Farming, Career Advice, and Poetry with Ron Deverman

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Ron Deverman, NAEP Fellow, and Vice-President and National Environmental Planning Leader for STV, a national planning, engineering, and architecture firm about Farming, Career Advice, and Poetry.   Read his full bio below.

Special thanks to our sponsor for this episode STV:  https://stvinc.com/

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes: 

1:14  Shout out

2:34  Nic and Laura talk about travel in the time of covid

9:19  Interview with Ron Deverman starts

11:37  Ron talks about Farming

27:54  Field notes segment

30:39  Ron's career advice

34:29  Ron discusses poetry

Please be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review. 

This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Ron Deverman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-deverman-a521b411

Full Guest Bio:

Ron is Vice-President and National Environmental Planning Leader for STV, a national planning, engineering, and architecture firm.  Ron has over 35-years-experience managing NEPA environmental impact assessment projects for transportation infrastructure improvements, such as transit, passenger and freight rail, highways, and bridges, with special expertise in community impact assessment, cumulative effects analysis, and other federal environmental regulations.  Ron is a Past President of NAEP and IAEP and he is the current Chair of NAEP’s Leadership Development Initiative.  Ron is a Certified Environmental Professional by Eminence and a NAEP Fellow for his exemplary service and over 30-year commitment to NAEP and the environmental professions.  Ron is also an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University teaching a Masters’ course in NEPA and Context Sensitive Solutions. 

He is a published poet and has spoken nationally and internationally on many subjects, including key competencies for environmental professionals, environmental stewardship, and the public health impacts and benefits of our transportation choices.  Ron comes from generations of farmers in Illinois’ heartland and farmed for a living while attending college.  Ron’s education includes a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana, a MA in English from the University of Illinois in Springfield, and post-graduate studies in NEPA and related environmental studies.  

Music Credits

Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa

Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

[Transcripts are auto transcribed]

Nic:
Hello and Welcome to EPR, your favorite environmental nerds Nic and Laura. On today's episode, we give our shout outs, Laura and I discussed the return to traveling now that COVID restrictions have lifted. We sit down with Ron Deverman, the Vice President and National Environmental Planning leader at STV to talk about farming career advice and poetry. And finally, people tend to brush their teeth, but more vigorously on the side of their dominant hand right handed people brush more on the right and left handed people brush more on the left. This can lead to you having one side of your teeth that are like super clean and the other kind that are pretty clean, but the next time you are brushing your teeth, pay attention to what side of your mouth, your brush on, and it just might blow your mind.

Laura:
That's interesting.

Nic:
Right, I thought that was fun, and I took it, I started doing it, especially when I was like, oh my gosh I'm spending all my time on the right side of my mouth. Yeah, it was pretty funny.

Laura:
So, I'm trying to think where my cavities are.

Nic:
Please be sure to subscribe, rate and review. Hit that music.

[Shout outs]

Laura:
Our shout out for the day goes to Bill Plumpton in winner of the 2021 Norm Arnold award. Not to be confused with the Norm Macdonald award. Totally different, very different thing.
Bill has been an NAEP member for over 30 years, he is the Senior Vice President and Director of Environmental Management and natural resources that Gannett Fleming in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. He has served on NAEP board of directors for 14 years and his actions support the board to ensure long term relevancy and the financial health of NAEP. So thanks for all you do Bill,

Nic:
Yeah absolutely really love having, having you part of the board is great.


Be sure to share your promotions, new jobs, professional and project awards with us on the EPR website so we can give you a shout out here, and today's episode is sponsored by STV.  STV is an award winning professional firm consistently ranked among the country's top companies in education, justice, highways, bridges, rail and mass transit sectors. This success is the direct result of their employees commitment to innovation and quality throughout the US and Canada STV's professional technical and support personnel offer services to a broad and expanding client base. If you would like to sponsor a future episode, head over to www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com and fill out the sponsor form. Let's get to our segment.

Nic:
Cool.

Laura:
Let's talk about that. I'm so like I'm a little jealous myself about you getting to actually go out and travel places right now. Yeah, but I'm also a little bit like he I don't know if realistically wants to be traveling that much right now either so I'm curious to know what it's like, like what is it been like going from like zero to, full stop.

