USACE, Transitioning to Civilian Work, and How to be a Parrot Head with Ed Kertis

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 Edward John Kertis, Acting Executive Director with Dawson about USACE, Transitioning to Civilian Work, and his passion for Parrot Heads. Read his full bio below.

Special thanks to our sponsor for this episode to DAWSON!

DAWSON is a Native Hawaiian global business enterprise serving Federal clients through construction, PTS and environmental services. Operating worldwide, DAWSON is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi with offices across the U.S. Rooted in the Hawaiian values of aloha (embodying humility, respect, and compassion for all) and ʻohana (family), DAWSON carries forward a kuleana (responsibility) to benefit the Native Hawaiian community. DAWSON's environmental branch brings science, solutions, and sustainability to planning, compliance, munitions and remediation. With a permanent 8(a) status, DAWSON is the perfect solution to all of your business needs.

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:
1:24 Shout outs
3:11 Nic and Laura discuss drought in the West
7:51 Interview with Ed Kertis Starts
11:28 Ed talks about USACE
15:00 Ed's transition to civilian work
22:26 Field notes segment
31:45 How to be a Parrot Head

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 Ed Kertis at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardkertis/

Guest Full Bio:
Ed joined DAWSON in November 2012 as a business development director. He became Chief Operating Officer in February 2019. In March 2020 Ed was asked to serve as the first Executive Director of the Hawaiian Native Corporation (HNC), a non-profit corporation founded in February 2004 and controlled entirely by Native Hawaiians. HNC is recognized by the Department of Defense under Federal statutory authority as a “Native Hawaiian Organization” (NHO) 8(a). It is the parent corporation of the DAWSON Companies.
Ed graduated from Stetson University in 1984 with a

Transcript

[Transcript is auto transcribed]

[Intro]

Laura   
Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nick and Laura. On today's episode we give our shout outs, Nick and I discuss the challenges facing the West during the extreme drought we interview Ed Kertis, the chief operating officer of the Hawaiian Native Corporation, the parent company of Dawson about working for the Army Corps, the transition from the Corps to civilian work and being a Parrot Head. And finally, on this day in science 1998 An international team of scientists led by Ryuzo Yanagimachi. The University of Hawaii announced they had accomplished the first reproducible cloning of a mammal from adult cells to produce three generations of cloned mice more than 50 identical sisters and all the cloning technique was said to be more reliable than one used to create the Dolly sheep. Their Honolulu technique afforded the researchers greater ability to manipulate the adult donor nucleus credited as always to Today In Science, that's todayinSCI.com. Please be sure to subscribe, rate and review, hit that music.

[Shout outs]
Nic 
Today's shout out goes to John Jamison, Courtney Arena and Adam Marshall for convincing our server at Tobacco Road to pretend to be a fan of the show, and then ask me for my autograph. It totally works. By the way, I was like, Who is this crazy person saying that she knows me. Why does she want my autograph so badly. Please go away. But yeah, I ran into them. And I thought that was pretty fun. So yeah, kudos to you guys for doing that. Please don't ever prank me again, though. Apparently I'm gullible enough to believe it. So,

Laura
EPR Punked coming soon.

Nic
Yeah, it was really fun. As always, be sure to share your promotions, new jobs professional and product awards with us here at the EPR website. Also, we do have a special note for you today, the National Association of Environmental Professionals is thrilled to announce the launch of a new online community for environmental professionals, the Environmental Professionals Connection is a weekly newsletter and website produced by NAEP and Aggregage it curates valuable and relevant environmental articles research studies and leadership blogs, hundreds of leading sources. You can also submit your own content for environmental professionals connection, which will reach 1000s of readers, our own little podcast may even show up there soon, so check it out I think you guys are really gonna enjoy it, and we'll try to highlight a few things here and there from it as well. So, really cool resource really really glad that NAEP is doing that. And then one more shout out for you, just again don't forget to register for NAEP's upcoming webinar. In either case law update on July 27 It's going to be pretty good. And you guys, you know, we always really enjoy hearing that update so head on over to naep.org/webinars-new for more information. And if you would like to sponsor a future episode, head on over to environmentalprofessionalsradio.com And check out our sponsor form for details. Let's get to our segment.

