Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)

Alaska, Fuel Tanks, and Science Literacy with Shannon Oelkers

November 12, 2021 Shannon Oelkers Episode 43
Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)
Alaska, Fuel Tanks, and Science Literacy with Shannon Oelkers
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

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 Shannon Oelkers, owner and principal consultant for Integrity Environmental about Alaska, Fuel Tanks and Science Literacy.   Read her 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: 

0:17  Shannon's special "And Finally"

2:52 Nic & Laura discuss gender workplace challenges

13:00  Interview with Shannon Oelkers starts

16:21 Alaska

31:11  Fuel Tanks

40:42  Field Notes: Not so regal eagles

51:23   Science Literacy

 

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 Shannon Oelkers at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-oelkers-b8524423 

 

Guest Bio:

Shannon Oelkers is the owner and principal consultant for Integrity Environmental. Shannon previously worked at the State of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in the Contaminated Sites and Terminal / Tank Farms division, focusing on industrial environmental compliance. Shannon holds a bachelor's degree in Biological Science and a master's degree in Community Development from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and has more than a decade of experience inspecting and auditing bulk fuel tank farm operations. Shannon is also an MBA Instructor at Alaska Pacific University. Shannon is well-versed in the unique challenges of completing oil and gas related projects in Alaska.

 

Music Credits

Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa

Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

 

 

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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 how men can be more supportive in the workplace. We talked to Shannon Oelkers about her work in Alaska, fuel tanks, and science literacy. Finally, we have a very special "And finally" from our guest, Shannon take it away.

[Shannon's special "And Finally"]

Shannon Oelkers 
So in Alaska, we have a little bird called a Black Capped Chickadee. And they grow their brains by 30%. They literally add 30% more neurons in preparation for fall so they can memorize where they hide the seeds through the winter. And then when spring comes in, food becomes more available and mating season begins. They shed 30% of their brain cells and their brain shrinks up again.

Nic 
Oh my gosh, so you're telling me they they get dumber when they're trying to make babies. Wow.

Unknown Speaker  
They literally they literally lose 30% of their brain cells as they're nesting.

Nic 
I think this explains some people do that too.

Laura 
I was going to say, this explains a lot.

Nic 
That's a human thing

Shannon Oelkers 
But the cool thing is that they actually shed the neurons that remembered where the food was. So scientists are now but UAF, University of Alaska Fairbanks, they're now realizing because they're studying this, like if you could grow neurons, how cool would that be for humans? Right? Yeah. But what's interesting is they don't lose their memories of nesting and mates and good food sources, but they do lose all of their cache memory and so they don't remember where they cashed food from the previous year. And so it's interesting that they're adding specific neurons just for finding food. And then they shed them all when it comes time to when food becomes more bountiful. And they think it's a trigger because the birds that have bird feeders, they don't necessarily add the neurons because they don't go through food scarcity. So it's a fascinating field of study. It was started when I was an undergraduate at UAF. And they've now you can Google it. It's all over the place, but it's just really it's a cool neat fact about these neat little tiny birds

Laura  
Hit that music.

[Shout outs]

Nic 
Hey everyone.  NAEP is still accepting submissions for the their annual conference and training symposium. It's going to be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this year. My conference is gonna be May 16 through 19th. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We're gonna have a lot of really good speakers. They're really really engaging and interesting sessions as they always are. But we are actually looking for your submittals your proposals for what we talk about. So please submit your abstracts through November 15 at www.naep.org It's a great time. I know a lot of you have some great ideas and we'd love to hear about them. Laura and 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 on over to www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com And check out our sponsor form for details. Let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura's Segment]

Nic
I'll just dive right into this question. You know, we talk a lot about like women in the workplace and that can be a challenge. And I hear that a lot from you know about how women have to navigate the workplace, but what can men do to be better stewards for those workplace environments?

Laura
Oh, gosh.

Nic
I know, it's a  really powerful question.

