Transcripts are auto transcribed
[Intro]
Laura
Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I discuss taking different career paths to achieve your goals. Then we talk with Holly Schmidt, about her long career journey at Jacobs, recent cultural projects and advice for women in the workplace. And finally, phobias are thought to be passed down genetically from memories of our ancestors. Is that true Nic? Where do you find this?
Nic
Well, yeah, it's just one of those little internet facts which are obviously correct and yeah, but no, I think it's it makes no sense right? Like it just inherently think spiders look creepy. I'm not afraid of them, but they look I'm like I see a spider and like that's, that's different. You know what I mean? So I don't know. Maybe that doesn't make sense. So,
Laura
yeah, I don't know. Well, they get a bad rap. Poor things.
Nic
I know they really do.
Laura
Hit that music
[Shout outs]
Nic
Hey, gang, the NAEP annual conference and training symposium is set for Fort Lauderdale, Florida May 16 through 19th 2022. And guess what submissions for abstracts are now open? NAEP will be accepting abstracts November 15 th. So please submit your proposal today processions, posters, panels and more. Sign up at www.naep.org. Laura, I love doing the show. If you love it too, and would like us to keep doing it. We need your help. We can't do it without our awesome sponsors. So please head over to www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com And check out our sponsor forum for details. Let's get to our segment.
[Nic and Laura's segment]
Nic
What did you talk about with Hollie that would be interesting to kind of back piggy back on.
Laura
I know, I was trying to think about it. We talked about like, how she got started
Kara
And the fact that she got started so early and just stayed with one company her whole at the time like her whole career. She started with Jacobs and is still there after 23 years, which I was so envious about. I would have loved to have taken that path.
Nic
Well, yeah. We can talk about different career paths.
Laura
Because I think that's what people think happens.
Nic
Right? And often. It's pretty rare to stay at one company your whole career, I think especially now, I'd say that used to be more than norm, but it is no longer the case.
Laura
Or even the same career like oh, yeah, you know, I think most people that I know or that we even have on this show, they're not doing what they thought they were doing when they would start it out.
Nic
Oh, of course. And then my my, one of my bosses worked at I guess it was he worked for the State as doing like waste management. And from there NEPA you know, because those two are really connected. They are sort of, you know, they're kind of tangentially near each other but it's totally different thing and before that he was doing mosquito recovery, or recovery.
Laura
Save the mosquitos, or whatever.
Nic
Yeah, good lord. No, he was yeah, the opposite of that. Getting rid of the mosquitoes. And um
Laura
Mosquito control.
Nic
Mosquito control is the word I was looking for. Yeah. Wow. So we're on fire today, I think and yeah, but I think it's interesting, you know, I like that everybody has a different path. And they're not always even linear and you're not even always doing the same job. Right. Sometimes, like the CEO for one of my companies, but previously, the two previous CEOs, one of them was, you know, engineer vice president, President CEO, like straight line. really dull, boring progression, but that's what it was. And then the other was like, engineer, marketing director, business development. Senior Engineer, business development, marketing director, President, CEO, or whatever it was like so it was just all over the map. He went to all different kinds of states and totally different clients. And that was the path he took. So I don't know. You've probably seen a few wild ones yourself.
Laura
Oh, yeah. And I think the main thing is that, you know, especially for young people, or people just starting their careers like neither one is better or different or worse than the other. You know, I think I know plenty of people who are in that sort of bounce around track who are looking at other people who have appeared to be on that more linear track and feeling like, oh, I messed up by that, you know, I should have done things differently or just feeling like they've failed at something. And then I know plenty of people who've been on that linear track who were like, Am I doing the right thing? Am I missing something else? Should I have done something else? And I don't. I think what we learned from talking to Hollie is that if you do know what you want to do, and you can get a foothold in it early, and you're lucky enough to get opportunities, because a lot of it's out of your control, you know, even if you wanted to do something linearly, sometimes an opportunity comes along or sometimes an opportunity shuts itself down, and you're forced to do something else. But she was able to be so far and so expert in what she does, because she's been doing it for so long. Yeah, you know, the whole 10,000 hours makes you an expert kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Um, but, but on the flip side, when you've bounced around all over the place, you learn a lot of different things, different perspectives. And so you bring a whole bunch of different stuff to the table. I think we need combinations of both of those types of people.