Nic:
150,000, miles an hour. So like the first time I flew right, I immediately got delayed for three hours and I was like okay great, that's a nice healthy reminder of what it's like to travel right yeah, it's like, oh yeah you have to do early morning flight because everything else in the afternoon is going to be later than it says and it's just the truth. So, yeah, okay, that's good to know. Thank you for reminding me. And then I got, you know, my very first Uber driver to the hotel was just crazy. And there's no other word for it.

Laura:
Crazy how?  Like crazy driving?

Nic:
No, no, no, he was basically talking about how he didn't, you know, care at all about the pandemic and he was out here driving the whole time you're like, oh cool, okay. Right, and I thought that was bad and then we got to the hotel, there's a gate and the gate has to lift up, he's like, Oh yeah, last time I was here, the gate wouldn't let me out so I ran inside and yelled at everybody pretty bad. Actually, it was pretty I was really angry and I'm like why are you telling me, like literally crazy All right well yeah like literally just like in all of our conversations you're like, No, this might be it. This may be the end of old Nic here.

Laura:
It's like last week I had this major road rage and I murdered someone on the street.

Nic:
I killed one of my passengers but you know, they can't, they can't give me a rating so I still have five stars. But yeah, that was kind of, it was kind of crazy, that the first time was pretty tough, but there's been a couple like the flights aren't always full yet, some of them are most of most of the smaller ones are. But I did do a flight where I had three, you know three seats on either side, and I had nobody. Next to me so yeah, it was great. Yeah, you know, I mean, the standard rules of travel are pretty much back I mean, the weird thing too about the hotel is that I mean other hotels the airports, is the restaurants aren't all open. There's like, maybe it depends on which one you're in, you know like half of the ones in Atlanta, are open, which seems great until you go to, like, you know, F gate or whatever, and it was like a food court and everything's closed and so you have to go back to, like, track back to, like, the very beginning to get food,

Laura:
I hate that because I hate that in the normal airport when you're like, oh, there's a Cinnabon if you get there and you're like yeah and they closed an hour ago.

Nic:
Yeah I know, that's always tough, but now it's like that yeah they're just you don't know what's actually open, they have the signs for everything, like, Oh great. Yeah, exactly. The Cinnabon, this is good for me, and then you know the universe decides no you will not have that today. So yeah, it's a little bit, there's less people still like I can tell it's not as busy, but it's getting like a noisy I've been doing this for like almost a full month now, actually more than a full month and it's yeah it's definitely busier. And so the fights are getting fuller, everybody's still wearing a mask or is being polite but he's I haven't seen any of that, that come through which is good,.

Laura:
But people are being nice to each other.

Nic:
Yeah there's I mean, nobody's talking to each other, like that's the thing I haven't had one person I try to talk to on a plane. And, yeah, it's you know, anyone can say I like to talk to people I like to meet people, but when I'm on a plane I don't as much because I'm just like, Okay, I did all that I did all my talking and I'm tired now and I just want to go to sleep. You know, if you do an early morning flight there's way less talking anyway because everybody's again trying to like they woke up at 430 in the morning and they're like okay well I got on this plane is now I'm going to take a nap, which is totally fine but I think it's just also a shift a little bit in what you do on a plane right Everybody's got their own headsets they got their own, like, you know, entertainment to watch and definitely interesting to see the differences between the airlines like American actually has done away with the screen. So you download their app and you watch the screen on whenever you when you do when you are on your phone or on your tablet or whatever it is, on your demand. So, yeah, and they even have like a little like holder that you can put up on this in the backside of the seat that should middle put up

Laura:
Oh gosh, how many people are leaving their stuff there?

Nic:
Well, I mean, yeah, yeah, there was a little rope attached. Yeah right well on it or something. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully you know using your headphones you know you remember, but yeah right, I'm sure people do and they do it anyway people put it yeah they actually say you're not allowed to like the rules on the airliner you know how to put it on your tablet so your laptops in the pouches in the back of the seat, and I think honestly that just so you don't leave it there. Because I'm sure people do. I'm surprised I haven't, honestly, but then Delta still has the screens and you still have to plug in directly to it but yeah, also but Delta also didn't, you know delay my flight for three hours yet so you know it's just a difference in airline, you know, it just depends. Everybody's got their own, and where I am. Delta makes more sense because if I do American the hub for American Charlotte, or Miami and Charlotte is literally a two hour drive from me. So it's just worthless flight and it gets delayed all the time which is really funny so it always takes longer to get there to fly, than it would to drive, always. So at least Delta's hub is Atlanta, so it's easy in Atlanta is easier.

Laura:
I'm a big  fan of Delta.

Nic:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, cool. So we're yeah we're Delta fans that say see if they'll sponsor the episode here, but I love it though because people people have really strong opinions about this like there's some people that that hate Delta, and just I think it's, it's really an interesting thing it's it's like informed experience right like whatever your experience with an airline is, is exactly how you feel about that airline, regardless of whether they're actually good or bad, because they're kind of pretty much the same. I think there's not a ton of differences but yeah, it's just that that short flight to Charlotte kills me. I can't do it.

Laura:
They also had made some early on commitments to environmental improvements. I obviously have not obviously but I don't have any idea what where they're at with those commitments and what the other airlines are doing but I know that they were at least one of the first.

Nic:
You know that they've actually tested a small scale version of an electric engine for jets. Yeah, like all electric and it's like super cool so I mean like the, maybe it's really more like, you know, practically like the 2040s you could have an electric jet out there, or commercial jet. That would be really cool.

Laura:
It's coming pretty quick, they just kind of make the battery smaller.

Nic:
Yeah, Yeah but yeah I know right and then they also maybe should make them say don't lie on fire.

Laura:
Yeah, we can talk about those future technologies, another time let's get to our segment for today.

Nic:
All right, cool. We're interview. Yeah, let's do it.

[Interview with Ron Deverman starts]

Nic:
Okay, welcome back to your favorite podcast EPR, we're so very thankful to have Ron Deverman on the show today, he's a vice president, and the National Environmental Planning leader at STV, he's also a past president of NAEP a published poet and an NAEP fellow, Ron, thank you so much for being here.

Ron:
It's great to be here. Good to see both of you.

Nic:
Yeah, so why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do what I do.

Ron:
Well, I've now got about, it's definitely over 35 years of managing very large transportation infrastructure projects you know the NEPA. Phase one, environmental, and preliminary engineering, you know, all types of transit and rail and, you know, early in my career I did highways and bridges because my first job was actually in the central office of the Illinois DOT, and the Bureau of design and environment, and I was actually hired as a technical writer to write EISs cover to cover. So that was kind of crazy, but what was really good about it, I liked working with the different resource area specialists, you know, and the environmental department, somebody would be specialists in biology, you know, natural resources or air quality noise, cultural resources, and then I'd have to work with all of them to get the information you know put together, do the environmental impacts and write up the documents and learn them out in fact the first EIS, I wrote was actually challenged in court. I did, I didn't realize that it was such a controversial project and as a new Illinois river crossing and central Illinois Central Illinois expressway. So there are a lot of issues with threatened, endangered species and cultural resources, to the tune of Indian burial mounds and I could just go on and on and on so I wrote that he is and stood the test in court and that's how you learn by fire, I think.

Nic:
Yeah, no kidding and what even drew you into the environmental field in the first place?

Ron:
You know, thinking a lot about that, especially in the past year, my dad passed away in, 2020, February, 29, but he lived a very very long productive life of 95 years, and he was a farmer until age 75 And he was one of the first. I think maybe the first farmer in central Illinois to practice no till farming. And what that means it's very little disturbance of the soil after the crops are harvested, so you don't get the wind and rain erosion, like the old style of farming and so he helped teach some of the other farmers how to do what equipment to buy and that sort of thing. And then he was very much into soil and water conservation, he did the county level, he became the President of the Illinois State Soil and Water Conservation districts in the mid 1980s He won all kinds of land conservation awards and that sort of thing and was very involved with the community to, in many ways and even deacon of his church. He was one of our great World War II veterans in the US Navy, and he was actually in the submarine, the USS Blackfish. Imagine being in a world war II submarine. I can't even imagine.

Yeah, that's like the living in a soup can, you know, and so he did really, and I'm the executor of the estate, now to this I actually farmed in partnership with him for a while. And so I feel very honored to be the executor number one but then again, being in his study and seeing all the different conservation awards that he won over the years it's just very impressive and it's really, it really came back and I think this year, how much he influenced me. You know, in my, in my career and my love for the environment.

Nic:
So, yeah, for sure. I don't know, do you still get to farm?

Ron:
Yeah, I, well, yeah the farming operation is still going it's 500 acres by cousin Ken actually farmed it for 20 years, but then when he retired, his nephew, Ty Willis is farming in the last couple of years and he's doing a fantastic job. I just have to interface a little bit now and again but he's making all those farming business decisions so that's really cool.

Nic:
Yeah. But yeah, you also, switching gears a little bit, you also run NAEP's leadership development initiative.

Ron:
Yeah, I think it started. Yeah. Well, I think we were having a chapter retreat. A few years back, and the idea kind of came up and I thought about it and I said yeah we you know we really need to make in the context of a more leadership development within an NAEP, and especially our emerging, you know members of professionals and that sort of thing and then so we, we started leadership blog here in the last couple of years, in a way I see EPR is an outgrowth of our leadership and that outreach. And then we've, I've been very involved with the NAEP American Public University Student Chapter, and in fact we just had a meeting last week, and interfacing with them and they, they're interested in different environmental topics and so I'll get a speaker you know somebody from NAEP to come in and talk about whether it's a career in natural resources or, you know, federal service, like the US Forest Service for example and there's a lot of different topics, so that's been really, really

Laura:
I think Nic got to talk earlier this year.

Ron:
Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, I was, yeah, I did that meeting . You did a great job.

Nic:
Okay, I  I appreciate that. I was really glad I could be part of it.

Ron:
So that's kind of foremost in my mind I felt, certainly as a past president and an NAEP fellow that's just another way I could continue to give back, you know, so. Yeah, I've been I've been a member since 1990, and I actually attended my first conference at night, 1989, and I was still at the Illinois DOT at the time that first conference and I might have to admit, you know, like I was listening to the different sessions, and especially the NEPA track, and I saw some of our rural NEPA pioneers like Richard McLean and Don Hunsacher, and even Lynton, believe it or not, Lynton Caldwell himself who crafted NEPA and developed the concept of the EIS, he came and spoke. CEQ council Dinah Bear. They're just amazing people, but when I saw Rich MacLean, delivering presentation on NEPA is like it just struck me as, okay, I want to be like him when I grow up, you know, that kind of realization like okay this is the place for me. So, and that's why I've been over the years very very, you know, committed to NAEP and the chapters. I lived in the Pacific Northwest, for a while, about five years. In the early to mid 90s And I co-founded the Northwest chapter then, and probably the people that are leaders of the Northwest chapter probably don't even know that fact. Because most of the energy was in the Seattle area at the time and then I kind of moved down to Portland and now it's really awesome to both places. So they have very, very active, chapter, now but, but that was me, I think it was a 1990 Actually, when I met some other people from the Seattle area and we were so taken with the NAEP conference and loved it so much, we said, let's go and found a chapter, there we went, that's what we did so.

Laura:
That's great. How big is the isn't the Illinois chapter, what do you guys, what region are you covering.

Ron:
Yeah, we cover the entire Chicago region, believe it or not, we even have a couple of members that actually officially live in Wisconsin, and one in Indiana, but you know they're driving to work in the Chicago region. We have about 350 to 400 members constantly, and what's incredible is we have 45, corporate members. Oh wow. Yeah, which, again, they get five members of each firm gets a discount on, you know, when we have our webinars and seminars and better things so that's very impressive, and the Illinois chapter IAEP, was one of the three original NAEP chapters so it dates all the way back to 1975 Just like when NAEP was founded, so it's fantastic. We do have some people in Springfield, that's the state capitol so all of the resources and regulatory agencies there. And the plan was to actually have a couple of events down there last year, of course, the pandemic kind of put that on pause, but we're hoping once everything opens up again we're going to do that I've been in touch with a couple of environmental professors at the U of I Springfield Campus, and that's actually where I got my master's in English. And then of course U of I Urbana, the main campus that's where I got my civil engineering degree, but I've been in touch with the environmental professors down there and so we're going to, we'll do something when we, when we can.

Laura:
So,  I want to just touch base on the leadership stuff again really quickly there is a leadership blog on the website that people can check out and a lot of writing for that. And then you're also the leading on our webinar, two webinars a year on leadership that are free, so the next one, by the time this comes out it will already aired, and it is devoted to environmental and social justice and equity issues, and just kind of wanted to know, for you to tell us what you're hoping that that will accomplish and why it's so important.