Nic
Yeah I mean gosh water quality in the West, by the way is like crazy right now, it is so crazy. It's crazy bad, like the Lake Mead, which is the Hoover Dam is the lowest I think has ever been, like Colorado River is not recharging for the first time ever, ever, it's not recharging this year, and like, that's not going to get better, like is not. That's really scary. Yeah. And so, their rights to the Colorado River for Arizona, they haven't been cut yet but they're going to be cut back, like, you know, if this keeps happening, they're gonna they're gonna be the first to lose it because they have they're basically farther away than every other place that uses it. So yeah, it's, it is not a good situation, there's there's a really big challenge out there and that's another difference from where I am right now which is just raining all the freakin time. You know, people move out West, and you know, California has water, water shortages, you are not allowed to monitor what used to water your lawn. And you know in certain areas, because water is a sacred resource there, whereas here it's kind of like, why would I water my lawn and this guy is doing it for me every day, you know what I mean. And that's totally, totally confusing to people, and we actually have a guy, I turned it off because it just not this person but like the people who own our house previously have like an underground like filtration system for their front yard to make it more lush and more more green. And I just I can't do that because it basically runs all the time, and it's just completely different mentality.

Laura   
Yeah and you know people don't understand like water table is the water table in a sea level rise, and water table goes down as we use it, it's not like it's just like, Yeah, is it continuous for instantly rechargeable system,

Nic   
I know.

Laura  
Maybe it could take a long time like it will circulate Yeah but, but, you know, general populace doesn't really get that. Turn on the water and there it is, they expect it.

Nic  
There it is it's always been there, why would it not. Yeah, I know, but like, that's what's so, the Colorado is a really interesting one, it's one of the most dammed rivers, I guess favourably and literally at this point in the country, but it's also one that has historically recharged very very rapidly very well every year because of snowfall and the snow melting, but now we're getting less snowfall and more use. And so we've now hit the point where we're getting so much people are using so much of it, and it's just we're also getting less recharge, it's now reversed, so it didn't recharge and that's kind of wild should see pictures of it fires out. Yes, I know I know which is also a really big problem down there,

Laura  
and then you know it's not it's out there, Florida, uh, one of my friends just posted a project that we're working on in Florida and it's really interesting landscape of this lake that has just disappeared. Oh my god, the water underneath has gone. Really. Yeah, so it doesn't matter how much it rains from the sky that's not a direct relation to the water table.

Nic   
Right. That's correct, yeah.

Laura   
So, that too is an illusion. Yeah,

Nic   
I mean that, you know, like I said, you know the desert when it rains there it's a monsoon but right that water doesn't stay there, it basically shoots across the whole desert, until it finds an actual water body and goes into it but it doesn't stay in a desert it just runs right through it. Yeah, so yeah, it's, you're right, it recharge comes from lots of different places and there's lots of different ways that we can kind of, you know not understand that and then end up doing damage or end up reducing its ability to recharge.

Laura    
This is why we need lots of young, smart, caring, engineers, young people out there to help solve some of these problems that we have created for ourselves and need some serious innovative solutions.

Nic   
Now 100%, and it's going to be really interesting I mean like what is it necessity drives invention or whatever the phrase is and, and, yeah, we're gonna get a lot of incredible ideas about conserving water, that are going to come from the, the American West is just going to be as true, because they're going to have to do it. They don't have a choice. And it will be really interesting to see how that plays out over the years.

Laura  
Yeah. Oh I bet they could still some cues, this seemed counterintuitive but it's like going back to Africa and the Sahara and figuring out like, what have they been doing for centuries. Yeah, yeah, you know, taking the old systems and making them new.

Nic 
Alright, yeah, I mean, we're in a global, global world now, and it'll be really neat to see how that all plays out and like you say, yeah, definitely not just to California and Arizona that are having to deal with this, it's all over the world.

Laura   
Yeah. So

Nic   
yeah cool now that we're thirsty let's, let's get to our interview.

[Interview with Ed Kertis starts]

Laura  
Hey there listeners, we are back in the EPR studio today. And today we are joined by Ed Kertis who spent over 28 years working for the Army Corps and has since served as the first executive director of the Hawaii Native Corporation agency. It's a nonprofit corporation founded in February of 2004 and controlled entirely by Native Hawaiians. The agency is officially recognized as a native Hawaiian organization, NHO 8(a), and is the parent corporation of Dawson, companies, and thank you so much for being here today. I'm excited to learn more about you.

