Challenging Projects, Travel, and Soccer with SunTemple Helgren

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 SunTemple Helgren, Certified Environmental Professional and Member Board Of Directors at National Association of Environmental Professionals about Challenging Projects, Travel, and Soccer.   Read his full bio below.

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: 

1:56  Shout outs
2:46  Nic and Laura weigh in on sports
10:28  Interview with SunTemple Helgren starts
12:50  SunTemple discusses his rep for accepting challenging projects
26:29  Field notes segment-Bats!
30:59  SunTemple talks about his favorite travel spots
33:59  SunTemple's "illustrious soccer career"

 
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 SunTemple Helgren at http://linkedin.com/in/suntemple-helgren-cep-0168a040

Guest Bio:

SunTemple Helgren is a Certified Environmental Professional (CEP) with 25-years of experience as an environmental consultant.  He has a diverse background providing a vast array of environmental services to a myriad of clients. His experience includes, but is not limited to, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) studies and documentation including Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), Environmental Assessments (EAs), and Categorical Exclusions (CEs); Endangered Species Act (ESA) Section 7 consultations, and the Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401/404 permitting process.For over a decade he has focused on providing environmental planning services to the Department of the Navy.  This has included all forms and functions of Environmental Program and Project Management services to a variety of Navy and Marine Corps installations and commands worldwide. Outside of work SunTemple enjoys spending time with his family. His activities include coaching youth sports, volunteering, and keeping the local orthopedic and physical therapy industry afloat by playing in a soccer league in on the weekend.

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 with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura. On today's episode, we give our shout outs. Laura and I discussed the joy of watching sports we interview SunTemple Helgren, a senior manager at AECOM about working on challenging NEPA projects, travel and his illustrious quote unquote soccer career. And finally, on this day in science, in 1994 the first of 21 asteroids. Major fragments from the Comet Shoemaker-levy 9, which broke up two years earlier, hit Jupiter, and created a 1200 mile line fireball that was 600 miles high. Much to the delight of astronomers awaiting these celestial  fireworks, super crazy can't believe it, we were reading like a kid watching this thing on the news super fun credit as always today and SCI.com. You look stunned Laura.

Laura
I don't remember that

Nic
You don't remember the Shoemaker levy, it's super cool. You should look at the photos of it it's  Hubble, I think, is the one that took the photos, as they planned it. I want no part of a 1200 mile wide foot 600 mile tall, Fireball, by the way, anyone here that. That doesn't even make sense like from a scientific just a practical perspective, that's so huge. Yeah 600 miles tall, but 600 feet doesn't even sound right, absorb this information. Yeah, because basically I think Jupiter is why it broke up in the first place, and then just sucked it all in and then drifted to pieces.

Nic
Yeah. Pretty cool stuff. So please be sure to subscribe, rate and review hit that music

Laura
Great.  Our shout out is for NAEP's, public involvement in Education Award, which goes to the Arizona department for environmental quality. Arizona Waterwatch citizen science program for their program between scientists agencies and the public gathering information, helping to address Arizona water quality and pollution issues. Pretty cool. Yeah, sure to share your promotions, new jobs professional and project boards with us on the EPR website. Don't forget to register for an NAEP's upcoming webinar, the NEPA case law update on July 27 Head over to naep.org/webinars-new for more info. If you'd like to sponsor a future episode, head on over to environmental professionals radio.com and check out the sponsor forum for more details. Now let's get to our segment.

Nic
We can talk basketball.

Laura
Sports in general is like a sports person but I do like to mark the World Cup. I did do I used to go to the TV, no it wasn't TBAP Swiftwater in Florida used to happen, golf tournament that I tried a couple of times.

Nic
Yeah.  How did you do? Golf is that mean it's ended yeah yeah right. That's too funny.

Laura
Find me the cart with the loser-y-ist losers, And we'll be the ones who are holding everyone else back who actually wants to play. Is it my turn already?

Nic
Yeah. What is this thing in my hand is this Yeah, well golf is. Yeah. You basically have to say that yeah, it's man, almost impossible. It's really tough, tough tough sport to play so many rules,

Laura
the thing I can't handle with sports, doesn't matter if it's golf. Right, right, badminton, or whatever people get so serious. And I just can't get into that. 