Ron:
Yeah, I think, you know, I think our mindsets and our hearts have really changed, you know, over the last year, with Black Lives Matter, and our attention on social justice, equity in the professions, and we're even seeing that in our transit projects, but social equity, and that kind of thing. And one of our environmental professionals in LA, who was the speaker, worked on a Gender Action Plan, for example, for LA Metro. And so it's very very much on our minds and we really need to be respectful to everyone, so it's very important. And that's why it's, For me, I just want to emphasize that a lot. And I think it was last September, you remember I moderated the applying multiple approaches within, you know, for diversity, equity and inclusion within the environmental profession, and I want to do another one of those as well, maybe, maybe early fall. Be good to do that, someone of my leadership team, Heidi Hartmann at Argonne National Laboratory was telling me about all the great things they're doing there and so she'll probably be a speaker or have somebody represent Argonne. As one example,

Laura:
Great, yeah I think that's the difference now than all the times we've had these conversations before in the past, right, we have to keep this going.

Ron:
Yeah, and you know the other thing, I just thought of. And it really does go back to my father again, And my mother and how I was brought up, you know, it's not about, you know what you look like or the views you may hold it's just who you are inside as person, and to really value the uniqueness of your humaneness, and that's how I was brought up. And so, you know, I've never I was never brought up around racism or anything like that, I just, everyone was an equal human being, you know.

Laura:
Yeah, that's great. I always love the way you talk about your parents.

Nic:
Yeah, it's really, it's great, and it's really refreshing. I think it speaks to who you are as a person. And, you know, I think the more we got to know each other more, we've learned from you. Just another way you get back, you're an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, and you teach a Master's course in NEPA. So, like I say, like, you're also getting back in that way. So what drew you to teaching, and how do you see your role as a mentor.

Ron:
Yeah, actually, the first time I taught was actually even when I was an I-DOT, we needed someone at the local community college there to teach fiction writing and short story writing and stuff like that and so I can do that, you know, okay. But I will say I taught that course now for six Fall quarters of course in 2020 it was virtual. But, frankly, Northwestern University reached out to me because, in their adjunct faculty they actually want people, professionals doing real jobs in the profession and in the in the area that you're teaching about. So what's really cool, and I can give them just my students, the just sort of basics of NEPA are context sensitive solutions, but then I can tie it to real projects I've managed to say, yeah, yeah, so each project as you know is so unique and there's a cast of characters and, you know and and on and on, and so I just tell stories, you know about the projects and the crazy things that go on while I manage the students like, what that really happened. But I think it gives them a much more, you know, heartfelt and absorption of the principles that I'm actually teaching. So, and, yeah, I love it, and I just love being back on campus, too. So yeah, oh yeah.

Laura:
Do you have a favorite project you've worked on that you'd like to share with them.

Ron:
Well, I for about nine or 10 years I was the overall program manager for the rail side of I-DOT on the Create program it's in the Chicago region here it's actually a program that 70 rail improvement projects at any given week there's about two dozen active projects were over, overseeing but I will say I thought that you know I provided the management and oversight for the 75th Street Corridor Improvement projects and it's on Chicago's South Side. And I do harken back to that one a lot. As for examples, because of the community outreach that we did and working with the aldermen and the public officials and community interest groups and that sort of thing, you know, we had some over 40 Community Interest groups involved with that. And then the faith community was very involved we actually held our public meetings and churches, because they were, they were safe places. So, got a lot of a lot of some more support on the south side, Becca. I've got to be presenting on that project at the NAEP virtual conference

Laura:
I need to connect to some people here in Syracuse with you I don't know if you know anything about the I-81 You call it political decision. It's been hanging out there for years, the city can't figure out what to do with the over Penn highway so it's, it's dual levels. Oh yeah, and it's aged out, and, you know, should we make it a tunnel should we rebuild it as it is, should they, you know, make it a parkway, the question remains, and it sounds like you have, you could have some maybe insight for us here at Syracuse.

Ron:
Yeah, I managed another project, I liked it was the project I-375 in Detroit, and basically that was all about deconstructing an interstate spur that went through lower income and minority neighborhoods back in the early 1960s, and there are now, Michigan DOT, along with the city of Detroit, they're going to reconstruct it into a boulevard to totally reconnect the neighborhoods, and, you know, bike lanes multimodal, you know, transportation active transportation and that sort of thing just a really great project to work on and I did talk about that project last year in 2020 at the NAEP conference and I've actually expanded that now the whole concept is interstates to boulevards, so you can actually Google interstates to boulevards and you see it's sort of like righting the wrongs of past, you know, and reconnecting neighborhoods, making them walkable, again, and I'm actually speaking in June, on an international conference that's going to be virtual this year. On that topic and kind of expand that to the point of then ultimately writing a paper on it

Laura:
Well awesome. I'm glad I asked this question I have new resources to bring here.

Nic:
It's actually a really good segue like we like to do a thing we call field notes where we asked funny stories from the field, and you were an environmental compliance coordinator for the construction of a new I- 405 Cedar River Bridge.

Ron:
Oh that's right, that's right, that was a real fun project that was, that was kind of a 24/7. I had. So yeah, for y'all watch we could do it obviously environmental coordinator, I had to do all the compliance, but to do aquifer awareness training because the city's sole source aquifer was only about 10 to 15 feet below the soil surface and we're here they are building a new bridge. And also, so a lot a lot of training there for the construction workers and compliance. So one time yeah I was out by the river and going through my I had an inspection sheet related to the storage of hazardous materials and other things I had to inspect every day. And I saw the watering truck you know they, what it does is, it lays the dust, you know, so you don't have a lot of fugitive dust. During construction, with the equipment, and so the driver, let's just say he had to do some business and so he parked his truck actually facing the river, and went into the port-a potty and but he didn't set the brake and the truck went into the river. And so it was just, you know, all out alarm. Yeah. And but we I had trained the construction workers and stuff when we put out the booms, you know, around the truck that yeah sure, oil and gas you know and that sort of thing we did that, I mean just almost immediately. and we just went out to action and stuff and then there was a crane that was helping kind of lifted and then a bulldozer came in, came over. Got a big chain and hook it on the back of it we were, we literally were we had just pulled it out of the wall his truck out of the water. Yeah, it was still hooked on the bulldozer, when the guy comes out of the port. What's going on. Of course now your, your truck just took a took a dive into the river there. Yeah. and that that was I think Washington state's highest quality salmon spawning. Yeah we're Cedar River, of course, yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah, crazy, crazy times,

Laura:
That's what we like to tell these stories though so young people listening like you're gonna mess up, something's gonna happen but it's okay. Yeah. Speaking of which, do you have any specific advice to give to environmental professionals looking to get into their careers maybe specifically into transportation, and what kind of projects.

Ron:
Yeah, I especially you know and I actually mentioned this to my students at Northwestern as well. What gravitated me I think to transportation infrastructure in the context of NEPA is that that type of infrastructure touches all the resource areas with social and land use, environmental, you know, and it's just been incredibly, incredibly interesting to manage those types of projects so you get a real breadth and depth of experience in all resource areas. So I do encourage young professionals to think about that if they have opportunities to work for state DOT's or even regional we do a lot of work for regional transportation and transit authorities, and I especially like transit myself now because there's a lot of placemaking you know and transit oriented development around the stations and really really enjoy that and one of the first transit jobs I managed was out in in Denver, and we actually had a very multidisciplinary team including actually visual and sound artists believe it or not bad work, collaborative together to do different placemaking and artistic spaces at transit stops. And that was just really really interesting and I love, I love doing that type of thing so

Laura:
I do have a follow up question I've been talking to some people recently who are trying to get into, or recent graduates trying to get into urban planning and not really sure what the entry level steps are like Where could they make those first entries what job title should be searching for.

Ron:
Yeah, they should be able to come in, you know, as a, you know first level planner. What I've enjoyed, like I said early in my career I was, you know I did work for the DOT but since then, I've actually, you know, been working in the private sector in consulting, and I've liked that a lot because consulting firms, especially will help young professionals pay for advanced degrees and, you know other training and education and that kind of thing so I think that's really important and. And I, you know, I guess another thing with managing large major projects, is it takes a team, you know, and so you'll learn a lot about just being in. What's your role in the team is and how you help the team be successful. And you can learn that right away in your first job, because of that team environment, and then you pick up a lot of things too, I did have a couple mentors early in my career that were project managers, you know, professionals and I, you know, with the thing with mentoring is, you just don't have to do anything, you just have to be. And if someone is mentoring you, I just sort of absorb what they're doing, you know, that's what I did early in my career I just sort of, Wow I see how he handled that situation or how he, he talked to the client or so yeah, I get that I get it. And so now I think I've had the opportunity to mentor people, and again, it's nothing I have to do overtly I just sort of go about and do my business, you know,

Nic:
Yeah, and it's a great answer, and I'd say I wish. We're almost out of time and we really could talk to you for another hour it's just such a great wealth of knowledge that you have, and we teased this at the beginning though, is you are also a published poet, so that is right. How did you get into poetry, where does that love come from.

Ron:
It actually the first poem I wrote when I was, I think, 19, and I think I was just with my family. Mom and dad and my brother and little sister, time, and we were just down in the Carolinas, and I just sort of walked off and then I found this little stream and, you know, woods, and then this waterfall and stuff and it just struck me and I came back and I actually wrote my first poem called The Waterfall Knows. And since then I just, I've just made an avocation and, you know one at one point I thought, Okay, should I go in this direction and just become a professor University professor and write and publish books but, but I love managing projects and being involved as I say, with the environmental studies, so I went that way and my hope is that I've kept this avocation up throughout all these decades. And I'm very, very involved with the Northwest Cultural Council which is a group of not only poets but visual artists, and we get together in fact this last Saturday we got together on a zoom call, and share some of our work and that sort of thing so I've just been doing that, you know, all my life and plan to actually publish a lot more when I do finally retire from environmental professionals so,

Nic:
so great and so why why poetry over other forms of writing is it just what spoke to you.

Ron:
Yeah, that's a good way of putting that just speaks to me and it also takes me to a deeper level of myself. If you think in the context of self actualization and working. Well, you can even think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and at the very top of the pyramid there is self actualization and how important that is to have, you know, both your human side and the analytical side and just kind of working on all cylinders, you know

Nic:
100% agree, it's very very important.

Laura:
So, Ron is there a poem that you could recite for us to close out or show?

Ron:
Yeah, I'd love to do that and in fact, this poem Total Eclipse Carbondale, Illinois, hits when back in I think it was 2017 Yeah and you know August, where I was 100% Total Eclipse and so my wife Mary and I, we drove down there, and Mary has a niece Colleen, and so we were able to stay at her house the night before and the night. That night, because you probably heard the highways were just bumper to bumper traffic trying to pass after a because even Nassau had actually come and set up a facility at Carbondale, because it was 100%. And this is also the poem, at the 2018 conference in Tacoma. When I accepted the NAEP Fellow award. I actually had written this poem it came out very quickly from, you know, August of 2017 and here it's March of 2018 and I had written just announced a couple months before so totally collapse. When the moment is here and the day goes dark in context. When the locusts, crickets and insects, unlock their garden of sound, and the birds land to be with their shadows, and the Agile winds quiet. When the clouds unfold and open to the black round star in an enormous white ring of flame when loved ones. gasp become silent or cheer, and the roads, reach that substantial point of no movement. And for 360 degrees around the horizon, the sunset tells its story with a gleaming amber glow. And you are an island of complete wonder look to that essential human being next to you, and take heart, take this stunning moment and forget everything, you know, start your truest perspectives. Your dazzling lives. A new. There's a clear way back together. On the other side.

Nic:
That's incredible. That's, yes, yes, incredible. So much Ron.

Ron:
That was a big as wow. The biggest wow for me was, at that very moment in time of 100% Eclipse. You could see the sunset, all the way around all the way around. I didn't expect that one.

NIc:
So incredible your imagery, there is so good. I really really appreciated that. So thank you, thank you so so much. It really has been our pleasure to have you here. And is there anything else you'd like to share with us before we get you out of here.

Ron:
Oh, I think I'm good. It's been great, great talking with both of you up Ron thanks so much. Thank you so much.

Laura:
Well that's our show. Huge thanks to Ron Deverman for joining us today. I feel like I had an NAEP fellow with me at TVAP with Bruce Hasbrouck and now I have Ron sort of with me at NAEP it's really.

Nic:
He was so, so fun so good to have him on and just, just a really good genuine person, such a great thing.

Laura:
Great Human.

Nic:
Yes, yes, we need more of those in the world more Rons please.

Laura:
All right. please be sure to check us out next friday. And also, before you leave here today subscribe, rate, and give us a nice review.

Nic:
All right, thanks everybody. Bye.