Laura 
First of all, I think they need to ask that question. Yeah, that's probably the best. First thing you can do is just recognize that and honestly, I think that really is what it boils down to recognizing that there are probably things that you don't even realize you're doing. Like Shannon mentioned that she was getting advice about you need to have an office and whatever. That might not necessarily only have come from men, but I bet it came from a man. I've been told I needed to have changed my area code number on my phone so that people won't own work with you. You're not local. Like I'm asked you for that advice and I'm doing quite fine with the phone number that I have. Thank you. But that comes from someone assuming I'm better than you or not asking you first. Do you want my advice or how successful are you? But I think in the workplace, it's mostly important for men to take a step back and be self aware and just ask that question and maybe even literally ask that question of the women you work with. What am I doing and be open to whatever they might say, you know, and I don't know if there's like specific, I mean there's the obvious things don't touch without being invited to touch

Nic 
Yeah, I almost died from, sorry. Yes.

Laura 
I would like because I almost said it goes without saying but it has to be said because it happens. So not making assumptions that maybe you're in the kind of relationship you think you are with your coworker. You know, just because someone is friendly with you at work doesn't give you certain permissions or you know, trying to think back to like, personal experience, not only personal experience, but what other women have said to me.

Nic 
Yeah, is it like I saw this onece about like, if you wouldn't say it to the Rock. Don't say it to a woman. Is it that kind of thing is that? Is that fair?

Laura 
Yeah, well, I just had a conversation yesterday with a woman who's new to management in her company and it's a big company that you would expect lots of good things from and she had a meeting request from another manager. So this person is not her boss, and was like, oh, we need to have a meeting bla bla bla bla bla, and then I think he missed it or was late or something. But anyway, she got sort of reprimanded by him. For not putting it on his calendar. You know, like, can you put that on my calendar? Why didn't you put that on my calendar something? And I had to ask her like, do you think he would have asked a man, that same thing to be like, Nic, why didn't you put that on my Calendar? My guess is no.

Nic  
Yeah, you're on Yeah you have your own calendar.

Laura 
Yeah, right. It's not your job to put something on the calendar.  So that to me is the same thing as like, why didn't you bring me in my coffee? You know, and I think it's just there's a lot of like little things that may not seem harmful or that your man's been on the whole mansplaining thing. Which, you know, maybe you want to explain that maybe there are people listening who don't even know that mansplaining is a thing.

Nic 
I know, and I do have to catch myself really because I love I love giving people advice. I love talking about things I'm very passionate about. And it took me a long time. To realize that sometimes people did not ask me what I'm telling them. And it's really can be really harmful. If for example, you're just saying, Oh, you don't know this thing. Let me tell you what you should be doing instead of you know having a conversation because that's really what you should be doing is talking and there's a back and forth and that and a lot with with mansplaining it's just my mansplaining mansplaining actually. But you know, it just that's exactly what it is. It's like I'm going to tell you the thing that I know that you obviously don't and sometimes you can really, really put your foot in your mouth, especially somebody who's an actual expert in the field. Or somebody just does not need to hear that, like you just, you know, so you really have to be careful about that kind of thing. And I think that's really scary. It's something that's really easy to overlook, because you're just you think well of course this person wants to hear from my opinion because I'm brilliant and great and wonderful. Why wouldn't they.  But then you start thinking about who you're doing that with and why you're doing it and where and that's where it can be really problematic. Right just women that's a problem Yeah.

Laura  
Yeah, and I've been in situations where like a colleague will suddenly or someone I'm just talking to you to have a conversation will suddenly put themselves in a position of mentorship and I'm like, you know, there are cases when that's maybe required or if I was was asking for it, but there definitely multiple numbers of times where I'm like, I didn't really see you being this person who I was seeking mentorship from

Nic 
We are peers. Yeah. We're peers.