Nic
Oh, yeah. 100% you get, you know, strong culture, people that can help bring people together that have been there a long time. And then you get new fresh ideas from people who haven't, and they've been like, oh, well, one of my previous SOPs I had, this is the way we handled accounting and it was super efficient, very fun, very engaging and fun. As far as the accounting can be, and are just as informative and interesting, you know, it's you learn that kind of stuff, processes and even how people work just getting different perspectives. 100% agree with that. And yeah, that's a really good, solid advice. Don't worry too much. It all works out. But somebody gave me that advice a long time ago. It's like don't think too hard about your career. It's good to have a path and where you want to go but the opportunities you have no idea will come out of nowhere. And like you said, they'll either want to get shut down or one will open up it's it's good. To have an idea but don't stress too much about.
Laura
Yeah, I know. One of my favorite scenes is from the end of Tombstone, when Doc Holliday is with Wyatt, in the clinic, or whatever you'd call and, you know, he's like, I just want a normal life and he's like, there is no normal life Wyatt, there's just life. Yeah, like Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Nic
So I know great movie. Just want to put that out there. Great, great movie. I'm your Huckleberry.
Laura
Alright, now before we go off on that tangent, let's get to Hollie's interview.
Nic
Perfect.
[Interview with Hollie Schmidt starts]
Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today we have Hollie Schmidt, Director of resilience and sustainability business advisory with Jacobs and she was a recent speaker on the NAEP's coastal and climate resiliency webinar in August where she discussed a project at Tyndall Air Force Base. Welcome, Hollie.
Hollie Schmidt
Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here.
Laura
We are excited to have you and Nic is sends his regards. He's disappointed he's not here today. But he has submitted some questions for me to ask on his behalf. But I was reviewing you know, your bio and your LinkedIn and you have a lot of responsibility to a lot of really cool stuff. So maybe if we could just start with you telling us about your current role at Jacobs?
Hollie Schmidt
Sure. Well, I've been with Jacob for 22 years. So quite a while and I originally was hired into Jacobs and my many other people in the area that I worked in urban design planning landscape architecture, master planning, site selection. A lot of our folks have come through acquisition. So whether it was Carter and Burgess or CH2M Hill. More recently, but I retired in 2000. I had about five years under my belt and have come from a small boutique landscape architecture firm and practice startup from St. Louis for a company called SWT. Shout out to Ted Spaid and my original mentor. He really taught me a lot about business. And then I went to Roy Ashley and Associates in Atlanta, Georgia, and I joined Jacobs in 2000 in Atlanta. So at that point, in time, it was a startup called the Advanced Planning Group. And it was really a core business around pre design services being done by facilities programmers, people who were trying to figure out workforce and the types of workers that you're trying to accommodate the spaces that they need, and then designing buildings around that function and master planning. And so I really came through this amazing hybrid group of thinking about large scale planning and programming before you actually design a building or that you design the space and so because we were a startup, I was the 10th Hire into the group. I was 26 years old, and I just turned 49 yesterday, so I got to celebrate with
Laura
Happy Birthday.
Hollie Schmidt
with a great conference this week, but what I really liked about it is that from their master planning perspective, they looked across all of the disciplines. So it wasn't buildings driving the master plan. It was people and the function, the land area, the ultimate build out. There was a long vision associated with that. And so coming up through that environment and Jacobs, you really began to understand the full picture. And environmental has always been a big part of that, whether that's in understanding the natural conditions, whether it's understanding constraints and contaminants, whether it's designing around conditions that could, you know, be a resilience factor like flooding that you want to preserve and protect like habitat and culturally significant areas that you want to emulate like native habitat, and really making that front and center and in terms of our solutions. So like I said, 22 years with Jacobs and I really came from being a junior hybrid support planner, or young professionals got a lot of responsibility because we were a startup and as we grew from 10 people when I joined it to about 140 now, I've been given a lot of opportunity probably earlier than most because we were growing and I was able to take advantage of that. So I really focused in on master planning and site selection for growing diverse and large projects. And we really work across all the markets of Jacob. Jacob does everything from, you know, water and infrastructure and utilities and bridges to buildings and health and biopharma and military and federal civilian. You know, semiconductors, we have rocket scientists, you know, so, depending on the project that I'm working on, I get to work alongside and learn and facilitate these real diverse professionals and really learn a lot. I mean, it's just on the job training. And so yeah, I just I love it. Every day I get excited about the work that we're doing. And recently, I was asked to be the director of a new business advisory called the resilience and sustainability business advisory. And that's really intended to take all of the resilience based work that Jacobs is doing and the sustainability and sustainable base work that we're doing and have a tip of the spear business advisory that's intended to engage with the C suite and the top brass of the Jacobs customer base, and be that portal into the company so that we can really be a trusted business adviser to our clients as they're going through this journey and trying to be more resilient and trying to make you know, do their business successfully with less impact to the environment and really get into this positive situation with the built environment and making sure that we're encouraging preservation of natural habitat and our natural systems and benefiting from the ecosystem services that we got and making that as pronounced isn't as important as the built environment. So it is a lot of responsibility, but it's it's just fascinating, and I absolutely love and savor what I do every day.