Nic
Yeah, I know I know and I get it. Like, no matter what right you have to have the right people, right, so I can say I've been playing pick up basketball with some of my comic friends which is the safest, best way for me to play basketball because I'm not good at it but neither are they right so we have, but even so, like you always have the one person who's just a little more into it than everyone else. So, as long as he's winning the games everyone else is fine right but if he's not then you know, then it's miserable for everybody. But yeah, it's hard, it's because you know people get really competitive. And they don't you know and competition is really good, they can really drive a lot of things and you have to be able to calm down sometimes too, because it can also bring out really difficult problems and issues and make them worse. In some ways, so yeah, I've seen that a lot. We did a sandlot baseball. When I was in grad school. My roommates and I love to play sports, And so we just like to have fun

Laura
and something new about you all the time. Right. I don't know I don't pick you as a sports person but.

Nic
Well, I mean, no, no I know it's, which is totally fine. I didn't say I was good at it, you know, I just like to do it. But yeah, it's just, I like the physical activity is really important. I like doing it, you know and the more, the older you get, the less it's comes with a job and the more you have to do that's, that's not out outdoors. So I've got to find a different way to get engaged and interested right but we actually literally, we had to stop, one of our sandlot baseball games, because the guy on third base, thought he tagged someone out and literally everyone else including the people on his team were like Nah man, he didn't. I'm sorry. Is he safe, and he would not like he refused to like even let that down so he's literally yelling and screaming at everyone, and no one else is yelling back at him we're all like god dude just calm down, and then we're like, Wait, who is he with who brought this guy. Where is he coming from like I've never seen no friends right yeah and he's just like you know like ghosts, you know. But yeah, it's just it's funny to see, but I don't know, I really enjoy that kind of physical activity because it's not just running which I, which I like to do too, you know, but yeah it's basketball is probably the most fun for me because it's just the most athletic and I can I can least dribble a ball pretty well, I can't shoot for anything but, you know, that doesn't matter a whole lot, especially when you're playing people who aren't great.

Laura
Well that sounds like a we're all having fun scenario.

Nic
Yeah, that's what it should be right you should be having fun, It's good to have fun.

Laura
Yeah, I'm just the opposite. People think I look athletic or something's, right. Not only do I not like sports, I'm not good at it. Yeah, my mom is clumsy I'm clumsy,

Nic
but see you know that about yourself, that's okay. I say I Toby's an athletic cat, or no so he's also uncoordinated.

Nic
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, you know, like I say, I don't know, do you see competition in other areas, though, is there other things that you'd like to do, you'd like to. Are you a competitive person maybe that's a different question to ask.

Laura
You know I think I'm not, but at the same time, I certainly am driven to do stuff right so I don't know, like, I probably would come across as a hypocrite if I said like, I'm not competitive at all. Right now they kind of, you know, I guess it depends on how you're motivated, or how much ego you let take over. Right. Yeah, and I have this thing where like any sports I'm watching if I'm rooting for a team, that team loses ever gave up like trying to play on a team doing anything.

Nic
Yeah I know, right, right, well gosh. So there's like, I have a bunch of friends who are like Cleveland Browns fans, and they have had this you know, decades of abuse at the team's hands, but they won one playoff game last year and they act like they're the greatest thing that's ever happened. So, I hear you Browns fans, I hear you, we'll see what happens this year.

Nic
But yeah,

Nic
I mean, I guess I could say competition and competitiveness is good, you know a lot of ways but yeah you got to be careful, you got to like because it's an emotional thing. A lot of times, right, like there was a, what is it the World Cup, no the Euro Cup is going on right now, soccer, you know, it's funny because the French just lost, they had no business losing a game they were like 3-1 with 10 minutes to go and just crazy how they they basically gave the game away, you know, and it's just, this is one of the things that sports can be so cruel that way, so so cruel. But yeah, and you know, you've got to keep your emotions in check. It's so hard to do when you're like in it, you know, so. 

Laura
Yeah, and that's just, I don't, I can't relate to that too much the most I ever really enjoy watching sports like that. When I lived in Ireland and we would watch soccer matches, like in a pub where the entire Pub is watching one screen. Oh yeah, you know, like that's, that was pretty intense. Oh yeah, we've had a lot of fun sort of watching World Cup, and I was in was in Spain, when they won the playoffs 2008 in Madrid and that was, oh yeah I can imagine that was doing crazy. Yeah, amazing. And then, so I like to be like part of that, but sitting in like watching the game unless there's food and beverage around I'm going to get very bored pretty quickly. Yeah. You won't find me screaming and yelling at the screen or not happening I have some friends to like their most of the time, you would not ever think that they cared about sports but like in a Red Sox game or something. Right, right. Yeah. Who are you? An alter ego comes out.

Nic
I know right. Yeah, my dad is one of those people he just has to like, he yells at the TV. Regardless, you know "tackle him" I um you know just as loud as he possibly can. He's a big dude he's super really deep voice just really really loud until like, it's like, yeah, well if he's gonna watch game by himself. I think because I can't. My ears are bleeding, I can't hear anything anymore. So, yeah, it's, it's too intense, you know.

Laura
Well, our guest is a sports figure I think he might, yeah let's let's build him up until you hear the story. Yeah, let's get to it. Welcome back to EPR today we are joined by the infamous SunTemple Helgren, a senior manager at AECOM and newly elected board member of NAEP, thank you for being here.

SunTemple
Thanks for having me.

Laura
Let's start off with just letting people know who you are and what you do, can you tell us a little bit about the work that you do. 

SunTemple
Yeah, sure. Well first off just for those that are wondering, my name is SunTemple. I didn't get to pick it. My parents were hippies, they thought, that's a good idea back in 1972 That seemed like it made sense to them. They named me SunTemple and I've been stuck with it ever since. So, to get that out of the way I am. I've been a NEPA practitioner pretty much for 25 years, you know, I started out as a draftsman, and a CAD draftsman, right out of college for a small environmental firm, and I stay working for Environmental Consultants, you know, kind of, progressively, you know, taking the next step up the ladder, always kind of under, under the umbrella of NEPA, in the past 10 years I really just focused on the DoD and the Navy primarily, and managing NEPA projects and large programs for them.

Laura
Awesome. That's a lot of years experience you know when I first met you I thought you were much younger.

SunTemple 
Well, thank you. I feel old because I remember when you know you look for a job and they go and they want you to have 20 years experience I'm like oh my god I'll never have 20 years. Now I'm like oh my god I'm that I'm that old guy with over 20 years experience. Yeah, exactly.

Laura
Right, and I'm also glad you mentioned your name Nick and I were going to ask you, and we actually scrubbed it from our questions because we're like, everyone must ask him that. Let's not ask him that.

SunTemple
Well, and your right, everybody does ask me that and I learned, after a while that people were almost embarrassed to but they really, really wanted to be in a meeting or at a conference and you do the whole everyone looks up go around and introduce yourselves and I'd say my name. And then usually later on at a break or maybe that evening when people are out socializing someone, or multiple people would come up to me and go hey you know I just want to ask you about your name. So I started just, you know to get that out of the way just Yeah, hey look, let's just, let's get that out of the way that it's a capital T, and that's just, you know it is what it is.

Laura
That's great. You admittedly, and I say admittedly on your LinkedIn, have a reputation for having the willingness to take projects that are considered challenging or unusually controversial. How does that come about.

SunTemple 
Yes, well, so there's, it started with a project called Corridor H. So, people in the transportation world, they have heard of the Appalachian Redevelopment Act know something that Kennedy when he was actually campaigning for president when went through Appalachia, he saw how the socio economically depressed, it was, and one of the reasons he felt was the really wasn't good interstate road system, and it all started with that. So there's a lot of highway corridors that are on the map, some of them have been developed some of them haven't they all have letter names, and one of them was Appalachian Corridor H, and that was in West Virginia. It went through three different federal lawsuits. It was the first project I was involved with it actually had protesters where you go to a public meeting, and it had like an organize, you know, protest movement for lack of a better term, and so the project went on for years and years and years, and ended up getting segmented into individual NEPA actions instead of one big one, because they determined that each segment had logical termini So, in and of themselves each roadway segment could operate as as its own project. So got broken up into multiple EISs, had endangered species, a species issues within endangered species, section seven consultations actual formal consultation which you know is not something you normally get into and it's a lot of groups without the initiation package and things of fish and wildlife. Several species, one of which was flying squirrel which at the time spent a lot of time and money, studying and trying to avoid and a couple of years later they determined that it was not its own species, and therefore it was an endangered now so at one point there was a West Virginia northern flying squirrel that was endangered, and then at one point it was determined that it wasn't anymore. So anyway, so that project went on for a long time, I was early in my career. Oh I got to cut my teeth on a lot of different services that you sort of provide, you know fieldwork, wetland delineation, GPS, cultural resource surveys, bat mist netting for Indiana bat with a lot of just really cool stuff but you know when you're kind of starting off in your career you kind of love and you're not really sure what you want to do when you grow up, and you're like, I'll do anything, so this project afforded You know me and all and a lot of other people and I worked for a company, Michael Baker, which is still around, and a lot of there's a kind of a group of us if you will, that worked on this project for a number of years, and it was a lot of fun to be just because you were doing the things you envision when you picked your major like I'm going to be out in the middle of nowhere, where, you know we're driving down these, you know, forest service roads and on these giant property lands with all these ATVs and you know, sometimes the competition we get the company truck, you know, more covered in mud. You know so it started with that and in that project gave me a lot of confidence, especially dealing with public and the controversial side kind of seeing both sides of the coin, you know, there's given take in all projects, especially public projects and all transportation projects or public use projects, so you know you got a lot of people who want it, and then you got a lot of people who don't and they both have very valid reasons. So, me and others that worked on the project and we learned a lot and I just kind of took that later in my career to more challenging positions with the Navy, you know that they have a project called the Atlantic Fleet testing and training or training and testing EIS, and that covers all of their training and testing they do meet Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Maine, and a lot of times that Garner's a lot of public interest in certain areas so that gets pretty controversial and we get a lot 1000s of public comments a lot of were very angry. So I just kind of, you know once you do a couple projects that are controversial and you understand, you know the different pitfalls and you know how public opinion can sway or derail a project, you know, just kind of, that's sort of what you end up doing more of. And you don't shy away from them, which, you know, I didn't. And so next thing you know I just felt like, from one thing to another, it's like Oh god, another one. I mean it's worth one more right yeah but you know and then 25 years goes by and you're like, oh my god I have like really are counting back its like oh yeah I guess it has been 25 years since, like, Yeah, I guess I have 25 years. 

Nic
Right, well I mean so you know you say you started out in CAD and you're now and you're doing field work and then, and now you're in to NEPA so like, what has that transition been like and,

SunTemple
well, you know, so I was a geography major, and where I went to school, you know, back in the early 90s Environmental Studies movement for lack of a better term, was really catching on and different schools had that under different majors, some had it under biology someone to forestry. Where I went to school had it under geography, you know, and cartography is also part of geography and in the head of our department Baron Kunike in Kentucky. He was an old school German cartographer, and he really instilled in you, you need to understand the principles are called cartography, if you want to be a geographer, you need to understand how to make maps. So, I took analog cartography, which was my learning pens, and then I took a CAD. That was like version 10 or 11, and his way of teaching you basically was here's the keys to the computer lab, you have access to whenever you want. There's the computer there's the manual learn it. And you just would get in there, like four or five kids they have for free in the morning just kicking the tires like one kid would have a book on how to change the color and change the color with all the typing commands and that's, that's really how we learned it so when I graduated and moved to Colorado looking for a job, there's a small environmental consulting firm. And to be honest with you, they call them, they told me, they're like you know we just really wanted to see wanted to see what SunTemple was, and you know I went in there with my suit and tie, and I had my little portfolio maps I made in college, trying to wow them, and they're just looking at me and they brought me back in this little, you know, area that they sat these two other guys that did all the mapping and out of rudimentary GIS at the time for this, like a 12-13 person outfit. And there was a workstation there and digitizing tablet and they sat me down and there's a quad sheet on the digitizing tablet, and they said, digitize three features from that sheet have three different layers, and I was like, okay, and they walked away so I knew what I knew how to do it so I registered my quad sheet, digitize it put the lines on one layer the water features on one layer the township and range on another, you know, they came back and I'll show them that they're like truly good and they handed me a floppy disk drive, remember I said what is a, they said save what you just file you just didn't save it onto this disk. And I was like, okay, and it was, it was DOS, you know. Oh yeah. And so I did that and I gave it to him and he grabbed it and he opened it on his computer and goes, You're the first person who could do that, you're hired. Like, are you kidding me and you know how many people can even save a file, and this was, we can just go File Save you actually right right yeah, which was what my anal German cartography Professor made sure I understood and you laughed at me. SunTemple, you're gonna go hug trees, nobody's gonna pay you to hug trees you need skill and he was right that skill got me that job, you know that job got me another job there I started volunteering for whatever and anything explained to them that actually my background wasn't GIS and Cartography in computers. It was actually more environmental science field work. And so it's, you know like the sort of, I never said no to anything, and you know when you're young and cheap. You can get yourself on a lot of projects and I was lucky and fortunate enough to work for a company that had a lot of  large projects that needed, you know, people in the field people doing GPS people doing GIS and I was young and cheap, so I got to do a lot. You know, just kind of parlayed that experience into, you know another job into another job and you know just sort of let life sort of lead me to where I am today. Yeah, oh

Laura
yeah, we can't fight that one. That's awesome though I love how that story just kind of brings together all of the different uncertainties and things you can't control and it just still turned out the way it was supposed to turn out right. 

SunTemple
So yeah, yeah you know like, you know, sometimes you, you know, I took jobs because of, you know, wife, you know, I moved back to Virginia from North Carolina and not because of, I found a better job it was because we, we moved to North Carolina for quote unquote, your dream job, and it was a job I could refuse. But after three years, we realized, no, we were kind of miserable. Work is everything and you know we had, my daughter was four or five we just had my son, and we wanted to move back to home, basically, so I just took whatever job I could get, which was kind of a step backwards I didn't care. I was happier, you know, and so you know sometimes you take jobs for for yourself sometimes you take jobs for your family. But you know, in the end you just see where you wind up and it's all meant to be.

Laura
So, I've had the pleasure of getting to meet you in person back when we could do that and hanging out at the Baltimore conference, I believe. Yeah, that was a lot of fun but I got to also hear some of your stories, so we'd like to hear some of your stories here today, and Nick wants me to ask you if you had a gun pulled on you once. 

SunTemple
Yeah, yes I did. Yes, we're just at work or Virginia, In Suffolk I was working for a company Kimley-Horn and Associates, a wetland delineation. And it was back I'm a big farm property, and this guy, I don't know if he was a tenant. I think he was a tenant on the property like he had a trailer, and he was just living there. Yeah, and so he wasn't around when I showed up but I kind of parked my car off on the side and just walked off. It was big, hundreds of acres so there's open fields and there's woods and there's ditches and I'm just sort of doing a preliminary, how big of a delineations it's going to be like well how am I, you know like I need to come out here with more people it's just sort of an investigation. How many wetlands do I think around this parcel. In the meantime, apparently, a gas station down the road had been robbed. And this guy heard it on the radio, and saw my car parked off the road in the bushes, and so he was like, Oh, this might be the guy. So I'm walking out of, you know, out of the fields and out of the woods and I have my, my orange vest on and I was soil auger and like Flipboard and, and I see this guy standing by my car and I couldn't he had something in his hand, I couldn't tell what it was and I got closer he was a rifle. And I'm like, and then so I just kind of put my hands up and I'm walking with my hands up in the air, and then I see he's got a gun in his, not in a holster, tuck this don't anyone ever do that. And I just said, I'm unarmed, I'm unarmed, and I just you know walked up on him said I have permission to be here. Then he saw who I was and obviously I wasn't the guy who just dropped in and he was bummed out. He was like, Oh yeah, I'm sorry because I heard you know and he told me the story about the gas station has been robbed and he thought maybe I was the guy and

SunTemple
he was going to be a hero and thanks for not shooting me.

Laura
That story could have ended badly.

SunTemple
No yeah it could have.  it was really, I got back to the office I was like I can I have hazard pay.

Nic
I mean, you talk about like controversial projects you know that's kind of like when people are opposed to something like that and, you know, there's a concern, going out in the field. 

SunTemple
Well, I did. Unfortunately, I didn't I don't mean anything against Walmart. People need to shop. But, so I permitted the last job I did a quick one was I delineated and permitted a property for that a Walmart, and the Walmart was going in. While I was there, hanging my flags, there was protesters, you know, there's about six of them on the corner with signs and they were pretty adamant and they were local businesses that felt like that Walmart was going to put them out of business and they had a point. And it was really kind of demoralizing, to be honest with you because it kind of went against a lot of why I got into the environmental industry. And I just remember not feeling good, understanding what I was doing, and what I was doing was making sure that they had enough developable, you know, square footage on that parcel so you know they could fit what they needed to fit. So that was and now when I drive by that, which I do often because I have my wife's family's in New Jersey and we'll drive right up the Eastern shore and I'll drive right by the Walmart. My kids and go you know I permitted that Walmart,

Nic
And what do your kids say back to you?

SunTemple
They're usually have their ear buds in and phones and they don't even hear me and then my wife will say, We know he tells us  that every time.

Laura
They're like we've forgiven you move on. Yeah. So we like to talk about what we call field notes but we've already been talking to you about a bunch of field stuff but I think you mentioned working with bats, I'd love to hear more about your mist netting bat experiences and

SunTemple
yeah so, Corridor H, you know, there was habitat for Indiana bat, I mean there's other, there's a lot of bats out there, but Indiana bat was the endangered species so that's what we're monitoring for and what you do to mitigate for bat impacts, is you monitor within the within the proposed corridor to determine, you know, the likelihood that they're there, and if they are, what you do is, when they're not in there. So, certain bats like living in cavities of trees, you know like, Hickory certain tree old crags and they'll get up under the bark and in the cavities. So when they're in their hibernacula in the winter, and they're in their caves and you know they're not out foraging so you know they're not in the trees, you go through that corridor and you cut down all the trees that they called PRTs potential roost trees. So you cut down all the PRTs, so that way you know when you go to construct the highway there, you're not gonna have any bat impacts, because you got rid of their nesting habitat while they were in their hibernacula which is cool. Anyway, so why you're mist  netting  form, you know, you have to do it during a certain season, you know obviously while they're not in their hibernacula and you have to do it at night which is really cool. So you set up these mist nets in these kind of natural flight corridors, usually you want to set them up over like streams so that they'll eat the bugs that you know are attracted and then also they'll come down and take drinks of water or natural flight corridors in the forest like in a path you can kind of see like an opening in open air in the canopy and you set up your mist nets, and then you check them, you know, every 15 minutes and you'll catch you know various species of bats, if one of the neatest things I ever did and I was just helping me. We hired a local PhD from the University that was doing research on Indiana bat and he got the kind of do his research but also help, you know, provide the mist netting for us, but it was really neat. I mean these things are so fragile. They're so small you can fit them in the palm of your hand, some of them like little pipistrelles certain really small fragile species, and they look they look like these little wolf heads and in the crawl it's you can see why they sort of more inspirational for, you know fear Dracula and things like that, they're really really wild. And so he would take samples from hair samples saliva samples of different tissue samples, he would weigh them and you know, measure their wingspans and then he'd let him go. And it was cool. I did that for three summers in a row, I'd spend two weeks on, two weeks off and up in the hollers of West Virginia, and you'd sit out there at night and it was really it was something that most people don't get to do so, we didn't have this is back when most people didn't have cell phones, back when I started didn't have cell phones, right, even if you did where we were, you wouldn't have reception sometimes we most of times couldn't even get anything on the radio. So you just sit there and tell stories and that's what I learned, you can see satellites, and you don't need help because of their you know you don't have the light pollution, and there's a lot of satellites that you can actually see, it's just, you know it's just a thought that will just slowly go by, and we'd sit there and you know count satellites and tell stories and this guy was like, 20 years older than me, so those different generations, and you know every 10 or 15 minutes you go check the nets you'd have like three or four nets set up nearby. And if you had a bat you really slowly delicately try to untangle it. No, because they're They're fragile, you don't want to injure them, and we'd wear, you'd have to get rabies shots before he did, because they're expected to carry rabies, and we were actual batting gloves like baseball batting gloves. Okay, I was like, they offer, they offer some protection because they bite you, you know some of the bigger ones like a hoary bat they bite right through that, sometimes, but yeah it was it was really neat, a lot of fun. And then people would always, because of where you were kind of in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, you garner excitement in the local community. What are these guys doing out there catching bats, you know, the locals are come check you out and that was always kind of fun and the kids you know, they'd want to see what you're doing and they'd have questions so it was a lot of fun, and it really gave me an affinity for West Virginia is, it's cool the parts that haven't been coal mine, are some of the most beautiful parts of the United States really is

Nic
I agree Yeah, but it's no secret that Laura and I love to travel, and when our environmental careers have taken us to some really amazing places we've talked about on the show a bunch, you've also had you've traveled all over the country you've been to Guam and the Marianas, do you have a favorite place to visit. Is that an unfair question to ask.

SunTemple
Well my favorite place I've ever been is Alaska. Yeah, I found Alaska, what everything is advertised that all the shows you see all that. That's Alaska, like you can literally drive five minutes outside of the city, and there is moose, there's bear is beautiful. I loved Alaska I was fortunate enough to have a project at Alaska and we got to drive to spend a week basically driving around Alaska. We flew into Anchorage. We drove to the northern most land crossing with Canada. It's actually the Yukon Territory, that we drove down from the Yukon Territory through Canada back into Alaska and into those border crossings that are down by like Haines, which is, ironically enough to show the Gold Rush show first few years when those guys are out there flying around the airport they were flying to was Haines, Alaska. So I was there and we actually hired a plane to fly so the glaciers fall in there which is Alaska. Alaska was awesome, Tinian, which is this little island in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana is that that's where the Enola Gay to fall from the drop a bomb. Yeah, that was really, really hard to get to.

Nic
but do they still have the base there?

SunTemple
Yeah, where they saw the the runways are still there, they have a they have an encased in like a hard plexiglass sort of historical shrine, but they have the payload that the bomb came up out of it so it's all still there. Yeah, it's amazing. And, to get there. Yeah, you know you have to fly to Japan and then Saipan and then in Saipan I got into a little puddle jumper, and then it's like a three minute flight literally for me to fight over to Tinian, but that's the only way to get to, unless you own a boat, but it was just a really neat little island you know, population of, you know, I don't know, maybe 1400 just kind of throwing that number out there, not a lot of people about a very big island the whole northern, you know, third at least so the island is leased by the US military for training, so it's it's neat, it's wild at one point it was the largest military base in the world there's over 40,000 personnel with an Army Air Base in World War II. And now, it's pretty wild. So, but Alaska. Alaska favorite place I've ever been Tinian, the neatest sort of off the map place I've ever been.

Nic
That's really cool, and good answers. Yeah, so too good so if you can make them less good, going forward please. No. Anyway, see we also, this is gonna be good too though. I know I know we already know in advance, but like you know we love to hear about hobbies that we have outside of the environmental profession as well. And, you know, we've been told that you have an illustrious soccer I'm going to put this in the air quotes career. So what's the truth. What's the truth behind that story and what got you into the sport?

SunTemple
The truth behind that story is, People see the name and the hair. And then if I say the word soccer. They create something that in reality is far from it. So yeah, I do love soccer. I never played as a kid, my affinity for soccer was born when we hosted the World Cup, when I was in college, in the 90s when I was in college as a freshman, one of my roommates was a soccer player for our team, we still have a good friend who actually now is the head coach of our team. Radford University coach there you go we got a game today six o'clock against Campbell. By the time this airs will already have been over but anyway I don't give up. So he and win the World Cup, I got into soccer, I loved it, you know, Team country against country again I never played, why would I start at that point in my life. Fast forward I'm 38 a guy at the Navy started a team mean assumed I played soccer because talking about it like oh yes yeah like, you know, this team did. And so he assumed I played, I thought you know I just been hired, Program Manager for a navy contract you know part of my job I thought was to, you know, meet to get ingrained, the client, the more people I met, the better it would be for me. So I'm like yes, sure I'll play on a team with the client, even though I don't know what I'm doing. And I just really enjoyed it and I wasn't the only guy out there I didn't know what they were doing, and then it went from, at one point I was playing three days. Three days a week, different teams. Yeah, you know, had knee surgery I shattered my collarbone I have 11 screws and a plate on the collar bone now. Yeah so, I played hardcore from when I was 38, until just last summer of 48, and I want to play again but actually need to get my hip replaced. I need a new hip, and it is so bad I can't run anymore. Oh my gosh, I haven't been able to run, probably for about a year now and I'm just kind of putting it off because I'm just not looking forward to getting a hip replaced. Yeah, I can't imagine. Yeah, but no so I love soccer and I'm really passionate and I can talk a good game. And if you look at me, you can listen to me talk and then think I'm a good soccer player. Right, right. Play with me know that I mean, I can run really fast and hard, but as soon as the ball is at my feet, I just flounder misery. But I have fun. It's fun.

Nic
Yeah, that's it's really important for anyone who's playing sports to have to have a thing that you're good at, right, mine's trash talk, you know, it's what I can do is distract any player in any sport, I'm playing just like what are you doing I'm like, scoring a point right now, that's what's happening.