Ed Kertis
Thanks for having me.

Laura
Can you just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself, you have a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's degree in environmental engineering services, and a decorated military career. So what drew you into environmental work in the Army Corps,

Ed Kertis  
Gosh, you know I think I became an environmentalist, when I was four years old or so, and I opened a piece of gum, and the old Wrigley's you know. Yeah, and I threw it on the ground and my mom picked it up said no no we don't do that, we put in our pocket. When we find a garbage can later we throw it out later, and have to pack it in pack it out mentality, right, right, in the early 60s And so, okay that struck with me and then I grew up as a surfer, started in the 70s I've been surfing for, gosh, I don't know 45 years. When you're an ocean person surfing and scuba dive in and my wife and I were competitive swimmers our whole lives and we still swim, you know connection with the ocean. And you're always in it. And so, studied biology I had intended to try to go to be a dentist and after about one semester of college I realized that wasn't going to be my dream. And I didn't take a lot of environmental and outdoors-y type courses in getting my degree. Then I joined the Army, that's a whole separate story that we might not have time for, and ended up in the Army Corps of Engineers, the branch. So, the Army Corps is kind of unusual it really worldwide, is that its engineers are a branch of the army guys that blow things up and put in minefields and build buildings and stuff like that. And it's also a federal agency that regulates our waterways and supports all military services with construction of big things like hospitals and barracks and stuff like that. So, around my seventh or eighth year my first couple of assignments I was a paratrooper and, you know, all that good stuff. And then my personnel people sent me a letter said you're going to go to grad school, and you are going to study environmental engineering. And so I got my degree in Environmental Engineering, and then you're going to go off to the Army Corps of Engineers, and so it's the army, where we protect democracy we don't practice it, so you don't have a choice. That letter it tells you what your degree will be. Yes, you will go study this and so I didn't have a choice. Luckily for me, it was where my passion was so it all worked out. Yeah. When got my degree in environmental engineering sciences at University of Florida, and went off to Portland Oregon to the Portland District, where I served as an environmental staff officer doing a couple different things but working with salmon, Portland in the Northwest is big in the fish issues. So I got to learn a lot about fish can learn a lot about super fund and hazardous waste sites and HTRW and then moved on and, and on and on and on and just throughout my Army Corps career back and forth between the real army and the Army Corps, the agency, you know, there's no matter where you are on the core you're touched by an environmental issue of some sort,

Laura   
right, well thanks I appreciate the description of the difference between the two, the army itself and the Army Corps for sure. And you have done a lot of, as you just said a lot of different things and have advanced quite a bit your last assignment with the Corps was as the deputy commander of the transatlantic division in in Kabul, supervising $12 billion in construction in support of the coalition and Afghan forces can you tell us a little bit about that and what it was like managing such a large project.

Ed Kertis 
So we had we're organized fairly well there are a lot of different sub organizations over there and when you're when you're managing something that big task organization as we call it, is the key. And so, we had, I don't know hundreds, maybe 1000s of mostly government civilian employees, not military personnel. We have a lot of contractors, of course, American Turkish, Afghan doing a variety of things, building infrastructure to support the Afghan military everything from barracks to sewage treatment plants or headquarters or airfields or whatever a typical military needs some cleanup stuff from Legacy little counter minor anti mine cleanups, from the wars that they've had an Afghanistan for the last 100 years. And it was just a very broad mission 12 billions a big number, which is why we need so many people to do it. And of course it's an austere and dangerous environment. So you throw all that in. And the government civilians that volunteer for that job and go there and work, and put themselves in harm's way. 99% of them are unarmed. They're great Americans, you know, they're great Americans and they don't get the recognition they deserve really as, as almost like veteran status.

Nic   
Yeah, that's a great point. It is such a unique experience to in, I don't know how did you manage because it sounds like so many different moving parts you say you had a process but was it difficult to stay on task.