Laura
That's awesome. And it sounds like you work with a lot of different types of customers. Do you have, you know, in the business advisory, is there a specific is it across the board industries or specific kind of customer that you work with?
Hollie Schmidt
We will work with any customer that Jacob's encounter, whether that's a country or a municipality or state, whether that's a governmental entity or corporation, whether it's a partnership and a conglomeration, we really, I have no selection criteria, except that I really want to work with clients who are ready to make transformative changes in their organization. And so we do have specialization. So me personally, I have a lot of federal experience, whether that's federal civilian or Department of Defense. I've worked with a lot of our industrial clients, whether that's, you know, petrochemical manufacturing, we do a lot of research and development and health and biopharma. We've done work for entities like the Centers for Disease Control and really understanding those complex research and development facilities. But I work alongside people who have experience really across all the markets that we do, whether that's aerospace, technology or space. I was just at Idaho National Laboratory last week working with them on their nuclear fusion reactor Clean Energy Program and how to attract them to the site. So it's just it's very varied and interesting as it is diverse.
Laura
That sounds really amazing. So how did you get started on an environmental career path? Did you know that you wanted to work in back then when you're in school? What did you know that you were going to be doing something environmentally related? Was that important to you? Or were you in school for just architecture? And you kind of led this way?
Hollie Schmidt
Well, initially, I thought I wanted to be an architect. I actually had a drafting class in high school where I was the only girl on the class and I was a cheerleader and I would go out and walk out to the like the shops area and the class was architectural drafting for mechanical parts and buildings. So the first class I'm drawing you know cogs and auto parts, and you know, it was really a funny, funny environment and funny class, but I loved it. I loved the mechanical piece of it, and then when we got into designing a building that was just, for me, really a moment. And so I had a very encouraging instructor in high school and the guys around me were very supportive. They just thought it was funny that this cheerleader wanted to draw mechanical parts and so when I got accepted to university of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, I wanted to go into architecture. Then I looked at the program that was very heavily mathematically oriented physics and structural, you know, all the math that you would need to understand how buildings are built, and that is not my strength. And so then I looked at the landscape architecture program was plant biology and civil engineering aspects and things around science in the natural environment and horticulture. And I have an uncle who's a landscaper that has had a landscape business for a long time. And so I was very inspired in a simplest by that and so I ended up going into landscape architecture and you know, having those influences in that curriculum around design with the land and understanding how plants and horticulture work and how to simulate natural environment for whether it's conservation or preservation or habitat enhancement or social and people interaction and enhancement. And I was very struck by the sociology of kind of the natural and built environment and how people interact in those spaces. And so, I think inherently environmental sensitivity environmental knowledge and environmental appreciation is baked into landscape architecture. And as I was migrating from landscape architecture into more large scale maps and planning, the importance of making sure that you're paying attention to those environmental factors and working with them, versus against them and seeing, you know, multi decades of a career, prove out that making environmental importance in our solutions is the right thing to do. And it's really leading to some of the most successful installations that I've seen.
Laura
Yeah, I mean, that's amazing that what you just said about you're either working with the environment or against it, why would we work against it? That's what we've been doing for so long, right?
Hollie Schmidt
So eventually nature wins out, but we actually don't learn our lesson. Like we fight it if we can't design.
Laura
Right? So yeah, so you do all this great business advisory for other companies. But tell me about Jacobs. You've been there for 22 years, which is pretty impressive. So what keeps you going with them? What makes them so great?
Hollie Schmidt
Well, I you know, being a part of the startup, which was the advanced planning group, and really seeing a consultant based advisory services group come into this very heavy technical engineering architecture kind of built environment, enabling infrastructure, testing, you know, huge foundation of technical services is an exciting being able to work in the very front end of some of these massive programs and multi billion dollar projects and programs and being able to see how all of that comes together in that planning space and the decisions that are made that begin to influence those projects. That was very attractive to me personally and just very exciting to be in a space where you see decisions being made that just drive the whole rest of the dominoes of this program and product development. I will say that and you know, around 2013 When we had our new CEO Steve Demetriou, come on board. It was a very exciting time. It kind of coincided with that acquisition of CH2M Hill and the cultural transformation that we've gone through as a company as a result, I think of those two things that significant acquisition and the transition of our CEO leadership has just been extremely exciting for me as a woman, as a mother as someone who has teleworked since 2004. In this company when it really wasn't widely spread. I've just been extremely influenced and excited and invigorated to see how we're diversifying how we're really stepping up to the plate and our own ESG commitments and how we are walking the walk in terms of diversification and inclusion. And I think for me, that's been a major reason why not only I've been supported in this organization for so long, but why I say and I'm seeing that really attract young people than I have these two new hires that have come one thing, one of the reasons I'm coming to Jacob is because of the Steve Demetriou and the culture of caring and you know, inclusivity that we're seeing Jacob, but I've been really pleased.
Laura
Yeah, that's really awesome. It's great to hear. So you have all these different projects that you're working on, are there some are certain one that you're most excited about?
Hollie Schmidt
Well, there's one that I've just rolled off of that I talked about in your webinar series, which is the rebuild of Tyndall Air Force Base after Hurricane Michael. And that's probably been the most significant projects that I've worked on in my 26 year career. This is an Air Force Base on the panhandle of Florida that was hit by a category five hurricane in October of 2018. And it just completely and utterly devastated the base. Jacobs was brought in as a sub to KBR to do the 1391 package for us for 6 or 8 weeks, which is really the financing documents that you put together, you specify what needs to be built, and that's a funding request that goes to Congress for military construction dollars. So like I said, six or eight weeks and I was there for 18 months. We ended up just getting completely immersed in this program around what needs to be rebuilt. How do you rebuild it and to get by bipartisan agreement, that had to be rebuilt, more resilient, more sustainable, and with smart technologies infused into that whole rebuild. So in total, it's about a $5 billion program, 3 billion of that came from Congress. And so I worked across about 250 technical disciplines in the natural and built environment on things like coastal resilience and how do you do engineering with nature solutions, and working with ERDC and the Corps of Engineers and Dr. Todd Bridges on, you know, bringing those practices for Tyndall. How do you use the natural environment is the first line of defense in a coastal environment where you know that sea level rise is occurring and that storms are getting more intense and so the surge levels are getting greater. How do you build for increased wind speeds and how does that ripple through rooms and doorframes and structural components and foundations for life and, you know, signage? How do you read vegetate in a way that helps with that water mitigation whether are from the sky or surging from the sea and heal a lot of the areas that were previously developed in a way that's indigenous and is more resilient, you know, they have these pine trees that became projectiles. So it was just extremely exciting. And I think it changed me as a professional and it got a lot of recognition and the industry and Jacobs but I think that's probably the platform that allowed me to be asked to be the director of this new advisory. So something that I'm extremely proud of as a past project, but we're working right now with a lot of federal civilian entities. We're doing a lot of resilience pursuit. Across the country and specifically in Florida, and we're really trying to drive those nature based solutions in our practice areas and really making that compelling business case for why sustainably driven solutions are actually financially viable and have greater returns from the non financial aspects. We recently finished a project like that for a biopharma project that's going to go in North Carolina, and we were able to influence that project and get the client to agree to go to a whole LEED Gold campus, for this $2 billion biopharma facility that's going to make fillers for vaccines. So it's just been, I think, powerful and impactful to see that if you do a lifecycle analysis on highly resilient and sustainable solutions, there's a extremely strong business case from a financial perspective. And then recognizing that the non financial aspects such as impact to the environment, not do us harm, but how do you become regenerative versus just Net Zero? How can you really be a part of the community and use the community as part of your success stories? How can you use sustainable solutions for not only doing more efficient and less impactful designs but also delivering resilience? Because now you're more water efficient and you have alternative sources of power? So I've been trying to take that story to our clients and using environmental proven methods as part of that, really, that push into better development.
Laura
Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, there's obviously there have been companies and people who have been saying these things for years, decades, right. This is not necessarily new, but it's becoming a little bit more widely acceptable. Would you say?
Hollie Schmidt
I think that there's a shift, when you see the financial market moving petrochemical companies to being more sustainable and more accountable to their ESG commitments. I think that's indicative of a holistic, overall watershed moment. And I think we're there. And so people are now understanding that sustainability isn't just lip service. Resiliency isn't just something that you say, you actually have to prove and deliver those things. And I think what was a real eye opener for me is explaining to our clients that you can make a commitment. You can make an ESG commitment or a resilience, commitment or community commitment, but you don't get credit for that until you demonstrate that you're operating that way. So you can commit to it. You can fund it. You can design it, but unless you defend it through those value engineering stages, and through the construction phase, and through operational and you you're actually operating that way and you can take credit for operating the way that you committed to you don't get to take credit for it. And so that's you know, I think that was a big eye opener to say you can't just say you're going to do it, you have to prove and demonstrate that you're doing it
Laura
Right, and at what point so a potential customer comes to you with a project. And do they already know that they want this type of work, or is there a point where you step in and say, Well, let me tell you how you should probably be considering this with sustainability and resilience.
Hollie Schmidt
It's a little bit of all and some clients come to us and they say, you know, we want the development to be a LEED gold campus. We can absolutely deliver that. Sometimes we have clients come to us and say, we've got these ESG corporate commitments, but we don't know what that means, related to our project. And so we take those commitments and say, Okay, here's a performance standard and a key performance indicator. And here are design guidelines, as they relate to your water system and water treatment as they relate to power consumption and power sources, as they relate to waste and waste handling as they relate to how you develop your site. And how you treat stormwater, for instance, is a great one. So we can translate that for them. But more and more I'm saying, Would you be agreeable to a seven to 10% capital cost increase to your project, if we could demonstrate significant operational savings and over a doubling of your non financial aspects of your project? And they'll say, Well, yeah, you know, we're looking at a 30 year development or 50 year development or 100 year development, that's very compelling. But it takes being able to prove those out which we've done across many programs now, to give them those case studies, and to really use the strength of the trusted technical expertise and cost estimating and scientific backing networks that Jacobs brings to the project, to have them trust us that we're going to be able to deliver on that. So I try and push it, I encourage it. And sometimes it's as much working with our own folks as it is our clients. And so I don't want to give this impression that it's easy. It's not easy.
Laura
Well speaking of that, do you on your projects like the Tyndall project or another project? Do you mostly work with the customer interface or do you also have to work with the public?
Hollie Schmidt
Most of my projects, I'm working as a customer interface as the facilitator of the interdisciplinary team. So that's usually my role. What I would consider being the facilitator or the lead, the master planner, we have lots of projects in Jacobs that have public interface, and we have lots of people who are very, very good at that public interface. I tend to stay more on the client interface and then bring in those gifted people that have that way with public interface, whether of the public meeting or I have run some public town halls as part of the simple program, but I know where my gifts are, and they're a little bit more on the client side of the public interface.
Laura
Yeah, I was just wondering if you had like in those town halls, if you're also seeing a shift in the public perception of the implementation of these resiliency projects,
Hollie Schmidt
I think that the public has seen that they want which are healthy communities, safe communities, you know, beautiful and walkable communities. And if you can demonstrate that your project is going to enhance their life versus detract from it. We talk a lot about kind of the Re word versus the D word you know, so instead of devaluing, or revaluing or destroying, we're restoring, and we work with a really smart gentleman named Storm Cunningham. And he has an institute called Reconomics and he talks about, you know, rapid and resilient redevelopment and we're partnering with him to do restorative development and economy. And that's been one of my key aspects of the advisor is saying, if we have the opportunity to guide a client to redevelop a site that's already been developed versus clear, a greenfield site. Let's try and do something that's restorative. And revitalizing a community. And the public recognizes that right? They understand what is valuable to them and their lives and then their families and their communities and what detract from that. So I think as long as I can associate myself with positive projects, versus negative projects, and I'll stay out of that line of fire.