Laura  
Thank you for imparting your knowledge. There's also just like other small things like eye contact. I've been in interview situations where you know, interviewing someone for a job so you can youngins out there pay attention I've I have been the person who was going to be the their supervisor and I don't know it could just be nerves. But I've had people who will just they would look to my boss who was a man and ask him questions and look at him and not even make it like Hello, you're going to be working for me. Maybe look my direction and he literally not got hired for it. So stuff like that. I've had bosses who would tell me to put my hair a certain way, or paint my nails.  Or just those things may seem harmless, but you really have to keep yourself in check and say would I say, hey I like the way your hands look today to another man.

Nic  
Yes. We're laughing but that's exactly right what you're talking about, and I've been thinking about this where it's a man and a woman and they're only asking me questions and I'm like, I don't know. What do you think other person who knows more than me? Yeah, you know, it's like I don't want to be that blunt but sometimes you have to be pretty obvious. I'm like, she's our expert. Ask her. But then like, you know, there's been mentorships are a really important one, too. Like there have been companies and situations that I have seen where there's somebody who has HR violations on their record for being inappropriate in the workplace with women, and they're submitting applications for mentorship programs. So that happens. I don't know that it's even happening. Several different women came to me and said, This man cannot be a mentor. And I talked to them and, you know, talking to people in leadership, and they're like, Well, yeah, maybe you can only mentor men and like, incorrect. No.

Laura 
Thank you, Nick.

Nic 
If he can't talk to women, he can't talk to men either. Because he's going to create an environment where men think it's okay to behave that way. Right? Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. You guess I'm right? Yeah. So yeah, that's one you just really had and made me think of it's really hard.

Laura 
And I think that's the key right? Self awareness. Take it seriously. This is not a joke for women, you know, and not even just women. People of color. People are different than you minorities, young people. You know, you have to be aware of how you're coming across the people and if you're actually listening, and then be champions for people and for everyone not playing favorites with the other people who look like you or whatever, you know.

Nic 
And that's great. That's one of the things it's always seems so negative when we talk about it. That's such a positive thing. Be a champion for someone else. You know, someone who's different than you, someone who has different life experiences. I love that.

Laura 
The ultimate should be like step aside. If you're in a company that is homogeneous, step aside for someone else to come up to the table or take a seat or be involved or you know, like, it's all self awareness and caring,

Nic  
Right, caring is very important. You do have to care.

Laura  
And I think that is maybe one of the things where the difference between men and women like men are maybe more business focused and less heart focused and you know, take a little effort.

Nic 
I honestly think that's changing. I think, you know, over time, I think empathy has become one of the primary traits for leaders that did not used to exist. 100% did not used to be a thing. And I have seen that change. And I'm not saying it's perfect, but you have to care about your employees in order for them to stay, so we talked about the Shannon right, she genuinely cares about people that are with her. That's why they're there. That's why they stay. That's why they like working with her is because she cares.

Laura 
And it gets infused into the actual work. It's not a matter of like caring after hours. It's caring into the policies into the decisions that you make as a leader.

Nic 
So it's really I think that's great. Wonderful information. I appreciate you answering that question without looking at me like I'm an idiot. I really do appreciate that.

Laura
I appreciate you asking.

Nic
because it makes me nervous to ask the question you

Laura 
Ask the question. You should be asking more people that question and I think more men should be caring enough to ask the question, and to really hear the real feedback.

Nic
Feedback  Is like a scary. It is scary.

Laura
And you just don't know what it is you may or may not be doing and something you know, it's all perspective to something you might do with me in a relationship with one woman might be fine, something that you do with someone else and their background and their sense of space and self and whatever might be totally different. So it's not enough to just make assumptions or think that what thought I was fine. behaving this way was Laura, it must be fine for Sally too you need to make sure that it's okay with Sally.

Nic 
Right. Right. Yeah, that's also brilliant advice. So yeah, thank you for that. And, you know, we can make this a continuing conversation because I can you know, it's not going to go away anytime soon. So, but let's go ahead and get to our segment for now.

Laura
Yeah, for sure.

[Interview with Shannon Oelkers starts]

Laura 
Welcome back to EPR. Today, we have Shannon Oelkers, owner and Principal Consultant with integrity Environmental and member of the Alaska AEP. Welcome Shannon.

Shannon Oelkers 
Hi, thanks for having me.

Laura 
Oh, so glad you could be here. Hope it's a nice morning. They're in Alaska.

Shannon Oelkers  
It's very dark right now.

Laura 
We're super excited. You're our first guest from Alaska or that's located in Alaska. And I also saw that you went to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks so that makes me wonder if you have always lived in Alaska.

Shannon Oelkers
 
I have actually my family's been here a long time four generations. So long term Alaskans.

Laura 
Oh my gosh, I was gonna ask you what it's like to grow up in Alaska. And now I want to know what it's like being a fourth generation Alaskan.

Shannon Oelkers 

Well, my great grandfather was like a gambler and a gold miner. He won and lost several fortunes. We basically didn't inherit anything except the cool legacy. Yeah, so

Nic  
That's so neat. I mean, but yeah, it was so interesting to basically two seasons in Alaska when people come to visit when they go away.

Shannon Oelkers 
There's three. There's winter, and there's summer and there's construction. So everything happens in a very compressed time frame. So a lot of our roads and airports all get fixed within two or three month window.

Laura 
So what is it like wintering there? So do a lot of people leave and I mean, I picture the shining every time. What is it like to live in Alaska year round.

Shannon Oelkers  
Well, it's there's a whole lot of snow sports like you can do unlimited cross country skiing and snowshoeing and you probably call it snowmobiling down there but we call it snow machining. Yeah, you guys can think of a snow machine is like something that makes snow on the side of a mountain. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's snow machining and you get on your machine and you go ummm, I don't know. There's just I like winter hiking. I just put screws on my hiking boots. And go up. There's unending trails and beautiful mountains. And I really like being outside. I really like I like winter because you're never hot. It's very nice.

Nic
That's true.  That's true.

Shannon Oelkers
So yeah, I think most people just adapt and get out more and I mean you do have to love winter. To live here. I think if you didn't love winter, this would be a very hard place to live.

Nic 
Yeah, and those changes with how much sun you get to right which is pretty dark compared to other places. So what So what's that like that shift?

Shannon Oelkers 
Well, I grew up in Fairbanks and that's that's in the middle of the state and so it's a little more pronounced I live at near the largest city Anchorage now and that's much more mild. We rarely see below zero and the it is darker in the winter in the summer, but it's not 24 hours of daylight like it is the further North you go. But yeah, in the summer, the sun will still be shining at 11 o'clock at night. enough that you could mow your lawn if you wanted to.

Nic 
No thanks.

Shannon Oelkers  
It's always the fun thing where you're like, Oh, I got some time you start mowing, like 11:00 and you're looking at your neighbor's house hoping they're not mad now.

Nic 
Right yeah. Eleven pm let me start this up. But you're also a bit of a history buff in Alaska. I don't know if you know this has some really unique history. So what do you love about it Alaska history and fun facts to share with us?

Shannon Oelkers 
Sure. Well, I love Alaskan history because the work that we do is with a lot of these industrial facilities, and many of them were initially installed around the turn of the century when mining and logging operations were initiated back in those days. I don't know I've got there's so many interesting things. I did a project for the Cordova electric Association and they have a hydroelectric dam that's installed on top of one that was installed in 1908. And that 1908 log dam is still there and it was built so well. They tried to dynamite it out to restore the stream that they put the log dam into and they couldn't dynamite it out. And so they ended up cutting a hole through it instead.  It's just fascinating to me. So I'm standing there doing a spill prevention plan for this hydroelectric dam that's very modern. And then behind me is the old wooden trough ways and the old Pelton wheels with like the little cups and they they rotate and it drives the energy and and in 1910 Cordova had a movie theater and they played movies with reels because they have electricity. And like the Model T was invented the same year, like that's fascinating that this tiny little town in Alaska had all these things going on. And then I'm looking at the remnants of it as I'm doing my modern job. So I find that stuff really interesting.

Nic 
Super cool. Oh my goodness.

Shannon Oelkers 
If you go to our LinkedIn site or my LinkedIn site, there's a photos of that hydroelectric dam and the Pelton wheel and me like running around the woods looking for it. better, much better story than I just gave you but

Nic  
No. I love it. The indestructible dam I love that that's

Laura 
Do you have it on the company website with some of these facts and things on it.

Shannon Oelkers 
We do. We have them as blog posts on our company website, which is integrity- env.com. You can also see most of those articles on my personal LinkedIn site as well.

Laura
Cool. Oh you're waiting for me to ask that. That's why there's a pause.

Nic 
I just ignored it. I was like this thing earlier. I love missing the first thing and go into the second that's, ask my wife she loves it. So what are the most noticeable impacts you've observed? I guess? We talk a lot about climate change. Right? We've heard a lot about that from different people. But the effects of that in Alaska can and will be pretty stark. So what have you observed already, environmentally and culturally? And how is that impacting your job?

Shannon Oelkers 
Well, climate change is a tricky subject in the fuels industry, of course, but we do notice that shorelines are changing. We do notice that ice coverage is different than it has been in the past and from what we do, which is working primarily with industrial areas that are along ports is that we're seeing faster erosion of Port infrastructure and having to replace things sooner than anticipated or protect a marine header or a dock because it's getting beat up because I used to have ice coverage but now it doesn't and it's getting 365 days a year pounding from water, open water. We're also seeing erosion of lands that were previously filled in to provide space for docks, the ocean around where we work is changing and how that changes. We also are seeing some really interesting wildlife events a few years ago in Seward, Alaska in south central there was a huge Murre die off and they basically had a large breeding year, and then the water warmed up and there was less food for them. And so the very large population then began dying off and they were just skin and feathers really. And you would just see hundreds of them everywhere. And there's a couple different articles you can look those up on. And so there's just sort of like odd things are happening and how we see it in our industry, but we also see it in infrastructure stabilization, I guess, we have tanks that were built. We have infrastructure that dates from 1914 as one of our oldest tanks all the way up to tanks that were built this year, and how they were constructed and you know, 1914, which was just plopping them on the ground, versus today. It creates some interesting infrastructure challenges when you're trying to preserve a fill site along a dock that is now having to be changed or modified. It adds to the consulting work that we do about having these tanks meet regulatory requirements and engineering standards, but also dealing with the realities of what's happening around them in the environment.

Laura 
It's pretty amazing. And I love that you are looking at the historical aspect of it in really paying attention to that and it sounds like your business does some really cool work. But I'm interested especially from a woman's perspective, who actually owns businesses as well, because I know my path that led me to starting those endeavors was not a straight one. What was your career path like and how did that lead to you starting your own company?

