GeoHeroes-Laura Register
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[00:00:00] Guy: Welcome back to you, hero listeners. Super excited today. We have a terrific guest for today's podcast, which is Laura Register. So welcome, Laura.

[00:00:10] Laura: Thank you. Thanks guy. It's great to be here.

[00:00:12] Guy: Laura, could you just introduce yourself briefly to our listeners? Tell us just who you are, how you identify.

[00:00:18] Laura: Absolutely. Professionally, I am the National Director for Strategic Business Sectors for Terracon consultants and Geoprofessional firm. In that position, which is a new position, about a year and a half old, I oversee seven strategic market sectors. Those buckets of sectors contribute to about 80% of the company.

[00:00:40] In national strategy, it's about 25% of those. So we look at the markets, we work internally and externally. To make sure we're delivering and we're looking at the right markets and doing the right stuff. Personally I live outside of Nashville, Tennessee and Franklin, Tennessee, and in a little bubble close to Leaper Fork, which if [00:01:00] you look it up on the map, sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't.

[00:01:03] It's a little bubble of existence and when I'm not traveling, I am up on a ridge top, looking out at the most beautiful natural view you can imagine. I live here with my husband of three and a half years. And between us we have nine children. I have four, he has five plus some extra grandchildren and that sort of thing. And all four of my children came back to Nashville, which is just so wonderful. So big family person. Clarification Register is my maiden name. I changed my name back to my maiden name four years ago, and that freaked a lot of people out, including myself. It was way too easy to do in actually changing it and way too hard to get it changed in all the systems.

[00:01:49] Guy: That's awesome, Laura. That sounds like such a great existence and you could almost make a movie, I think, about your personal life, but we'll see how much you wanna, reveal here. So let's get into a little [00:02:00] bit wanna kind of learn about how you became Laura Register, so let's dial the timeline back to, just growing up.

[00:02:07] Tell us a little bit about what you were like as a child, as in you can define child however you want.

[00:02:12] Laura: I had an outstanding childhood. First of all, I don't look back a whole lot. Like I'm not one of those people that can tell you dates and actual event details, but I can tell you how I felt, how it impacted me. I'm usually in the present and the future. Looking back, it's a little bit tricky sometimes to remember all that.

[00:02:32] But what I remember is an outstanding childhood. I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. On the ocean, on what I think is the correct ocean, the Atlantic Ocean. It's absolutely my favorite. And I was the youngest of five children. Not only was I the youngest, but I was the youngest by far. There's 17 years between the oldest sibling and myself. I learned a lot. I was surrounded by what became [00:03:00] adults, much sooner than I did. I just took notes, enjoying the whole thing and, I was the youngest. Once my siblings were gone, I also got a lot of my parents' time, my mom and dad's. And that was wonderful. It was like being an only child with benefits my parents were, I thought, fascinating. My dad was an engineer. They're both deceased. Being the youngest of five, they would've been a hundred years.

[00:03:26] Guy: Oh 

[00:03:27] Laura: And so They were such interesting people. I thought my dad was an engineer. He was an entrepreneur. He always had his own firm. He also always had other things he was working on and doing . He was a continuous learner. He took Russian late in life just to learn the language because he thought that would be.

[00:03:44] Interesting. Because of, our political dealings with Russia and how to understand that. So he was that kind of guy. My mom was fascinating as well. She was a stay at home mom who could have been a CEO. But growing [00:04:00] up as she did, she was given three scholarships to college. She was salutatorian, of her high school class. And my grandfather, her father, would not let her go. She did not go to college. He let her get married and she and my dad were high school sweethearts. And so she accepted that. And I think that was the way it was. She married my dad the day after flight school.

[00:04:23] He was a Marine Corps pilot and he was in flight school in Pensacola. And my grandmother went over to Pensacola the day after he graduated and they got married and he went off to war. And, they started a family pretty quickly after that.

[00:04:38] Guy: So your dad was a World War II veteran.

[00:04:40] Laura: world War II and Korea.

[00:04:42] Guy: Wow.

[00:04:44] Laura: And started a family of Marines.

[00:04:46] My brother was a Marine. My two nephews are Marines, so a very proud Marine Corps. And he was a pilot. I don't think there was a week that went by that he didn't talk about the impact World War II and

[00:04:59] That [00:05:00] he'd had,

[00:05:01] Guy: That could be a whole nother podcast. That'd be fascinating to hear about that. Just a quick question though older siblings, is that net positive? Net negative?

[00:05:10] Laura: In having older siblings?

[00:05:13] Guy: the big separation. When you look at that 

[00:05:15] Laura: Positive. , I was pushed to be more mature at an earlier age, and I thought that was great. I was included. I was tall growing up and so people thought I was older, and so in that moment I could join along with my siblings.

[00:05:28] So I got to mature into that in good ways. And I still got to, because I was with my parents a lot and traveled with them, I had a little bit of that extra attention because I thought it was great. 

[00:05:44] Guy: Coming from a large family and having a large family. What do you think about their birth order thing? Like certain personality traits, do you think's real

[00:05:51] Laura: It's real.

[00:05:52] I Think mine got kicked in. I'm the youngest, so I go back to Jacksonville, Florida, and first of all, I was the only child that moved away, [00:06:00] so my siblings all lived in Jacksonville. But when I would go back, I reverted back to 17. Even now, I go back 17 years old in their eyes.

[00:06:09] Because that's when I left. And so I was always the youngest, but then I also had some traits of an only child, an oldest child, because of some of the kind of independence I had. I guess that's a good way to put it.

[00:06:24] Guy: It seems if you could go back and be 17 again for a while, you might embrace that later in life.

[00:06:29] Let's keep moving on. What were your interests as a child? What were you involved in?

[00:06:34] Laura: So when I was young I loved exploring. I was a big explorer and that was anything from reading lots and lots of books being in my own imagination to being out in nature. We lived in a subdivision in Jacksonville, Florida. First of all, we lived about 10 minutes from the beach, so I could always explore the beach and then I could explore the woods and so there of natural. World to explore, just outside my backyard when I was [00:07:00] little were these woods and I'm sure it was these woods between us and the next subdivision, but to me it was like a hundred acre woods. I would leave in the morning and go through the woods and come back home in, late afternoon I'd build things and go see friends I loved exploring really early on, and that's a big part of my memory my friends. I was very social. I had, a lovely group of friends that continued as I was in high school and again, the ocean was a big part of my life. It sounds odd to say that, but when you grow up on the ocean, there's something about it. Connects you to it. Even though I haven't lived there since I was 17 I remember we went to the ocean for everything. It cured everything. If you had a cut, you dove in the ocean. If you had a head cold, you dove in the ocean. If you had a broken heart, you dove in the ocean.

[00:07:49] I still do that. I go back and cathartic, 

[00:07:52] Guy: so that exploratory nature as a youth, has that followed you through life?

[00:07:58] Laura: I think so. I get real excited [00:08:00] about things. I love to travel and meet new people. I find other people a lot more interesting than myself

[00:08:06] Guy: Interesting. Not always a common trait in the geof.

[00:08:11] Laura: I think it's probably more than we know, 

[00:08:13] Guy: this is true. I think we're shy about admitting that.

[00:08:16] Laura: Yeah.

[00:08:17] Guy: So how'd you progress from there? Like how did you get into the geo profession?

[00:08:21] Laura: I was a good student. I was a good math student. I was a good science student, so growing up People latched onto that. My mother used to gimme math problems when I was a little kid, and my dad loved it. My brother is also an engineer, so my oldest brother is an oceanographic engineer.

[00:08:38] My dad was a mechanical engineer. I worked in my dad's engineering firm in summers when I was in high school. So I saw that firsthand. I will tell you Guy, if truth be told. What I thought was so fascinating about my father's, business life. Was probably more the business [00:09:00] piece of it. He was very much a businessman. He was a great mechanical engineer, but he was also a business person and a community person. He did a lot for Jacksonville. There's a fountain there. That was my dad's fountain, it's on every postcard. It's the largest lighted fountain in the world.

[00:09:15] He designed that. He went over to Russia during the Cold War. Investigate ports and came back to Jacksonville and helped. So I saw that and I saw the business piece of it. I realized later that the engineering was very good, but it was probably the business part that I latched onto.

[00:09:32] I didn't really realize that until a lot later. But it was the engineering part that I followed.

[00:09:37] Guy: So you're in high school, you're working for your father. What types of things did you do then? 

[00:09:41] Laura: Oh, Leroy lettering.

[00:09:43] Guy: Okay, Leroy? Yeah, I do remember Leroy.

[00:09:45] Laura: Do you remember? You would have, it would have, what was it, A Pantograph. It would have the little ink and the well and open ink. And you on vellum or whatever. And so lots of Leroy lettering and I was good at it. And I got to do [00:10:00] things like I would take

[00:10:00] the blueprints over to the architect and get them run. So there was interaction with other engineers and architects. So I saw what consulting meant yeah. 

[00:10:10] Guy: for our younger listeners, they probably can't even appreciate the whole manual drafting. And leroy was a way to standardize print text, but it was this contraption with ink and it was on this piece of reproducible paper. And then there's like a whole thing about that.

[00:10:26] But we won't digress any further. It's like analog telephones. 

[00:10:30] Laura: We still have my dad's, drafting table with the slide. One of my brothers has that.

[00:10:36] Guy: Because everything had to be exactly horizontal in space correctly, and yeah. Interesting. 

[00:10:40] Laura: That's great. 

[00:10:41] Guy: I'm digressing. This is about Laura, not about Guy, 

[00:10:43] Laura: I loved it. I loved thinking about it. It was a great time.

[00:10:47] Guy: So moving ahead then, what was your decision to go into college and, how did that work out?

[00:10:52] Laura: Yeah. I wanted to go away again, being independent, every one of my siblings went to the University of Florida. My [00:11:00] father went to the University of Florida. I went to Vanderbilt University School of Engineering. And to me that was a long way away. That was the north, even though it's still the south. And leading up to that, my school, I went to a prep school and they were all in my court. Engineering is a wonderful thing to do. Go for it. Nobody ever said, Laura, you sure you wanna do that?

[00:11:25] Maybe it was still a time when there were not very many women in engineering. Nobody said that in high school. Showing up at orientation was the first time that I got an inkling that maybe I was a little bit different in this whole scenario. I remember standing at the back of the room and I looked down and I could not see another woman in the room and immediately my head went to, I wonder where the women are meeting. I wonder where they are. And I knew there were other women in the class, I knew that intellectually, but all I saw were people that didn't look [00:12:00] like me. And that was the first time when I thought, I'm not sure I belong here. And even though I eventually, obviously after decades and decades belong, I still felt that way for a long time. And that's influenced my career a lot. It's influenced me, what I've worked towards, how I've. Grown my career, but also how I work with others, other women, others who might be, thinking they don't belong and helping them fit 

[00:12:28] Guy: So let's dig into that a little bit. What was your perspective as a woman amongst, mostly male class of engineers?

[00:12:35] Laura: First of all, it was the first time. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I women, but the first time when I thought, I. I have to be okay with that. There wasn't anything that I felt I couldn't do at Vanderbilt. It wasn't really until I graduated. I felt a little bit that the might have some bias. And I wanted to [00:13:00] stay in Nashville when I graduated. So I got through Vanderbilt in four years, which I was very proud of I got a civil engineering degree from there. But when I wanted to stay in Nashville. I had a boyfriend, then a fiance and Vanderbilt was really good at setting us up for going and getting our PhD joining a big national or even global company, they weren't really good at prepping us to be a consultant. So when I went in to interviews in Nashville to consulting firms or design firms, I was more on the structural side at that point. I got a lot of pushback some of it was because I was a woman and there were no women in these firms, I don't think I interviewed with a single firm that had a woman in it. I remember this is one that is steeled in my memory sitting across the table, being interviewed by a senior member of a structural firm, and we go through the interview and did fine. Towards the end, he leans towards me, and he said, I know I'm not supposed to ask you this. [00:14:00] Are you gonna go get married and have babies and God, there's that kind of feeling you get when you think, I wish I had something

[00:14:08] I actually had the right thing to say at that moment. I sat back and I said, you're correct. You're not supposed to ask me that.

[00:14:16] And I left. But that was a tone that I encountered that I didn't expect. And so it was a little bit of an awakening to me, do I really want to do this? Do I want to push through? And it took me a couple years to get comfortable with that. And when I did and started looking and at that point I got married. And so I didn't go right into engineering I had some non-career jobs. 

[00:14:44] Guy: Before you go further on that, was there somebody that helped you there? Did you know you, you're obviously a strong woman, Laura and you persevered because you're here in this interview, but did you feel like you had to cover that yourself or was there anybody there that you know could help [00:15:00] support you through that 

[00:15:01] Laura: Oh no, there's not.

[00:15:02] Guy: So you were on your own.

[00:15:04] Laura: Yeah. And you don't, when things like that happen. And I'm sorry to say Guy, that wasn't the last time that happened.

[00:15:10] Guy: I'm sure it wasn't .

[00:15:11] Laura: But there wasn't a real support system in that No, I didn't feel like I had any recourse in that. 

[00:15:17] Guy: Just generally getting through school in a male dominated curriculum, were your parents supportive? Did you have a couple friends that encouraged you, brought you back from the edge, or 

[00:15:26] Laura: I think it was more after the fact when I hit the real world and thought, oh, this is not what I expected. You're not in the real world in college. But then I started finding a community and what really brought me over was joining law engineering. And I'm just lucky. I answered an ad. Remember those? I answered an ad and I found a community. I found a company. Law engineering was in its heyday at the time. It was a wonderful breeding ground for project management and learned. Really good at that. And so I [00:16:00] finally felt oh, I can belong to this and are still friends I have from law engineering. My Rick Heckle, he and I were junior engineers together and we have outlaw reunions as we call them.

[00:16:11] It was the heyday and we were young. The company was growing so fast, even internationally. We had so many clients that they started giving the younger engineers, supervised, but still giving the younger engineers clients to manage on our own so we got pushed off the cliff on that and I learned a lot and I loved it. And so that made me think I belonged that really resonated with me.

[00:16:37] Guy: So law was a good opportunity for you because they were growing quick, they needed a lot of help, and they were forced to trust Junior folks to push you into opportunities, but supported you, it sounds like.

[00:16:48] Laura: Very much supportive. They had such a great system of oversight and, risk management. I learned early on a lot about risk management. That was, of course, ring Force at GBA. I learned that [00:17:00] client relationships was a huge thing that I was good at.

[00:17:04] So I had national clients at, mid twenties. I had big national clients

[00:17:09] and did well with them. I look back and I don't have many where I go, oh, I can't believe I did that. I did very well. They taught us well.

[00:17:17] Guy: So you think you were a natural or they just had a really good development program 

[00:17:21] Laura: I think both. I think they invested in me. They had some good programs for junior staff. They gave us internal opportunities for internal leadership that translated into, leading our careers.

[00:17:33] And the other thing was that it was an employee owned firm and they pushed us really early to invest in the firm. And that was part of the ethos. That was part of what we did. So that was a gift as well. I had a group, you talk about who's supporting you.

[00:17:47] I had a group of people that we supported each other we taught each other, we were all in the same boat. We had to step up and we learned we could do things we, maybe didn't know we could [00:18:00] do.

[00:18:00] Guy: Turning the clock forward a little bit, can you briefly describe your journey from law to strategic director at Terracon?

[00:18:06] Laura: Sure. Yeah. It's not a very straight path. And I find that I always thought it was just me who didn't take a straight path, but I think a lot of people have tangential career paths and we should embrace that. I loved law and I eventually, got my PE and I eventually got into a department where I had a boss that was not helping me thrive. And I left law and I look back and I think I should have thought bigger and gone and talked to. Other people who had invested in me at the company, instead of just thinking I didn't have any options, but I didn't feel like I was being supported. I had two children at the time. I was the only person who had that challenge of having to pick kids up from daycare at five o'clock. When I'd leave at five o'clock, even though I still have a plaque on my wall that says I was the most [00:19:00] highly chargeable and I was also very highly profitable, I still had a boss who didn't know how to manage someone who had two small children. And I should have looked beyond that, but I didn't. I left law and at the time my husband was a lawyer and had two small children. So I made the choice to actually work on my own for a while. I got out of corporate consulting and it was because I worked on a project for law for the state of Tennessee. The state of Tennessee came to me and said, we realize you were the manager of this, and we'd like for you to continue to do this. We don't need to go through law. You can do this for us. And so I set up an LLC and did it for them. I was at the time working with asbestos compliance and I'd set up a whole program, and they just hired me to do that.

[00:19:47] And I did that for a number of years. I helped them stay compliant. So I was on my own and I did that for a number of years and stepped out of corporate consulting. And then when I. Decided later on that [00:20:00] I wanted to go back. I thought I would have to go back in almost where I left, in that senior project management role. But I had lunch with, yet again, Rick Heckle, my good friend from law engineering, and he was at the time leading a company and he hired me back into corporate consulting and I got into the most fascinating stuff. I started a corporate university for him. And loved it. And that's where I met GBA was at that point in my career. This was less than 20 years ago, long enough, but still formative. There was no staying power in that position. And I was lucky enough to have met my Terracon colleagues at GBA and I think at my heart I'm a big firm person. A big firm employee. I love being part of a big. Corporation. I loved it at law engineering and I love it at Terracon. So I joined Terracon, really my associations through GBA, people like Vic Donald and Mike [00:21:00] Yost, and Mike Covert, and definitely David Gry. I got an opportunity to join Terracon, and that was 10 years ago. I came in getting a seat on the bus, doing client development and it. Gosh, guy, I will tell you, it is my dream job. I love it. I think everything I've done in my career contributes to why I'm really good at, and I really love what I'm doing now, which is building this team that's market facing and internal facing on the business side, but also where's the opportunity for growth?

[00:21:35] It's always looking at continuous improvement

[00:21:37] Guy: so what are the key, in our profession, folks tend to be a little intimidated by client facing roles. Actually I think we do very well at it because we're earnest people that want to please. But when you look at it, you're obviously successful and it seems like you've really embraced that.

[00:21:53] What do you think the keys to that are like for other people? If you're looking to be successful in engaging with clients, [00:22:00] what are some of the things you key on?

[00:22:02] Laura: That's a great question and I think finding need where need and opportunity meet. How are we best at finding out what our client's needs are? First of all, what I do is look at the market's needs, right? What is the overall marketing? And then we funnel it down to what are our clients need and what are the opportunities for us to serve? And so when you can find that overlap and tell that story. So it involves asking a lot of questions, exploring as to what. We can serve with and what you need client and how do we put that together? I think the people who are best at that are at heart problem solvers. I think that's why engineers and scientists are good at this. We may not think we're great at it, but I think you're right. I think we are. I think sometimes we get sidetracked on the personality and the relationship building [00:23:00] piece of it. But at our hearts we're relationship builders anyway. That's what we do. And so it's just a different kind of relationship. I think what stumbles some people is it's not over a particular project, right? When people have a particular project to talk about, they love it.

[00:23:15] Love it. But if you're talking about some sort of abstract, how do we help you? How do we serve? It becomes a little harder when it's more general, so the more focused you can get. And we do that a lot here. That's a technique I use a lot. Let's get as focused as we can. I love it. I think we are consultants. We are, as David Gaber used to say, we are in the business of data and we're in the business of people. We better be good at both of those things.

[00:23:41] Guy: That's interesting and this is fascinating, Laura. I'd love to continue on this, but we're going on a little bit and we have other things to cover. But before I leave your career, is there anybody or several people, if you want to mention, that you feel like had a truly beneficial impact on your career trajectory?

[00:23:57] And if so, what did they [00:24:00] do?

[00:24:00] Laura: There definitely were people in my career, and I've mentioned Rick a couple of times, he was always such a grounding person and someone who saw things in me. I didn't even see myself. As a and a colleague. I've mentioned David Gry. He was certainly influential and just someone who I trusted when I would talk to him, I trusted his advice and held him in high esteem. I will tell you that I've really struggled not having a role model that is a female. I've missed that. I've replaced that over the years, especially in the last 20 years having my own personal board of directors, which are female. And so I pull together, I've got two groups that, I consider my mentoring groups and they're not, one of them has an engineer in the group, but for the most part they're from other industries. But our issues are very similar. 

[00:24:57] Guy: So tell me what's a personal board of directors? 

[00:24:59] Laura: [00:25:00] I'm glad you asked. It is a small group that's pulled together that's committed to helping each other navigate our careers, and typically they're going to be pretty high level. One of my group has. A lawyer, a physician a financier a PhD psychologist.

[00:25:28] The other group has a CEO of a utility company, an engineer, and a Corporate advisor. So those are the kinds of people, and you pull them together and you stick together and you navigate careers together. And it's been more peer mentorship in that scenario. But it's filled the void for me.

[00:25:51] Guy: And it's completely informal then.

[00:25:54] Laura: Yes.

[00:25:54] Guy: That's fascinating.

[00:25:56] Laura: and I've talked about it in a couple of the groups that I've started and [00:26:00] a number of people now have that, but we pulled together, the first group I joined, the only time that we could get together was five 30 in the morning, once a month, five 30 in the morning for an hour and a half, once a month. And we've been doing that for. 14 years.

[00:26:16] Guy: It's still going strong.

[00:26:18] Laura: Absolutely.

[00:26:20] Guy: I bet in 14 years you all have probably surpassed your wildest expectations.

[00:26:25] Laura: It's crazy. It's amazing what you can do together.

[00:26:29] Guy: Huh. That's fascinating. Laura I hate to move off of this because you're dropping these nuggets of wisdom and innovation and just relationship building that I just find fascinating. But let's turn to our next chapter of this discussion and let's talk more generally about the geo profession.

[00:26:45] And I think some of these things actually tie into that, what's your take on the geo profession today?

[00:26:52] Laura: That's a great wide open question guy. I know, right? Thank you. I'll take it and lemme think about what direction I wanna take on it. I [00:27:00] think we are evolving. I think we are coming into our own or could come into our own in ways that maybe show others the value that we have and help us earn that value and showcase it. I don't know that we individually can do that as much as we together can do it. That's why I love GBA, like that's the secret sauce of GBA is that if we are to be all that we can be, it's gonna be because of, I think that GBA gives us the opportunity to do that and say, no, that's not where we wanna go.

[00:27:36] And yes, we do deserve to be the leaders across, we're in these developments, in these projects from start to finish and yet we are. We are not as influential on them as we could be as geo professionals. And I think we a lot of times hold ourselves back. So we are evolving with that.

[00:27:55] I think the leadership that we see the organization and from the firms that are [00:28:00] parts of that organization that are really committed to that. I think are the reason we're making a change. I think we're also embracing the notion of getting outside of our engineering science selves and seeing that there are others that can contribute to our success.

[00:28:17] That when we bring into the fold and we diversify those who are leading us forward, get it done and get it done well. So it doesn't always take a PE to do some of the things we think we take a PE to do. And so we can pull in some diverse voices and say let's let those folks do this part of the work and let's let the PEs, let's let the scientists do this.

[00:28:39] Let's let those who are good at business do this. And we're seeing a more diverse community in the geo professions we've got a workforce issue, first of all,

[00:28:49] Guy: So when you say diversity it's more than just gender and race. It's background and capability. It's true. Full diversity of all things.

[00:28:58] Laura: I think a good example [00:29:00] is, in engineering consulting firms, the engineers and the scientists are the ones who are operationally leading, and they are the ones that are leading in obviously the technical piece of it, and they're also leading in the client facing piece of it. But we're now seeing that we can use others. To do that, right? Operational leadership doesn't have to have the same post nominals that I have, right? Client developers don't have to have the same post nominals that I have. They don't have to have the same degree that I have. In fact, my team of seven national directors, I think half of them have, their technical degrees, but they're not engineering degrees. I've got one with a toxicology degree and one with a, they just moved into this consulting role and so I think we're better at saying we've got people out there that got amazing skills that just don't have the same little initials after them or the same degree. And look what happens when we pull them in and help them belong to the geo professions. Look where we go.

[00:29:59] Guy: It sounds like that's a [00:30:00] tremendous both challenge and opportunity that you're laying out there, the shrinking workforce and expanding workforce at the same time by broader interpretation.

[00:30:11] Laura: The challenge, I don't know if you wanna think about challenge. I just, when you said that what came to mind was the challenges in thinking differently about how we get done. And that's always a challenge, right? But I think that's where things like technology and even AI come in is to how do we embrace thinking a little bit differently, thinking very differently sometimes about this. And yes, it does extend to things like gender ethnic and racial diversity. I think that the more we expand any kind of diverse thinking, I think you can pull all of that in. My hope is that 20, 30 years from now, maybe we look a little bit different.

[00:30:49] I'm not sure that our impact will continue to really evolve, but I'm not sure that what we do will be hugely different, but how we do it and who we do it with may be.

[00:30:58] Guy: So what do you think the core [00:31:00] value proposition of geo professionals is? I think we interpret it very broadly, but you mentioned AI or other technologies or, the challenges of shrinking demographics and all that. What do you think is the thing that's always gonna be needed, that core kernel of, this consulting practice that transcends all that is there anything that comes to mind for you?

[00:31:21] Laura: Wow. If I could figure that out, that would be, you know what? This connector, this idea that we're there from start to finish as geo professionals. Because of the nature of what we do and services that we provide, we are there from start to finish. And so what if we could become not just those that are there, but we can lead through that. What if the value proposition is we could lead through that life cycle or through that? Continuum of start to finish. And I don't think we see ourselves as that right now. I think we see ourselves as inserting along the way, but I don't think we see [00:32:00] ourselves as bridging or communicating. That we are leaders in that as much as we could.

[00:32:07] Guy: That's fascinating. 'cause it would take a cultural shift. But your point is if I'm reading you correctly the core kernel is we have a pretty good idea of the whole process start to finish and we're probably not fully taking advantage of that.

[00:32:19] Laura: There's a, have you ever read the book the Checklist Manifesto?

[00:32:22] Guy: I have not.

[00:32:24] Laura: It's a good one. The basics is there was a surgeon that wanted to. Determine how to improve outcome, and he decided the checklists for simple problems. Checklists were how you did it, but then you got into complicated problems, which you could solve like. Adding simple problems altogether and solving those complex problems were the ones that he started delving into. And building and construction are this kind of complex problem where checklist that you use to get you to the solution. [00:33:00] Doesn't always, because the outcome is different. It's not like a complicated problem might be something like going to the moon. You can use the same simple checklist to build up to going to the moon. You can replicate that. But~ a ~construction, you're not replicating the same thing. Not all buildings look alike. situations are always going to vary. And so these complex problems required more than just the checklist, and that's when he, there's a chapter on construction ~and it ~talks about the need for, the foundation of checklists, which are the submittals and all of that, the construction schedule.

[00:33:36] But then as consultants, we have to work together to solve the varying problems that come up during construction, and we have to do that. Communicating as a team, we have to have the individual expertise of the different practitioners. But as a team, as a group, we have to solve those problems together. It strikes me that Geof could do that.

[00:33:57] Guy: That's fascinating, Laura. I've not heard that, and [00:34:00] I need to let it absorb, but it almost 

[00:34:01] Laura: I know. 

[00:34:02] Guy: it's a recipe to transcend ai, any automation 'cause there's these intangibles and

[00:34:08] Laura: Right.

[00:34:08] Guy: I'm trying to paraphrase what I think I heard, it's a combination of kinda understanding how things fit together and understanding the breadth of things that need to fit together puts you in a unique position to create real value, that would transcend, automation and things of that 

[00:34:22] Laura: Yes, and the checklist. You could say the automation is a checklist and then that, but that's not the end of it. 

[00:34:28] Guy: This is like the third thing that we've talked about, Laura, that I wish we could dedicate a whole podcast to. So I'm gonna take that as a segue to our final speed round. Where I'm gonna ask you a few questions and don't be nervous. It's a speed round in the, I'm just gonna ask you five questions and ask for your, straightforward answer without a lot of dialogue.

[00:34:47] You just mentioned the checklist manifesto, and it may or may not be on your list, but what are some of your favorite books.

[00:34:53] Laura: I had, especially at a point in my career, I had a lot of business books and I have 'em, they're like up on my shelf and I still [00:35:00] refer to 'em. Radical Candor love it. Fierce conversations. But I gotta tell you, guy, I love fiction. If you ask me favorite books,

[00:35:08] Guy: Yeah, that's what I.

[00:35:09] Laura: I love it.

[00:35:10] And so my favorite books again, because I don't look back. I might know the title of books I've read. I can tell you how they make me feel, but it's really the one that's on my bedside table

[00:35:20] is probably my favorite book. And the one that's on my bedside table is Tom Hanks' book, the Making of a Motion Picture Masterpiece. And it's just about the movie industry and it's really well done. And then the other one on my bedside, which I haven't cracked open yet, is the daily Dracula. So I read Dracula in my adult life, loved it, but didn't like it's an epistolary novel, right? It's, written as letters. I didn't love that.

[00:35:47] I found it distracting. This is chronological and I'm excited to try that one. So those are the two on my.

[00:35:54] Guy: So you, do you like fiction because it allows you to escape or 

[00:35:57] Laura: Yes. And I'll tell [00:36:00] you, one of my books that I read over and over again is Peter Males a Year.

[00:36:04] Guy: okay,

[00:36:05] I've read that. Yeah.

[00:36:06] Laura: I love that book. I'll just pick it up and just read it over because I think what I wanna do, and you knows, maybe I'll do this, is I think I would love to renovate a villa maybe in Italy, not in France, but I would love to.

[00:36:21] Guy: Fourth podcast thing we could talk about. So as sit here today and you are thinking about the geo profession what's your optimism index for our profession? Going forward on a scale of one to five, five being high and one being 

[00:36:36] Laura: Yeah, I am such an optimist. I really am. I could tell you five and I would believe it myself, but it's probably a four. I think there's work to be done and sometimes we don't always do the work. I think I'm always optimistic and I always know it's probably gonna take longer than I ever think it is.

[00:36:54] But yeah I'm very optimistic.

[00:36:57] Guy: Lori been incredibly successful in your career [00:37:00] and just delightful to interview. When you reflect on your career, and I know you're looking forward and not looking back, but is there anything that you've done that you're most proud of in your professional career?

[00:37:11] Laura: Yeah. I am absolutely most proud and unapologetic about looking to help women in the profession. I told the story about feeling like I belonged when I hit the profession. There are so many more opportunities for us so that's great. And diversity of any kind but women especially, 'cause that's my heart, I want us to look like that. So I've started groups I started one here in Nashville called AEC, power Women Architects, engineers and Construction. We have been together about 13 years, incredibly impactful. Watched women create careers that they never knew they could have.

[00:37:45] I started three other groups that were a little more focused but all around women in particular areas of the industry and those have all been successful. And I helped start the first employee resource group, increasing women in leadership at [00:38:00] Terracon, and I'm very proud of all of that.

[00:38:02] Guy: Wow. You're such a successful, charismatic person and to have that passion I can just imagine the impacts you're having there.

[00:38:12] Laura: Thank you.

[00:38:13] Guy: So the flip of that question, Laura, is when you look back on your career, what do you regret? And I'm sure you're feel comfortable with where you are and you're satisfied with your personal situation.

[00:38:22] But again, I, for the benefit of our listeners, when you look back, what are some of the questions you have that if I had turned left instead of right here that I still think about or that you still think 

[00:38:33] Laura: I am a very much no regrets person, so I never use the word regret. I wouldn't change anything about my life. I might change a little bit about how I react sometimes to my life, right? And so I think when I look back, I think there were times when I could give myself more grace and be kinder and gentler to myself and maybe even others. It felt sometimes that I had to be a bit harder on [00:39:00] myself and maybe even, navigating my career than I wanted to be maybe, than I should have been. I think we've been given an opportunity now to see the benefits of things like vulnerability.

[00:39:11] Vulnerability is the new leadership. That's the new phrase. And I love that. I think that's wonderful. To understand that relationship building is a huge piece of our success. We have got to focus on being better with each other. That stuff we used to call squishy stuff or soft stuff, it's not, it's hard stuff.

[00:39:32] Guy: That's certainly impactful in my view. Final question for you, Laura. And you've been great. Impossible for you to screw this up at this point, but you can really finish strong with this one, given the context of this discussion, your life, your perspectives on the industry somebody entering our profession now, what would Laura register offer as advice to someone coming in today?

[00:39:56] Laura: That's a great question and I've been asked that question before and I used to give this [00:40:00] answer and it was, I would tell people that it was important for them to decide what they want to earn and to ask for it. Especially when we were talking with women, that was hard, and I still think that's important, but I'm gonna back up a little because in the last few years, especially really feeling like I, I'm just giddy about where I am in my career right now, and I think I'm there because culture is such an important thing when you're looking at joining a firm or creating a firm, or being in relationship in this industry.

[00:40:34] I think culture. Just eats, compensation's, lunch and even job description. When I joined Terracon, the position I took, it was about getting on the bus, not about exactly what the position was and culture, making sure. That the culture, your values and the culture of the firm you're joining is aligned.

[00:40:55] It doesn't have to be exactly the same but I think that requires you to know what [00:41:00] your values are. And a lot of people maybe haven't done that work, and that's important to do. So of us who are really, focused on that culture being positive. It's a important thing.

[00:41:13] Guy: So to our listeners, Laura's not just giving us her stock answers, she's giving us the real answers. And that's a squishy thing, defining culture, what is it? But I think that's really powerful. Find a place that you feel you can thrive and you're comfortable and great things are gonna happen.

[00:41:28] Laura: I think we, a lot of times people especially. People just coming into the profession, the metrics they look at it's all they have is what are they gonna pay me and what's my job title gonna be? And you look back, guy, you probably feel this way. That's sometimes the least important thing.

[00:41:44] And it's hard to tell people that, I was talking to my daughter-in-law and she's looking at a career change. I was saying, no, look at this. Look at this. It's really it's hard to look at that metric.

[00:41:53] Guy: I a hundred percent agree with that. And I think part of it is other geo professionals are motivated by not just money. 

[00:41:59] Laura: Yeah.

[00:41:59] Guy: the [00:42:00] reality is we were all really smart people. There were a lot of opportunities in front of us, we could, most of us great math, there's, all kinds of Wall Street type things you could do.

[00:42:09] But, do you really get personal satisfaction outta that? And, what are you, that, those are the layers you have to go through. And I think you mentioned do the work. it's hard because you don't have that perspective at that time of your life. And again, this is the Laura Register podcast, not the Guy Marcozzi podcast.

[00:42:24] Laura I think we're just about outta time. But I have to tell you, I was really. Just blown away by this you're such a fascinating person and you have this great take on life, and I think your positivity, just pushes forward.

[00:42:39] And I'm sure that's just served you well. You're articulate and inspirational and passionate, and I just love talking to you today.

[00:42:48] Laura: Thank you. I love it as well. Thanks guy.

[00:42:51] Guy: So I'll give you the final word. Anything that you wanted to say that didn't have time to squeeze in the other questions.

[00:42:56] Laura: No, take the vacation. That's my mantra right [00:43:00] now with my people. When my staff comes to me and says, I'm gonna take, you know this. I said go take the vacation. Enjoy it. Go refresh, unplug.

[00:43:11] Guy: We'll just leave with that then. So let's call it a wrap. Thank you, Laura.