Laura
That sounds like a great plan.
Hollie Schmidt
Doesn't it. I try.
Laura
One of your focus areas is resiliency planning, what vulnerability trends are you seeing in regard to climate change and what is being done to mitigate those future impacts?
Hollie Schmidt
Well, there's many and it depends on where you are. I like to say that we do our vulnerability assessments on climate, culture and contact and you know, really in relation to what it is that we're trying to build or trying to mitigate from a physical aspect and climate climate adaptation, you know, depending on where you are, so take Florida for instance, we're dealing with water, whether that is high rain event, surge, sea level rise, sunny day flooding, we're seeing a lot of attention to what's happening in Miami, and how we can again use nature based solutions to emulate the natural environment to the greatest extent possible. That's not always possible because it takes a lot of space takes up more room than a wall, but it is more enduring and more. It has more longevity. It's also more dynamic, you know, because a lot of times those cultural environments are dynamic, and they're not saying we're also talking about social resilience. We're looking at some resilience hubs and how how resilience from a community perspective is important, whether that's access to power and water and resources and a flood or after a storm event or some sort of disruptive event, whether that's access to transport and the ability to get around. Walkability, and how healthy is your community from a pedestrian mobility perspective? And how can we use those transport systems whether it's walking or alternative forms of transportation to create resilient community? How can we make sure that communities have diversity and the whole notion of when COVID hit this 15 minutes city and now what happens when you sort of retract on yourself and what makes the community healthy is can I walk or drive or not even drive or ride my bike for 15 minutes and get to where I need to go? So that diversity of services nearby and really looking at you know the social, environmental and people aspects of resilience as well as the physical aspects because many of our areas that get most impacted by climate change are some of our forests and some of our most anemic communities. So we're trying to enhance our team so that we're not just looking at physical aspects.
Laura
That's wonderful. So it was a lot of people advance up the chain sounds like you've been in leadership for quite a long time. Do you ever still get to go out in the field?
Hollie Schmidt
I do. But I make that a priority. I wanted to make sure that as I went up the leadership chain that I didn't lose touch in projects, and so I didn't want to go just into an operational leadership role or a sales leadership role or an initiative leadership role. And so yes, I still get to go into the field. I did not a lot of Tyndall and went out into some of the most pristine coastal environments I've ever been. I was just like, I think I mentioned earlier Idaho National Laboratory and went out into the Idaho desert and looked at where some of you know, their nuclear reactors are that they're doing r&d to help really bring about that clean energy source. And I was just in San Diego for the sustainable brands conference and exploring around there and just looking around that beautiful coastal environment. So I try and get out into you know, every major project I'm working on I like to do the site visit from walk around the site, see the building, see the environment and see the you know, the context and really you know, just understanding what those influences are in that space. So I really enjoy that piece of it. And I still love working with the clients. So I don't really ever see myself being in a position where I do that aspect of it.
Laura
That's great, and your projects all over the world.
Hollie Schmidt
All over the world. I mean, I've worked mainly I had a bunch of work in Morocco. I was the one in Morocco for several years and I was sent to Casablanca on an assignment working with their phosphate mining company and I've done work you know, over in Germany and the Netherlands I was just in Denmark and April working for biopharma client over there. So I love going to Europe and hoping I can't say the name of the project just because we haven't wanted but we're talking to a great spirits company client or some work down in Mexico outside of Guadalajara. So I hope that comes through next week. But looking forward to getting down there and all over the US. I mean, one of the things I love about my job is that I I'm just an avid traveler and I love to see new places and meet new people. And so the job that Jason's really affords me that and exposes me to all of these different places and you know, sort of the majesticness and the wonder of the world.
Laura
That's fantastic and super, super inspiring. So do you have some advice or one best piece of advice that you might give to women working their way up their careers?
Hollie Schmidt
I think my piece of advice would be do business the way that you are as a personality. I'm a very optimistic person. I'm a very outgoing person. I like to hug but I also like to say what I think and so I've never found emulating someone else's personality is a way to my success. And so I've been sort of unapologetically myself throughout my career while clearly being respectful but the times maybe you don't be respectful at times, I found it very helpful to say what's on my mind and to just be courageous and sort of fearless about what I really think is the right thing to do. So I think that would be my one piece of advice for women. I think that it's becoming much easier for young women in the workplace. I have a daughter who's almost 16, and she's very interested in engineering. And I think that it's become clear that having a female perspective in the problem solving environment is beneficial. And we have a different way of problem solving a different way of thinking a different way of de conflicting, a different way of supporting and nurturing and that's important and we should have a seat at the table and so I'm just very, very encouraged and enthusiastic and supportive of any woman in the workplace that I can come across and be positive influence.
Laura
That's great. I'm your daughter's have an amazing role model here in you which is fantastic. I love that advice.
Hollie Schmidt
But it depends on the day. Sometimes you don't know what you have and it's hard to appreciate what you've got right up in front of your nose.
Laura
I'm sure that they look up to you and even if they don't know it now they'll know it later.
Hollie Schmidt
I took him to Morocco with me, you know so I try and take them with me and to explain to them where I'm going and what I'm doing. It's very powerful to be exposed to the world at a young age and to understand that there's so much out there, you know, from a cultural perspective from you know, the way that they look between mountains and deserts and see and, you know, fields and an orchard. And I think that they will be better stewards of the world because of it. And I'm just excited that I have the opportunity to give them those experiences.
Laura
Yeah, that's awesome. I couldn't agree more. So what do you do when you're not working for fun?
Hollie Schmidt
Ah, well, I've just gone through my midlife crisis and bought an Airstream and a Range Rover, so I am camping all over Florida which I love. I'm definitely a glamper, you know, I love the environment but I guess I you know, I want my stove and my oysters over the grill and my bottle of Pinot Noir. So I really do love doing that. I'm an avid reader. I love reading books but that I tend to shy away from business reading for pleasure and I'll you know pick up a good action adventure, Sci Fi. I love Carl Hiaasen. raves about Florida. I always love it when the guy who was polluting the environment get to the end. And you know, I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, and it's beautiful here so I love going to the beach or the waterfront. I've got friends with boats that I love getting out on the water and really just having that kind of life to be that that relaxer.
Laura
Very cool. So we are just about with our time here. So is there anything else that you would like to mention that I didn't get to ask you?
Hollie Schmidt
I think that putting environmental considerations at the forefront of long term planning is important. And I've talked a lot with like Kira Zender who's our NAEP representative and avid environmentalist and some of our other folks that work. They started Victoria Hernandez I worked with her on Tyndall and there's a lot of frustration from them in the sense that you know, environmental, whether it's, you know, an EA or EIS or NEPA or other environmental considerations are not prioritized. And I have made a point to do that, even though I'm looking at all aspects of development. Number one because it'll kick you in the butt if you ignore it for long for their requirements you're going to be held to and if you don't pay attention to them, they will delay your project. And that's where the frustration comes from because we know that it has to be done and instead of putting it up front and making it a driver to the solutions and incorporating those considerations at the very earliest phase. We almost treat it like an afterthought and then it becomes something that is a challenge or a constraint. So I really want to flip that story. I want to take environmental consideration and environmental aspects of large scale planning and programming and put them upfront that we are inspired by nature that we are cognizant of nature and then from an environmental perspective, apologies for my dog barking. You know we are prioritizing.
Laura
That's great message. And finally is there some place if we like to, you know, open this up for people to network with our guests, if especially people who are working in their careers and trying to figure out their career paths. Is there a place you'd like to direct people if they might want to get in touch with you?
Hollie Schmidt
Absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn. And so that's probably the best way to find me. I don't have our advisory is so new that I don't have a link on Jacob.com yet, but I should soon where we'll have a page that can also you know, you can reach out and access it that way.
Laura
Okay, wonderful. If you can send that to us. We'll add it to the description. Well, thank you. So much, Holly. It was awesome to have you here today. Sorry, Nic, that you could not join us. But we're happy here in spirit. Everyone have a wonderful day.
Hollie Schmidt
Well, thank you for having me.
[Outro]
Laura
That's our show. Thanks, Hollie for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. And don't forget to subscribe. rate and review.
Nic
See you everybody.
Laura
Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai