant Hairball. 47:12.29 GBA Podcast Mm. 47:13.22 Kurt Fraese And I liked it because it looked like a book of poems. It was about yea big. You can read it on a single flight across the country. And it's the story of a Hallmark Card's executive who Hallmark had a very stately business operation and then it had its creative side. And no surprise, this guy came from the creative side, the side where curiosity reigned. Whereas the business side was this framework of this rigid, here's how we do things at Hallmark. That book 47:51.87 Kurt Fraese is should be read by anybody who's practicing in our profession and other professions because it basically defines what bureaucracy in an organization can do to you. it also is it realistic enough to know there will always be in any organization of more than one person there'll be bureaucracy. It's a matter of how you have your relationship with it and how you value it and how you don't allow it to blind your perspectives on things. It's a wonderful book. And like I said, a really short read. 48:30.33 GBA Podcast I have not read that one, so I'm going to put that on my list. Thank you for sharing that. Continuing on our speed ramp, what's your optimism index? One being low, five being high on future of the geo profession? 48:43.92 Kurt Fraese Well, I struggled between two and three. And I'm an optimist. so that you know, fair warning. But I'm gonna go with three. 48:55.77 Kurt Fraese And now I'm talking in the broadest sense here. i I think we have a real opportunity and it could be a five. have to, 49:11.69 Kurt Fraese find a way to take a longer view and be willing to sacrifice more for future generations, even in our industry. We have to re-embrace our intellectual curiosities. And we have to help society develop a new relationship with the scientific method and facts, and most importantly, empathy and kindness. 49:39.23 Kurt Fraese it were We're living in a time where many of our tools and many of the things that we've allowed ourselves to see as important i have have caused some pretty major barriers to our profession's future as well as society as a whole. 50:04.20 GBA Podcast Mm. 50:04.73 Kurt Fraese So we have to be part of that solution. And if you think about it, Guy, our companies are one of the few places where people from all different backgrounds and opinions and views come to work towards common goals. And they do so on a daily basis within every one of our firms. That's a pretty rare thing these days. 50:31.90 Kurt Fraese so we have I think even greater responsibility than ever to make the most of this place we call our corporate home. 50:43.48 Kurt Fraese And to not lose sight of the fact that even as we're doing all of our good work that we're doing something even more important for society and it's in short supply these days to where everybody can work and get along together regardless of where they come from or what 50:43.80 GBA Podcast thats 50:59.100 GBA Podcast It's a great segue into my next question, which is, what's the biggest impact that you think you've had in your adult life? 51:07.81 Kurt Fraese I would hope that those who've known me have seen impacts from my teaching and my mentoring that have made a difference in their lives. 51:22.36 Kurt Fraese And i I hope that a lot of that has has allowed them to see the world a little differently at times. 51:34.05 Kurt Fraese And when I have taught at the high school level and and in at the university level that I've given folks the confidence to pursue the geo professions as a career. 51:47.59 GBA Podcast I've certainly benefited from your mentoring, so I'm sure that's your biggest impact, but I can attest to that. But with all your success, Kurt, and you know quite successful, from humble beginnings to really a ah ah great technical career, a corporate career, and then this post-technical career. if you had to do it all over again, there anything you would change? 52:13.20 GBA Podcast or look back on one decision you made and said, you know, I could have, I went right, but I should have gone left. 52:19.37 Kurt Fraese oh Well, there were lots of tactical decisions that could be rethink although armed with only what I knew at the time I probably would have made every single one of those decisions the same way it's it's the retrospect that helps you say you would have changed something but I think globally and I got better at this as my career went on and I'm now in a really, you know, I'm at a good spot but I wish I'd early on had asked more of my clients. And not just in terms of recognizing our actual value, but um but um also in spending more time on their actual problems and ah allowing or or or asking them to take more time with the problems that they're trying to solve and to let us 53:15.59 Kurt Fraese be part of that, but also to teach along the way. 53:16.85 GBA Podcast before 53:22.02 Kurt Fraese So I think asking more of clients is something I got better at with every passing year, but early on I wish I had asked more of them. 53:31.17 GBA Podcast It's scary in the moment when you're getting used to it. Hard to fault you for not doing that early in your career. I guess I'll just wrap up, Kurt, with you know any advice you have for those you you or early in their careers. 53:45.05 GBA Podcast You've offered a lot of advice, but know one thing that sticks out, 53:45.24 Kurt Fraese Well, I mean, i've I've already said, yeah, I've already said it. I think it's important to recognize that all of our enterprises really are composed of our companies, our clients, and then our communities. And to see how symbiotic all that is. Don't look at our enterprises or organizations as mechanical or engineered 54:10.76 GBA Podcast good 54:11.91 Kurt Fraese They are not. They are biological in their nature. Every company is a biological entity. i It's made up of human beings and without them it doesn't exist. And humans evolve, they adapt, and in fact evolution is a survival, the ultimate survival mechanism. 54:35.18 Kurt Fraese So I would say look at look at your organization as biological in nature and then make sure you don't forget your communities as you navigate your career. yeah it It will pay off in spades and it's even one of the most effective ways to be very good at business development and keeping clients for life. 55:03.68 GBA Podcast Just great advice, Kurt. was just terrific. Thank you for taking time to meet with us today and share all these insights that you've gained over a wonderful career. I can't say enough from a personal level how much I enjoy speaking with you and learning from you. And and again, your time today to share that with the rest of us. 55:22.36 Kurt Fraese Well, thanks, Guy, and thanks to GBA, always evolving and adapting and making our business journeys much easier along the way. The most valuable resource and network that I've ever encountered. So I appreciate you and your presidential journey there, but also the organization. 55:46.85 GBA Podcast Well, clearly we benefit from the likes of you and many, many others give so much to GBA. Well, thanks, Kurt. We'll call that a wrap. Take care, everybody. Appreciate you listening today.