Ed Kertis  
Well you know you take whatever process you had back into the rear as we call it, and you apply it downrange, and you've modified as needed. So you're going to drive out to check on a project and just like you do in the States. The Army Corps, all their projects are 100% built by contractors. So, the government provides the oversight, quality assurance, etc. And so, it's the same thing there, you just have to remember. Alright, I'm gonna go out there tomorrow and check my project, I'm not going to go get in my pickup truck and drive out like I might in Seattle district in the Army Corps, or I'm gonna have to get in, armored personnel carrier I've got to make sure I've coordinated by security, check the Intel reports to make sure there aren't any bad guys around. And then I'm gonna go out and meet with my contractor contractors are on their own as far as that kind of stuff. Most of them move fairly freely. I've been in just about every province in Afghanistan, at one time or another and, and, you know, life goes on in most of those places. I've flown commercial in Afghanistan. Many times you know, I've been to shopping malls in Afghanistan. They've got nice condo developments. So it's, you drive around and think, are we really in a war zone. Yeah and it's fairly isolated, and I've driven all around the country to beautiful country. Beautiful.

Nic  
Yeah, yeah.

Ed Kertis
Think, Idaho. Idaho, Utah here. Yeah, so

Laura   
that's good to hear you don't hear that side of it very often.

Ed Kertis 
No, it's a beautiful place my last year I volunteered because I'd been there before and I wanted to go back.

Laura   
Oh, that's really cool. Eventually though you did leave the Corps and joined Dawson, so how did you manage to transition I know we do NAEP does some work with the AP US, and a lot of what they do is help students going back to school transition from military life into civilian So what advice do you have or what worked for you.

Ed Kertis   
Well, I got some advice actually from a retired colonel in Afghanistan that I met on my last tour, and he said when you go to leave the military you consider three things, location, job satisfaction, and money, and you pick one. My wife and I been together since high school. We met in 1979, we started dating and started dating in 1979 met and 76. And so when I came home I said what do you want to do and she had three words for me and they were not I love you, they were I like Hawaii already mentioned that I grew up as a server, so I thought, okay, you know, Hawaii suits me. And I had a bunch of surfboards and I, when I was commander in Hawaii I cancelled all morning meetings so that employees could surf before work. All right, that'd be, that'd be popular with the surf crowd. I'm sure that many of you probably heard this sort of crowd so did that, and so I find first job looking for a job, you know, having picked the one of location, or looking for a job, the classic networking shop and the resume, had some interviews had some offers that I didn't think it was a good fit or I wasn't ready for. And one of the guys that I turned down actually sent my resume out and was a fairly prominent Hawaiian sent my resume out to some of his friends today somebody might want to grab this guy you know he's retired Colonel that environmental background. And so Dawson started as an environmental company. Gosh going on 30 years now. We're the founder, chairman Chris Dawson guy with a business degree, bought a piece of technology that he saw that helps clean up gas stations, and thought. Chris has kind of a serial entrepreneur. And he said, I'll bring this back and clean up gas stations in Hawaii, started doing that, it was modestly successful, and then someone told him you know you should get into government contracting. How do you do that, so he started going down that route and next thing you know, we're a pretty big company now. Yeah. And, or big family of companies, and it worked out.

Nic   
Yeah, so it can maybe you can explain that a little bit for us here too so you're the executive director of the Hawaiian Native Corporation and so how does that fit into the company structure.

Ed Kertis  
So, the Hawaiian Native Corporation is the parent and we're the holding company, as Laura noted it's it's technically a nonprofit. And then today, I see if I can remember we have nine subsidiary companies, I believe, and we're always adding companies and things like that, growing, growing, our portfolio if you will, and Dawson went from environmental to getting into construction, and then bought some other environmental companies and got into UXO, removal unexploded ordnance, and you know old bombs and stuff, which is part of our environmental portfolio, then got into operations and maintenance stuff, you know, taking care of people's facilities out into IT cyber type things started getting into classified contracts. Contracts to needing security clearances. We built our what we call Professional Technical Services is traditionally where the government is buying labor, you know they want to augment their workforce that's been a big part of our growth. We've done UAV stuff. Goodness gracious, I know I'm probably leaving stuff out. Now we're getting into foreign military sales where we're working overseas for the US government supporting foreign militaries, and it's just grown and grown and grown and as long as we can keep adding good people and not out kick our coverage as they say in football and keep our systems keep our systems growing, You know the company can grow fairly well. Yeah, well yeah, we'd like to, we'd like to it is a Hawaiian company, controlled by Hawaiians. We do like to try to keep that Hawaiian flavor I don't know Nick if you saw the newsletter that went out this week or last week talking about Aloha Aina I know and yeah that's kind of a Hawaiian version of environmentalist. Aloha Aina, or loving the earth, or loving your mother earth, things like that. So it's neat, working for a Hawaiian company having lived in Hawaii longer than I've lived anyplace, actually. And seeing employees from the mainland, that have never been Hawaii, but they start emails with aloha, which is a little odd kind of means everything it's a greeting it's a farewell. You know it's the love it's all that good stuff. And they'll end with mahalo which is thank you. And so you kind of get that Hawaiian feel throughout the company. We're very laid back, or corporate shirts or Hawaiian shirts but we call not wearing one today, but when I left the company, the first time I actually pulled this down here, actually named my company Aloha Saling Key West. Yeah, so great. You see one of my actually one of my paddles in the background and that's an award. So yeah, so we give the paddle as an award to groups or individuals, because in outrigger canoe racing, which there's a lot of in Hawaii for obvious reasons. It's not the crew, that's the biggest or the strongest, it's the ones that are trained to paddle the best in unison. As a team. Yeah, so the paddle represents working together as a team to accomplish your goals and it's truly a great symbol of that.

Nic   
Yeah, and that's great and you've mentioned like that you you've traveled around the world, right, you've been to all kinds of places. And so and there are many places people would never consider visiting I think that's fair to say, Do you have any lasting impressions of your time traveling the world.

Ed Kertis   
You know I used, I lived in Honduras, and I lived in El Salvador and Honduras is I guess classified is technically the second poorest country in our hemisphere after Haiti. Right, but I loved it. If someone tapped me on the shoulder tomorrow and said you got to move back to Honduras for the rest of your life. I'd go in a heartbeat. Yeah, there's no surfing there but there's good there's good ocean and good sailing and diving in Honduras. It's like anyplace else you know it's a developing nation still within two miles of my house, I would say there was a BMW dealership, it was a Burger King. Pizza Hut and McDonald's shopping mall, things like that same in El Salvador I live there right after the civil war officially ended and in beautiful country beautiful beaches, a lot of good surf in El Salvador, but you know it stands the, the economic spectrum with regard to the very wealthy to the dirt poor. So, it's emotionally difficult no matter what country you're in to see people living in austere conditions. And one way you deal with that mentally is to kind of remind yourself. You know what, in 1860, most Americans probably live like that, you know, hauling water in a bucket or using an outhouse. And so these are developing countries and one of the things we can do. One of the things is the Army Corps does his part of his projects is help them with infrastructure, help build them so you can lift them economically and bring people up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Laura   
That's great, sounds like really great experiences. We also take time to speak to our guests about their time in the field so it was time for Field Notes, where we asked you about all your memorable experiences in the field something funny something scary, are there any stories that stick out for you from your field work.

Ed Kertis  
And they're not yeah so that was my introduction to the government bureaucracy was working on the battery reclamation Superfund site. And, boy, just for the money that we wasted watching this, this is where I, I really became more of a small government person, because the contractor would put the reclaimed soil, first of all it's an industrial area. Okay, it's in a port area, and they would put everything through the system run through and at the end of this big device, almost like a cartoon, it would spit these giant blocks concrete encapsulating the waist, and then we run the TCLP, and if it didn't meet the standard, it would be crushed again and run again. Right, and I just watched this thinking, oh my goodness, you know, and I told somebody there. The best thing to do to this site would be pave it with concrete turned in a parking lot, a warehouse for something and send the rest of this money to the starving children then you know, fill in the blank right well we just wasted so much money with this TCLP process and parts per million and probably weren't even into parts per billion by them. Back in the day, and you just thought there's got to be a better way. And so that was more of the scary part was I thought we wasted so much money with overkill, or something that wouldn't really marginally benefit human health or the environment. Another unfortunately negative experience I had, and if you have a lot of contractors that listen to this, maybe they'll appreciate it is going out to another Superfund site, and a contractor had been selected, and they showed up and they were selected on special status but of course it was a Shell company type thing. And these guys show up and they had no idea what they were to change the sampling, couldn't do any of that, but we're stuck with them, because of the government contracting system. So the government employees ended up really doing much of the work. And I thought, well this is another waste of money because we're getting this contractor in he's not qualified, there's a checkbox on paper. And so they got the contract. Now those two lessons I carried forward. As I became a district commander and started leading these organizations, and trying to fix some of that stuff so they put you in those assignments as a young officer to try to build your kind of your mental portfolio of experience that you can then come back as a senior commander and try to fix some of that stuff. So I did send you the photo of the billboard. Did you see the billboard. Nice, yeah,

Nic    
yeah, please do tell us about that. Yeah,

Ed Kertis    
so when I went to grad school in my major so environmental engineering sciences at University of Florida. Gosh, there's probably 13 or 14 different majors and so they all have the same degree. Yeah, but but it'll be something on your transcript something different. So I kind of dual track well into ecology and hazard solid and hazardous waste management, I completed the requirements for both. And I really consider myself a wetland ecologist first. So, we get this report, if you've ever been in coastal Georgia. So Laura. If you drive up, Miami to Jacksonville in Florida, you're pretty much gonna see coastal development the whole way there's a few, few gaps there was some national sea shores and things like that. Coastal Georgia is fairly undeveloped it's very rural, what you might think of is maybe the Gulf Coast of Florida north of where you are. And so, in a very, the state of Georgia is very protective of their fresh, fresh and saltwater marshes there on the coast. So we get this report that this guy is filled in 11 acres of marsh, build condos illegally. Oh gosh, so my employees knew what a rabid environmentalist I was and I was, I would wreak havoc in my building, wherever I was commander. Right, I started recycling programs and things like that and if people didn't want to. I was known to dump garbage out on people's desk. If I found a can and someone's garbage I was known to dump the garbage out on their desk and my lawyers are like you can't do that you're gonna get in trouble. Like I dare them, I dare them. My motto has always been in my employees in Hawaii, put a sign up. When I got out of the army was working for Dawson. I'm trying to save the planet I just needed a little help. So my key for regulatory which is the wetland management guys and the Corps of Engineers comes to me and he goes, Colonel, sir. You're not gonna believe this guy filled in 11 acres of wetland. Now the enforcement action can be shared between the Corps and the state in Georgia, it's different in every state. Yeah, so I think Georgia was probably going to take the lead. But I told my guys, well here's what you do, you go meet with them, and you tell you guys have made a big mistake, our Colonel is a huge environmentalist, he's a wetland ecologist by training, and he's going to come after you guys and seek a prison term. I think two years might have been the max at the time or something like that and so the next thing you know they come back and they show a big sign the next time it says hey we're going to voluntarily restore this site, under the, under the close eye of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources The US Army Corps of Engineers. We got him religion pretty quickly.

Nic   
Wow. Yeah, and did you get it done?

Ed Kertis 
Yeah, I'm sure it was done, we can you change command every three years so right. I don't know why this was, that was late in my tenure. I'm sure it was done we don't let stuff like that go, but I'll tell you it's hard for the government employees in the Corps, particularly managing the environmental programs, because the Corps has a bad reputation with regard to that and I would go out and give speeches I would go to the Sierra Club or right into the lion's den of people that hated the Corps. One of the first things I did is Commander in Savannah district was because you saw my bio I used to be on the board of directors of the Surfrider Foundation. Yeah, I belong to a number of groups like that. And so, but I got to Savannah, told my people, hey let's bring in all the environmental groups or semi annual meeting. So we invited all the national and local groups we had like the Coastal Carolina coalition or something like that. And I said, Come on in. And they came into my office, they're all shocked. Don't be shocked I'm a member of half of your organization's, right, and you know I said let's talk about the issues and then I explained to him how government work. Excuse me. With regard to those programs. Now why are you doing this. Yeah, you know, okay, you know, here's what our employees have to do this is why we're doing it. This is the way the rules are laid out. And if you don't like it you have several courses of action you can sue us because you think we made a bad decision, or you can go to your congressman and tell him that you want the law change those are all, and I would encourage people do that. I said but you got to know that in last year, we want 100% of our lawsuits so that's that I've got 14 attorneys. And before we do something we're pretty sure that we're doing it in accordance with law that you may not like the law, that's a different story. That's a different story. And I remember calling a environmental justice law firm one time when we were about to issue a permit that I didn't want issue. Yeah, and I called him and I said, Hey man, can you sue me on this. And he goes, No, because everything you've done is legal. You know it's a bad law. You haven't done anything illegal, I can't see. I was like, Man, this sucks. So you look out there, particularly in the Tampa area, when you see all the mass development and we're just destroying the state of Florida. You know what, that's what the American people want.

Laura   
It breaks my heart breaks my heart, I moved to Syracuse I can't handle it here, emotionally.

Ed Kertis   
I follow a number of groups on Facebook and I watch people that are complaining about all the McMansions. Then I look at their profile and I go, well okay well you moved here three years ago, for your McMansion and now you want the development to stop,

Laura    
yeah, yeah, it's that and then I still see plenty of people who work for the environment, who are environmentalist who I'm sure they're recycling but they're buying plastic like there's no tomorrow

Ed Kertis  
Don't get me started on that. I mean you go into a grocery store and you buy an orange, that's already been peeled, and put in a sealed plastic cup. Are you kidding me.

Nic   
Yeah, it's crazy, and it happens all people buy it. Yeah, yeah, I know that and that one gets me.

Ed Kertis 
 And bottled water.  know when we started bottling water. 1984. What did we do before that, oh yeah we had canteens.

Laura   
Yeah, I started bottling water when someone realized they could make money off of it. Yeah. Anyway, I think we should move on to our next subject because now that I know you. I completely get it So Nick, go ahead.

Nic    
Well, you mentioned to us that that you're a Parrot Head, right. So, you have to have some time to talk, Jimmy Buffett. Oh yeah. So is it simply your love of the ocean that drew you to him or is it more than that.

Ed Kertis 
Well let's see High School in the 70s, that's when Jimmy's albums drug in huge, that's kind of that that's the music we grew up on. And when you're on the beach, and you're listening to that genre is now called Trop- rock. Jimmy is kind of the genesis of that I listened to some of his old music last week and he was calling it Caribbean rock and other things like that, they've kind of settled on trop rock, trop rock, rock radio there's trop rock festivals trop Rock Music Awards and, yeah, he grew up on that, you know it's that in Southern rock and I grew up on Lynyrd Skynyrd and 38 special Molly Hatchett, 38 special just played here in Key West and my wife might went, and the front row and it was just like, back in the 70s. That's great. Yeah, Jimmy still travels and tours and so we travel we do about 10 shows a year. Yeah, and

Laura
Have been to met him yet?

Ed Kertis
I've not met him I've met, like, all but one band member correspondence on one email and met met one of his daughters, and that's it. I've never met Jimmy. So all my friends have a lot of my friends have and by all accounts he is the nicest person in the world. Wow. Yeah, it's great to hear. Yeah, and he says it himself is a lot of these people are rude to fans and stuff he's like, why would I be fans. Fans make you Er, yeah, you know he thanks to his fans all the time. Hey without you guys, I wouldn't be here, but the we have a circle friends we've got about 50 friends with whom we travel around the world and we do the Buffet shows in Paris and in London and in Dublin and all around the US. And we all just kind of meet and not necessarily all 50 Or there may be as few as three or four it's some show or one show may have 40 We'll just have a big party with all this extended parenthood family.

Nic   
That's really great. I love it.

Ed Kertis    
Yeah, we all stay at each other's homes and we travel and they all, they come to Key West and visit us and they stay at our house.

Nic    
Which must be a tough trip for them Key West is beautiful, so yeah I imagine that's where they all want to be.

Ed Kertis
Yeah, it doesn't stink here.

Nic
But you know I did notice on your, your bio, you know, you mentioned you were an avid Florida Gators fan but but Ed, I did not see any mention of the Pittsburgh Steelers so what happened.

Ed Kertis   
Oh. So yeah, that's, that's interesting. My entire family is from Pittsburgh, right, post grandparents emigrated one from Germany one from Hungary, and my grandfather had. I want to say 15 Brothers. Oh wow, so do you see that I have a unique last name. Whenever I in the US, traveling and I see somebody with the same last name I always ask them if they're close to my age, you know is your grandfather from Pittsburgh, and they always go yes How did you know, your grandfather and my grandfather were brothers. Right, and so everyone that I'm related to my blood was born in Pittsburgh and then my mom and dad moved to Florida, and I was born. So, family five I have two older sisters. And when you're part of that Pittsburgh Steeler diaspora, you never lose it. No, you never lose it. Yeah, that's the Steeler story, so I made it back there, year and a half ago for birthday party for one of our Parrot Head friends. Yeah, spent a long weekend downtown and did the tours and went to a baseball game, you know, kind of brought back the childhood memories of our summer vacations.

Nic    
Yeah, absolutely. Did you have to travel, like when you were a kid as well, is it always though.

Ed Kertis   
Yeah, yeah, my parents were. My dad was a butcher, my mom was a secretary. And they were just real big on travel,

Laura   
I didn't know butchers got to travel.

Ed Kertis    
Well yeah we traveled self employed. Yeah, we traveled now he worked for a big grocery firm but we traveled lots, so and then that, of course being in the military, I've been in 41 countries.

Nic    
Oh my gosh, awesome,

Laura   
and unique countries too, it sounds like. So that's very cool.

Ed Kertis    
I will say it's a big world out there. Yeah, oddly enough, of all the countries I've been to I've never been to Mexico. And my son's getting ready to move to Mexico in three months and so now I'll finally get to visit Mexico. Cool, where's the movie, Mexico City. Oh yeah. That's really cool.

Laura   
Oh that's awesome I needed, I need the contact in Mexico.

Ed Kertis    
Yeah, that's a short sail to one of the best one of the best marinas in Mexico and I could sail down there and a couple days and then from there, fly to Mexico City and and visit with him just leave my boat there.

Laura   
cool you need any deckhands?
Ed Kertis    
You always need deckhands.

Laura  
Awesome, well we're running out of time I could talk to you about travel forever. Is there anything else that you want to say or that we didn't ask you before you go.

Ed Kertis  
No one thing we should lead with is that you know I left the Army Corps, eight years ago so I'm speaking on my own behalf, but my memories there. But I will tell you if any of your listeners or people that are like I pointed out, environmental groups or whatever that are interested in what the Army Corps is doing or why they ought to reach out to their local district and ask for a meeting and I know. Sadly, a lot of army corps commanders do not want to meet with environmental groups, one of my tasks on the board of directors of Surfrider Foundation was to get local chapters in to meet the commander's whenever they would have a change of command and, and we've been successful in a number of different places where the local Surfrider either volunteers or paid staff have now kind of, you know, gotten in the Rolodex to the army corps commanders there and gotten on a first name basis for maybe tried to go surfing with them. And it was a two way street. One of the first meetings I set up the Surfrider folks called me and said, hey you know we go to this meeting with the Army Corps, and a couple guys in there are Surfrider Foundation members. Yeah, and I go, how about that, and they go, well then why do they do what they do and I said because they're also federal employees with a code of ethics and they're gonna do, you know, follow the law and do their job. The problem is not, you know, as I said before them, your problem is, the rules under which they're working and that's what we all need to get changed. If we have a problem.

Laura  
Absolutely. And where can people get in touch with you if they want to talk to you more.

Ed Kertis   
Well, ekertis@AOL if you want to spell my name for everybody. E-K-E-R-T-I-S @aol.com is easiest. I have my most of my boat captain and do charter sailing here in Key West, with Aloha Sailing Key West. They can find me on Facebook for Aloha Sailing Key West for sure, and Instagram.

Laura  
Awesome. I will start following. So, after, no hateful comments when you see all the beautiful pictures from your snowy office,

Nic    
right, of course.

Laura   
Oh no, no hating just loving in the jealousy, but no jealousy, because I'll just show up, ready to go on deck,.

Ed Kertis
You're more than welcome to.

Laura
Awesome, thank you so much.

Ed Kertis
Appreciate it y'all.

[Outro]
Laura
That's our show. Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review before you leave.

Nic   
Thanks everybody.

Laura   
Catch you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai