00:01.27 GBA Podcast Well, hello Teresa. Hi Guy. How you doing today? I'm doing very well. How are you? Good. Well, welcome to the GeoHeroes podcast. And just to get us started, why don't you just give yourself a brief introduction. Great. Thanks for having me. So my name is Theresa Peterson. I am a vice president with Eganet Fleming TransSystems. And I am incoming president of the Geo Professional Business Association. Very excited for everything that I've done with the organization, starting through the 00:32.19 GBA Podcast Emerging Leaders Class, through the ah ah Environmental Business Group, through the Emerging Issues and Trends Committee. And now my time with the board has been very exciting. Well, we're excited to have you. Thanks for taking time to be with us today and share some information about yourself. Great. Looking forward to it. So I want to get in your head a little bit. And I want to talk to you a little bit about you know what's your journey look like to get to here. And I want you to go way back. So tell us a little bit about Dr. Peterson as a child. like but What were your interests? What did you do? 01:02.09 GBA Podcast I was an avid reader to the point where I was up late at night under the covers with the flashlight reading and my parents kept trying to catch me reading. But anything I could get my hands on, I really enjoyed reading. We would in the summertime go to this pool and swim and just be outdoors as much as we could. I really and value the time being outside. Grew up swimming in the Connecticut River. 01:28.12 GBA Podcast just seeing how beautiful the environment is out in the Berkshire Mountains, out in western Massachusetts. It was a great time to be alive, I think. It's really interesting. It's it's great to see how geography affects folks. What did you take from that part of New England you know growing up? what's your What are your memories? New England has a lot of old history. 01:52.96 GBA Podcast But I think we balance that with all of the new technology stuff coming out of are like Boston and yeah some of the robots in Boston Scientific. So yeah there's a deep appreciation to slow down and appreciate nature and the gifts that we have around us, as well as the things that we've invented for ourselves you know to make our lives easier and improve our quality of life. Sounds like some of that stuck with you then. It has. Yeah. 02:23.48 GBA Podcast You mentioned you're an avid reader as a child. What did you read? Anything I could get my hands on. My mother was a teacher, so she made sure that my books were always just a little bit more challenging maybe than what my school level was. Made sure that I read all the classics, all of the Mark Twain's, the Charles Dickinson's. Made sure I read the Judy Blooms, which were popular back in the 80s. Anything I could find, you know, biographies. 02:53.75 GBA Podcast As a child, probably not. yeah say that That was probably not until high school when she started pushing the more serious books. I don't know the answer to this question, but I have a hunch. Were you a good student when you were going through school? I was. Yeah. Both my mom as a teacher, it was hard not to be a good student because everybody would find out. My mom would know right away. It wasn't like you had a once a year parent teacher conference. It was Hey, you know, your daughter didn't do as well as she should have on that test we had Tuesday, so. Well, Tracy, you're very modest and you won't say this, but I'm going to call you out on this. So you were an Ivy League student, right? I was. And it was kind of a surprise how I got there. I grew up 20 minutes from western from in Western Mass from the University of Massachusetts. I was 45 minutes from the University of Connecticut, Yukon. I had friends who went to URI. 03:51.23 GBA Podcast And these are all state schools. So when I was looking for colleges, I was looking for some place that was a little bit further away where I could gain some independence. And I thought University of Pennsylvania sounds like a great state school to go to. And I found out it was not a state school to go to. But I was very fortunate that I was able to get in with my activities and grades and just that I was a female going into an engineering program helped a lot. and It was a great school. It was the right choice for me. 04:20.61 GBA Podcast I learned a lot and developed personally by having that experience. Tell us about that. like What but but was impactful there for you? Specifically the not just the general college experience, but the the Ivy League experience. 04:35.60 GBA Podcast It started off being very humbling to see some of these kids who have come in who have had the experience of traveling the world or going to the best schools. I always went to public school and to see all these people who have been given so much in life. 04:54.72 GBA Podcast It was very intimidating when I started and I think it was a personal growth journey to learn that I was every bit as qualified and every bit as intelligent and motivated and capable as they are. And that inner strength has carried me in my profession. I've relied on that often to help me get through situations where I'm not quite steady on my feet. 05:18.85 GBA Podcast That's really interesting. I think it's often overlooked when you think of, you know, one, it's so difficult to get into an Ivy school and then you'd look think of privilege, but there's also merit-based folks that get in there and it struck me that it could be intimidating. So it's it's interesting to see how you responded to that. Yeah. How did you choose engineering? 05:38.00 GBA Podcast I you told you I grew up swimming in the banks ah ah is in the Connecticut River and I thought I wanted to be an environmental engineer. I wanted to keep things clean and make things better and at my University of Pennsylvania the systems science and engineering group falls under the electrical engineering department. And the system science group was the only one that offered any kind of environmental courses. So I did get to do some fate transport modeling, I did get to do some water and wastewater basic classes civil engineering. But that was how I had to get there was 06:18.20 GBA Podcast through the electrical engineering department. And now I have a system science and engineering degree, which has been very broad and has really helped me see the big picture. And again, it it was another kind of fell sideways into something that helped me tremendously throughout my career. I can see that being very foundational, although I assume the technology has changed dramatically since you were in Scott College. 06:40.20 GBA Podcast Yes, it has. Although I hear we still use a lot of MATLAB. Yeah, everyone started with MATLAB. And the basics and fundamentals of modeling don't change. So my senior thesis paper was on artificial neural networks, which is something that is still applied today. It was very cutting edge at the time. And I actually applied ah ah neural networks to help predict child abuse? So it really ah ah looking at it as a systemic problem, how do you identify the the inputs and the outputs that are going to create a a output that is undesirable? 07:24.57 GBA Podcast So we do that in engineering all the time. What are your inputs and what are your outputs and which parameters can I modify in the use of our official neural networks was at that time way out of way cutting edge, but we still use those tools today. It sounds like it's still way cutting edge and you really look at that's before we're going to have AI. Is that correct? Yes. 07:44.20 GBA Podcast Yeah, there's a lot of artificial intelligence builds on some of those foundations of how did you map the brain and and how do the networks connect, the neurons connect to help us predict where things are going to be. They want to keep going on that, but before I go too far, I want to go back for just two questions. One, swimming in the Connecticut River sounds very cold. True or false? False. False. 08:06.98 GBA Podcast False. Well, I didn't do the polar plunge. We weren't there in February, but at May, June, July, it was beautiful weather. Rivers can warm up faster than the ocean. OK. So tell me about growing up, did you have any jobs? Or but what did you do outside of school and reading and swimming in the Connecticut River? Sure. I would say, of course, always working around the house. 08:32.31 GBA Podcast You know, we were always mow the lawn, rake the leaves, take out the trash. I was babysitting as soon as I was 12 years old for kids around the neighborhood, parents who needed it. And that was back in the days when $2 an hour was good and they would throw as many kids as they could into the house. So that was a bit of an organizational structural challenge. and My first job was working with the Parks Department and I was but in I wanted to be a lifeguard. Having grown up swimming, having grown up in a round water, and spending my summers at the community pool, that was something that I saw a lot of my friends did and I wanted to do for me. But you have to start and work your way up from the bottom. So you start as the bathhouse attendant cleaning the bathrooms. And that lasted with me, even to this day, that you have to start at the bottom. You have to work your way up. You have to put in hard work to get to where you want to be. because if i 09:30.36 GBA Podcast did my job without griping and complaining, got it done, then there was more time for people to take me under their wing and show me what it is that they're doing that they moved up into their next level as whether it was a lifeguard or a head lifeguard or the head teacher. So. That's awesome. So I'm going to ask you to fast forward again back now. We're we're just finishing up at the University of Pennsylvania and your parents are there for your proud graduation. Map the from that point to to now. 09:59.83 GBA Podcast And how did you, you know, where did you decide to go to work? Because that's applied neural network systems. That's probably a non-traditional path for most of your professionals, I think. Yes. I graduated. And as part of that, I had taken a course, and extracurricular course to get my engineer in training certification. One of my teaching assistants was really promoting the receipt of your your EIT. He was a practitioner, not just an educator. And he says, if you guys are going to get out and you're going to practice at all, you have to do this. And that was an amazing lifesaver that he never wanted to go back and take thermodynamics later in life. So I traumatized by thermodynamics. I was not. I did OK. OK. I really enjoyed. I like the physics. i That's good for me. Better than chemistry any day. 10:59.28 GBA Podcast Could you still take the IT impasse? I don't know if I could take the P in impasse. I bet you could. So I started out at a civil engineering firm, Goodkind and O'Day, which became Dewberry. It was in the water and wastewater group. 11:18.38 GBA Podcast a lot of municipal engineering. I wanted to do water. That's what I thought was exciting and passionate, and I liked the water classes that I had had in college. So I started doing water mains, sewer collection systems, seeing how engineers apply all of that I had been learning in school. 11:39.31 GBA Podcast and The more that I saw, the more questions that I asked. I'm very inquisitive by nature. I always want to know why are you making the choices that you're making? Why are you doing the things? Why are clients asking for these things? So as I'm doing a water main, or I'm asking about the pavement box that goes over the top of it. And how did you make these selections of death grade of aggregate, you know, how did you choose the size of stone? How do you choose what type of road base based on what type of vehicles are going to be running over the top of it? When I got to do a pump station, I was talking with the architects and the structural team about how are they making those choices and decisions to build this environment to protect the water system that I was putting in. 12:27.19 GBA Podcast And I was very lucky that that pump station I designed, my my very first project that I really got to own, the majority of it was an award winner. AC is the award winner in New Jersey. but Where were you geographically located at this time? At this time, I was in northern New Jersey. Northern New Jersey. OK. Did you check back up on that pump station? It's still there and working fine? I know where it is. I've driven past it. It's in a golf course. And I kept in touch with the client And I have a picture of he and I standing next to our our ward plaque. So you think it's still working though, right? Oh, yes. Awesome. That's great. So that's a big step from where you are now, though. Tell us about the rest of the journey. 13:12.94 GBA Podcast Upon receiving my professional engineering license, and I'll tell you, I worked as many hours as I could once I understood what the rules were in order to qualify for the P.E. exam. I did as much overtime as I could to qualify for the exam in the minimum amount of time. Made sure that I worked with my supervisors. Could I show increasing responsibility? Can I do more on these projects so that I'm ready to sit for this exam? 13:41.91 GBA Podcast with the four years on the dot, took my PE exam, was lucky enough that I passed it on the first try and started looking around for other opportunities and moved to Gannett Fleming in their water group as a project manager. This is my first project management opportunity. The first time I was really leading other staff and I had to learn more of the soft skills. So where I had focused so heavily on technical skills Now it was learning the other side. And did you relocate geographically at that point? I did not. OK. I think that was the time of my life where I lived in six different places in six years, but they were all in North Jersey. OK. There was a lot going on there. Any special place in your heart for North Jersey? I always enjoy hanging around in Montclair. OK. It's this just a cute little community. I've been there. It's very nice. 14:38.91 GBA Podcast Awesome. So keep going. So worked in the water group for a while. Gannett Fleming at that time then recognized that I had innate abilities and put me through the GBA FOPP program and was very excited that Gannett Fleming gave me that kind of recognition, a reward. And the project that I did was to go around and ask people within my organization and and externally about their experiences with cross-training. I saw that I was beginning to ask so many questions about everything else, whether it was civil engineering, roadway design, structural, and how they all came together. And I asked the leadership that I saw, how did cross-training help or hurt your ability to move in advance in your career? And without a doubt, they all said cross-training was an advantage that they had. 15:35.34 GBA Podcast And not to detract from those people who become specialists. We absolutely need the specialists who are writing the book, but we also need the generalists who are putting the pieces of the puzzle together to help make a cohesive system. And I took a lot away from that, that I had a path. 15:53.88 GBA Podcast That's an inspiration for you and your it was it was great to be able to see that all these people who were advancing and being recognized and moving up had those opportunities and they were not, you know, held back or put into a niche or a box that I didn't really want to be in. So keep going. What did you do with that? Well, continue to look for opportunities to improve my skills as a project manager. 16:19.21 GBA Podcast with the help of GBA. I joined the emerging leaders class. i I suddenly had a network of peers who were at different stages in their career, but were willing to share with me what their experiences had been and how they got to be where they were. And I just found that I really enjoyed project management and it didn't have to be in water, but I was good at bringing the pieces together and getting the right stakeholders at the table. 16:47.90 GBA Podcast to solve the problems that my clients had. I worked on ah fiber optics projects. I started branching out, working on electrical distribution projects, and eventually got lured over to the facilities department. It kind of helped me. So I totally switched, stopped doing water, and started managing buildings projects. 17:12.08 GBA Podcast So then that's where you are today and managing facility type integrations. Now I continue to move. Janet Fleming developed a power group. So I now work in high voltage power. Okay. Project management. 17:30.58 GBA Podcast So can you trace this back to your systems training in college? Is is there a direct correlation there or a foundational connection? I don't know that it's a direct connection, but I think understanding how do you draw the boundaries around your problem? How do you identify the problem? And I do even go further back than that. When I was ah ah a young student, I was in a program called the REACH program, which helped teach students critical thinking. 17:56.00 GBA Podcast So in the sixth, seventh, but six sevenathh and eighth grade, I was looking at the ozone hole and the climate change problem. And what are the inputs and the outputs? And what are the potential problems coming down the road that we're not thinking about? What are the potential solutions to the problems we're not thinking about? ah ah Critical thinking to help understand your boundaries. It really all kind of tied together, and I never even realized. So did you have a hand in moving away from fluorocarbons? 18:24.62 GBA Podcast Did you drive that, Theresa? I would like to think that I did, but... Don't surprise me if you were a driver there of some and more problems. If anyone cared what the sixth grader from Massachusetts said, then yes, but no. But it's a problem that was largely solved or certainly mitigating. I still follow. Yeah. and And I'm very excited to see that the ozone hole has been reducing and that we've gotten some ozone back to help us. And now we have to deal with climate change. So in your current role, 18:54.28 GBA Podcast you know What do you think the key things were to allow you to get to that spot? I think the soft skills as well as my inquisitive nature have really been to my benefit that I am very open to making new friends and alliances and acquaintances, that I want to understand the geotechnical role in a project as much as the architectural role, the electrical role, and that I can express these things to the clients in a way that they can understand. I can take that very complicated engineering speak and make it something that my clients understand so that they're willing to work with me to help solve these problems. 19:38.67 GBA Podcast raised my awareness and offered perspective on how the geo professions is bigger than what we traditionally define it as geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, and really I think so specifically highlighting these like soft environmental, you know, opportunities. Would you care to elaborate here for our listeners on your thoughts there? I think Geoprofessional is a term that perhaps doesn't do us as much justice for all of the education that we can provide to our communities and the role that we can take. When I think of geoprofessionals, I think of geotechnical, but there's the geophysical, the geothermal. there's Sustainability has a geotechnical component. 20:25.04 GBA Podcast yeah 20:26.53 GBA Podcast the so much of what we do relies on Geo professionals that in some way we're all geo professionals and we're all not geo professionals and You know, you could be a chemical engineer, but you need to understand when I dispose of my chemicals. What is that doing in the environment? how does my air quality impacts my ground quality and and how are all these things tied together and And I talk about like the temperature impacting the the rate of degradation of your road and your pavement boxes. you know And all of these things are related together in more aggressive environments. Eat your water mains faster. And we have to be aware that we all have to talk to each other about these things in order to get the best solution. It really seems like know your systems foundation is really 21:15.50 GBA Podcast tie it to your thinking mindset and, frankly, it leverages your capabilities and impact. A great job of that. tre I'd love to spend more time talking to you about you know where your career is. But I want to shift into another chapter of this interview. I want to just get your thoughts on the geo profession generally. and I think that was a little bit of a segue to that. But historically, or I like to view geo professionals as descendants of the great master builders. but you know I think we've diverged from that path in many ways. you know what What are your thinking about where we are as professionals as it stands in society? I think we have not given ourselves enough credit and we have not recognized all the good that we do in civilized society as engineering practitioners that 22:11.23 GBA Podcast Nothing that we have seen in the built environment is possible without us. When you turn on your tap water and out comes clean water and you don't think about it, it's just there. You turn on the light switch and the electricity comes on and you don't think about how it got there, it's just there. And that's what engineers are most proud of is that you don't have to think about us. You don't have to worry about us. We just do it and we do it well because we want to improve the quality of life for all of the community. We want you to have the best things. 22:41.41 GBA Podcast And in order for you to get those things, we have to be at our best. But then we don't take credit for all that we do. So it's easy for the community to forget that we're here and forget all the good work that we're doing. 22:55.48 GBA Podcast Interesting that you say, you know, the equity of power and and water. And yet, you know, with recent changes and and distribution, you know, power raised in something that everybody can always take for granted any longer and same with water with the drought situation. So we're we're in the chapter of thinking big. like What's your view of the future of those or anything else for that matter in terms of infrastructure that we take for granted? I am so excited about the impacts of climate change and non-stationarity on engineering design. And I recognize this a few years ago in my work with ASCA. They interrupt you and ask you to go back and explain that because there were some words in there. that i Sure. Non-stationarity means that what you've taken for granted in the past, looking at the history, doesn't always predict the future anymore. 23:50.23 GBA Podcast What a great word. Right, so when you look at the FEMA flood levels and after some of the big storms that we've had and we hear that after Sandy, Hurricane Sandy, FEMA is now redefining what is a flood level. So the 50-year storm might not be the 50-year storm level and the 500-year storm is not the same 500-year storm anymore. we We can't say that what was the average of 50 years of weather previously is not a predictor for what is the what should be the best practice moving forward. So engineers have to go back to the nuts and bolts of engineering and not throw away the book, but recognize that the book has limitations and that we have to start working closely with our clients and with the communities and all of the stakeholders involved to really define the best solution, whether that solution is a behavioral change or a physical structural change. 24:45.88 GBA Podcast or something else that we can't just do what we've been doing and that's really exciting to me. That's really exciting the way you you frame it and it sounds like a window of opportunity is opening back up. Would you do it that way? Absolutely I would encourage everybody to get to be study some kind of engineering and science because We need all kinds of people in this engineering practice. We need people who are marketers. We need people who are legal minds, but they have to have some kind of an understanding of the engineering. So when I go to you as a community member and I say, listen, we need to raise the stand level and we need to hold back more water, and you want to understand why I want to be able to have that conversation with you. 25:29.91 GBA Podcast And as a stakeholder, you can understand why I'm asking for a certain amount of money, how your tax dollars are being spent. You have a right to ask these very good questions and demand this information from your professionals and from your elected representatives. And we want to give you those answers, but we need to be able to to find some kind of common language. So how can engineers or geo professionals best engage Like this is active practicing, uh, geo professionals with this non-stationary, that's the first time I've ever articulated that word. I think I pronounced it correctly. Yes, you did. Sounds great. Um, cause that sounds like a great opportunity. You know, how, how do we, how do we activate that? We have to educate ourselves about how the world around us is changing. 26:18.89 GBA Podcast And you don't just pay attention to what's happening in your own back door, but recognize what's happening on a global scale. Because what's happening in California today might be happening in Maine tomorrow. 26:31.72 GBA Podcast So how ah we look at what happening in Florida with sea level rise and how are they responding? And they are taking cues from places like Seattle, which has started watching sea level rise for years now. And you look places like Italy, where they're dealing with sea level rise and places like the Netherlands, where they're already underwater, except for those dams. And how are they dealing with it? How are they introducing yeah more wind energy. Germany is very big on you wind turbines and and places and things like that because the fossil fuels is not a place that they want to be investing their tax dollars anymore. And they're having some discontinuities associated with the transition. But that's a really interesting point you make that we don't have to reinvent these things from scratch. There are other areas, other locales that are addressing them. Really, really interesting. That's why I love doing these interviews because I learn something every time and not just the word non-stationarity. 27:27.42 GBA Podcast and say that put it okay well Let's switch a little bit over to technology. and I guess you could argue that power and and what there's technology there but i think the big buzz is around you know automation and AI. 27:46.84 GBA Podcast challenge, opportunity, you know what are your what are your what's the most disruptive technology? Let's start there. And then we'll go from there. I think that's a great question. What is the most disruptive? And I might might surprise you a little bit. I think the introduction of computers back in the 70s and 80s was wildly disruptive. Because I think about how engineering was executed prior to computers. There was a lot of hand drafting and hand calculations. We had to be very deliberate and intentional about what we put down on paper. 28:16.79 GBA Podcast And how many versions of a particular design could you show a client? Only two, because it was very time consuming, where now they might want five versions and options to evaluate. So we have a lot more freedom now to find a better solution because we have the time. It's given us a lot more freedom. You you think something like the George Washington Bridge was built with in an order at least small number of drawings. And they just had a template for each segment. 28:46.23 GBA Podcast where now I can't build an intersection without thousands of drawings. And so what engineers in the past did was monumental with the tools that they had. 28:57.47 GBA Podcast So now when we're practicing and we have access to these tools that make our jobs easier, faster, that do automatic spell checks and instant formatting and the things that are going to come down the road, like the AI and the automation, they're fabulous. They are going to continue to help us improve our ability to help the and the community. Well, peek ahead. So what's that look like in five years? What does it look like in 15 years? Wow, I think there is an absolute role for the engineer in the future because of our ability to think through problems, think literally and think of solutions and all the potential impacts of solutions. AI can't decide yes or no to do something. They can tell you how to do something once you've made that decision. But who's going to help the community make those decisions as the engineers? 29:53.08 GBA Podcast So the opportunities and the training and the pulling people together and unite around the common front. ah Yeah, that's where I see a lot of our opportunity. The people who can bridge those gaps between the technology, which is going to be our best favorite tool, and the stakeholders who have the problems that need to be solved. Maybe you're a little biased here, but it sounds like system thinking and cross training might have a role in that. 30:21.10 GBA Podcast I do think so. I'm not surprised by that answer, but I think it's very compelling, you know, your point there. And I think as things get automated, perhaps that does suggest that you need to be able to pivot in multiple directions see the perspective. Interesting. Again, you know, 2040, you know, paint a picture of what the road looks like in our profession, probably more generally than flying cars. 30:49.59 GBA Podcast I like the flying cars. think that they'll be here 30:54.90 GBA Podcast Our profession, I still think there's a role for the engineers, I think will still be overseeing designs. I think we'll still be the stewards of the built environment and of our communities and of our quality of life. We'll still be advocating for intelligent expenditures on water and the environment and air quality that as fast as we can think up a new 31:23.93 GBA Podcast Technology, there's always some kind of an implication. We think about our need for data centers, but our the data centers rely on so much energy. So where are we going to get all the energy for the data centers? And you think about your cell phones and the technology that goes into mining of the very specific minerals and metals that make your cell phone work. And what are the implications of that mining? 31:50.56 GBA Podcast I had a, one of my professors used to tell a story that scarcity is an engineering problem to be solved. That you, we can always engineer a better way to get more efficiency out of what we're trying to design. Just give us the chance. Like we're never really going to run out of something. We just have to revisit the problem, reframe it and find the next solution. but's ah That's a hopeful message. So, uh, 32:19.65 GBA Podcast That's terrific, Theresa. Again, I hate to do this, but because it's so interesting, I'd like to mine you further for your thoughts on this. But in the interest of time, I want to change the the topic again and try switch over to the speed round. Oh, OK. So this is you know just a couple of questions. I'm going to pop at you. And I just want you to share what's up on your mind. OK. So somebody very well read your favorite book. 32:44.13 GBA Podcast My favorite book is a hard one. I do go back and read books again, which I know some people are Opposed to that idea, but I think books hate you differently at different points in your life and for different reasons So, you know when I was a girl, I love reading like The Secret Garden by Burnett But you know a couple years ago I read a Moscow and a gentleman in Moscow I told and that was also a great book and I guess maybe if I looked at them they both have that fantasy escapism and component to that. Still not reading nonfiction. but I read a lot of books related to yeah management style. Right now I'm reading a book on nonviolent communications just to learn how to better convey my emotions and receive emotional input from my colleagues. Interesting. Interesting. What was the name of the book for our listeners? 33:44.32 GBA Podcast Nonviolent communication. So we should be able to find that. Yeah. Terrific. Thank you. Optimism index. You know, a world of change. Change can be good. Change confers an opportunity. Change can be scary. One to five. One being pessimistic, five being optimistic. What do you say today? I like to think, I probably said it at a four, that I like to find the challenge of finding that hidden kernel of opportunity within every situation. 34:18.06 GBA Podcast Down a few of these, and engineers and scientists never give a five on the optimism index. But it does seem like we're generally positive, probably because we feel like we can solve problems. Okay, great. So what is the biggest impact you've had in your adult life. you Beyond Teresa, what have you done that you think has resonated and rippled out the first? 34:43.88 GBA Podcast I think something I've been working on for a number of years is bringing non-traditional people into engineering, speaking out about what we do, 35:02.02 GBA Podcast But helping everybody understand how they can contribute to the betterment of our profession. So I have a team that works with me, and they are amazingly detail-oriented, responsible people, a lot of common sense. And I can work with them, even though they don't have that engineering degree, they are excellent at understanding the problem. Learning who the stakeholders are that they need to bring to the table. 35:30.33 GBA Podcast and working as project managers. And how really, it's been helpful to, again, I'm a my employer, to be able to fill some of the needs that we have in the industry, as we're looking at a shrinking workforce, to be able to find people expand our workforce base. Interesting. i Certainly an issue we're gonna have to confront in a changing and diverse world. So you're well positioned there. 35:57.40 GBA Podcast All right, here's a tough one. um um I think that you're going to find this is hard to answer, but but I think it's an interesting question to hear where you're coming from. You've had a lot of success in your life, Teresa, and it seems like you've worked really hard for that success. I should reflect back over you know your life, and maybe you can just through this conversation, because there's probably some things we talked about that you're not constantly reciting in your head. 36:19.95 GBA Podcast and maybe you challenge you. But if you look back at your life, like what would you do differently? Not necessarily a regret, but there's different points along your life where you had a fork and you could have gone left to right and you chose a direction. Do you look back on anything and is there there some switch you would flip the other way? 36:36.43 GBA Podcast I think I would have should have challenged myself more. So I'm very fortunate that being very driven and being very capable I've achieved a lot of the goals that I set for myself. So i I am an engineer. I am a professional engineer. I am a project manager. I get to travel for my projects. And I love that. I have a comfortable living. I'm not a multimillionaire, but my bills are paid. And you that's a very good feeling. I should have set higher goals. That's funny because you do seem very driven and incredibly accomplished. and Thank you. 37:15.100 GBA Podcast And I have no doubt that if you had set the bar differently, you'd achieve that too because you feel like an achiever. Well, that's pretty much the the time we have today. If anything else you want to say before we we sign off, like anything do you think we should share or we didn't cover or you think might be of interest to our listeners? I would just encourage everybody, get involved. Your career, whatever you choose it to be, is of your making. 37:42.06 GBA Podcast You get out of it whenever you put into it. There are lots of associations out there that are gonna help you achieve. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable because people want to help you and let them, and you will be helped to them as well. Wise words, Teresa. It was my great pleasure to talk to you, and I greatly appreciate you taking the time. It was very interesting to learn more about you. I thought we knew each other, but you know I learned more, and that makes you a more interesting person to me, so thank you for sharing that. 38:11.59 GBA Podcast Thank you for having me. OK. Well, we're signing off now. Thanks to Theresa Peterson for being with us today. Great.