SunTemple
I can look so good before the game starts, right, the other players that are obviously good, they give me that look that they give each other. Like if you if you watch an NBA game like the really good players, they look at each other for like they know they're making eye contact, there's like these visual cues that you know when you're a really good players when they do that. So, the game starts, and then they'll pass me the ball once, or maybe the worst time they think I'm rusty oh he's old rusty well you know, second time that there's usually not a third. That's, I do score, like, people get really happy for me. They understand what a fluke it is.

Nic
Well, we all get lucky sometimes.

Laura
Yeah, I love the World Cup too so I hope we get to cross paths sometimes when that's when that's happening.

SunTemple
Yeah, I was, I was so, I was so upset that we didn't qualify so yeah,

Nic
We better, we really better. Yeah, no, really, there is no excuse

SunTemple
I've been, I 20, years ago on my honeymoon, I got an argument with some Brits in the Dominican Republic, and I swore to them within eight years we would be in the world of Final and they laughed at me. Right. And they were right. They were right back then,

Nic
but just remember England that you own goaled yourself out of a loss to the United States, I'm just saying, Yeah, we beat them. It says 1-0, doesn't matter how we scored the goal, oh I know I remember, yeah right, the worst, worst goalie. Yeah, he caught it, and then they just let it go. Yeah, so

SunTemple
if I tell, I coach soccer for a while, and I tell my kids a goal's a goal. Yeah. Doesn't matter how it would end nobody's gonna remember they just remember the same a goal's a goal

Laura
Yeah, this is a year right we've got plant based food coming out of the woodwork, we've got new jobs and sustainability and ESG, so it's time for change, so maybe this is the year.

SunTemple
I mean, you know, I think that the future looks brighter now 20 years out, with, with everything with, you know, renewable with offshore wind with electric vehicles, you know, I mean you name it, I really I really much more hopeful now than I was five or 10 years ago.

Laura
Yeah, agreed. 

Laura
So we're getting close to our time this has been really awesome. We do want to congratulate you again on joining the NAEP board, and look forward to making good things happen there with you and your assistance, and we did want to get a little brief history though about your experience with NAEP and how long have you been a member.

SunTemple
Wow, I've been a member, a member for at least a decade. I think the first conference I attended was in Atlanta. And I was with HDR, and I can't remember what I want to say that was 2009, but I might I might be wrong about that, there was,

Nic
it was 2010 because that's how I got my first job is that conference helped me get a job.

SunTemple
So for all you listeners, especially the young ones. The NAEP conference, help them to get a job and look at them now, or listen to them now so yeah there you go. All the more reason to be involved in NAEP, I will espouse, what a great organization NAEP is to anyone and everyone. For one, it is the only professional organization for environmental people, that is not pigeonhole to one specific thing. So if you do NEPA which is very broad, then NAEP really is the only home for you, but it's also home for you if you do a lot of other things. And I just think it's great i mean i refer, I refer to the annual meeting as the gathering of the tribes. And I so miss us getting together in person, you know I so look forward to us being able to, again, not just for the learning, and you know the networking but just the commiserating and just complaining to each other about the stuff that we had to do this past year, whatever, silly decision or whatever it was, it just, it's, it's kind of cathartic.

Laura
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.

Nic
And I know, I could say I hate that we're running out of time, we do have to let you go. But before you go. Is there anything else you want our listeners to know

SunTemple 
No, except that when Mark Ruffalo is on this show, it's because of me. I'm the one who got him on the show. Okay. So who are your people, if you're out there, we went to high school together, I bet you didn't know that Mark First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach, look in your yearbook, you'll find me. 

Laura
that's a good thing for people to know, leaving here know though that Mark Ruffalo is amongst the other celebrities and people who are using their influence to do good and wonderful things so we do also thank Mark Ruffalo for, for what you do for the environment.

Nic
but more specifically for his future appearance on the show. of course, of course, of course.

SunTemple
And I just want to thank the two of you again, I think this shows amazing both You're amazing, and thank you for what you're doing for NAEP.

Laura
No, thank you. All right, we'll say goodbye to you for now, but we'll see you again soon, I hope.

Nic
And that's our show and I thank SunTemple for his time today is really, really getting to know him a little bit better and yeah thank you guys for listening so much you can catch us. This every Friday, and we'll see you again next time.

Laura
Bye.