Shannon Oelkers 

Sure. So I was the kid when she was 12 years old who wanted to be a wolf biologist was going to run that path and be the best wolf biologist on the planet. And live in Alaska and that would be wonderful. And that did not happen for me. I am okay with that. I like to tell especially other girls that I mentor or that I interact with that when you're 12 or 18 or 24. What you can imagine your career being is pretty limited and you really don't know what can happen. And so I really struggled with math. And I also tell people that I mentor all the time that it took me three times to get calculus, and I used to be embarrassed about that. But I'm not anymore because who gets it on the first time. You know, like, it's no big deal as long as you get it right. And so when I struggled with math that made me less competitive for things and so I did not you know, I graduated from UAF at a time when they were graduating 250 Biology students a year so my chances of getting a job were limited. Even with a PhD were pretty limited. And so I was forced to look at other things. And I actually chose a fun job because I love traveling and I love history and I loved Alaska. So I actually worked for the Farthest North Girl Scout Council for four years doing adult development and Girl Scouting and Girl Scout camps all over rural Alaska. So Unalakleet, Muir and it was a wonderful job. I literally got paid to play with kids in the tundra and do science based curriculum. It was the funnest job ever. And that job really taught me rural Alaska, which is a unique environment and communities and many different cultures. And when I was done with the Girl Scouts because I wanted to make more money than I could make it and I was starting to grow up. I was in my mid 20s Right. I start I went to work for the State of Alaska and I originally started doing contaminated sites working with rural communities because I had all this background and working with rural Alaska. And then the group that does terminals and tank farms for large bulk fuel storage groups. They needed somebody who understood rural Alaska as well because in Alaska, we have a very fractured power structure. Our infrastructure is individual. So each community has its own power source and generation capabilities because they're so far apart. You can't really connect them. And so in the 70s the state invested heavily in diesel generation, and now we're seeing other energies coming in to augment diesel but most of our communities are very far apart and have large bulk fuel storage tanks that hold diesel enough for a whole year of power generation and heat and all the other things communities need power for. So they brought me in because he's somebody who knew rural and then I worked at that job for maybe three or four years. And I became a business owner because I got pregnant and the state would not allow me to do part time work. And I said, Well, maybe I'll just stay home with my kid instead. And that lasted nine months. And then one of the people that I used to regulate or a company that I used to regulate called me up and said, Would you help us we have a problem. We don't really know what to do. We're not big enough to have a whole Environmental Management Program or team could you just help us and so I started it from my dining room table with my first kid and then I had a second and then we got a lot of business and I thought well I can only do so much and so I started adding other people and that's how I became a business owner.

Laura 
Nice. You mentioned starting at home at your kitchen table with your kids and picked your little boss babies.

Shannon Oelkers 
I have a very awesome picture of my computer and my kid balanced on the table.

Laura  
Well, that's fantastic. And I love that all the little pieces just kind of felt you know, you needed the rural experience that took you to this other thing and then one of your previous clients reached out to you and it kind of opened the door like Oh, I could do this and then you just kept going with it. And now you've kind of evolved into a really amazing, or at least what I think is kind of an ahead of the curve business model. So talk a little bit about how that evolved.

Shannon Oelkers  
Yeah, when I first started my business, I had some rules because as you remember, I was a stay at home mom before I launched my business and I wanted to protect that space with my kids. I wanted to be able to meet the school bus if I wanted to. I wanted to be able to go into the classroom and volunteer. And way back when I started the business in 2010. That really wasn't it was done but it wasn't mainstream like it is now post COVID right like this was I remember getting all sorts of bad advice. Like you have to have an office or nobody is going to take you seriously, right, right. Yeah, have an office no one's gonna call you and I'm like I'm a really good open thinker, like a very flexible with my thinking and so I thought I don't really need to have a cube and an office and so I kind of had this. Let's see how far I can go with it. Right? Like maybe I can, maybe I can't if it you know, I didn't feel like I had a whole lot to lose in the fact that I was like, let's just try it. And if it sucks, I'll go get an office but I could save $20,000 a year in rent if I just was able to do it from home. And so that was what I founded the company on. And when I started adding other people to the group, I wanted to give that same opportunity to everybody else. And one thing that I think most businesses have trouble with and I know why but I do think it's not insurmountable is it's very difficult to give women especially or anybody the flexibility to have part time when your kids are little and then full time when they go to school and then maybe part time again when they're struggling with all the high school things that teenagers bring to your life. So we have flexibility in the now like if you need to take 10 hours off this week because your kid made the hockey tournament. You gotta go, we're okay with that. We also have flexibility over time. And so we have some people who are working for as part time now, but they'll return to full time once their kids are out of a certain age range. And one of those reasons is altruistic. I wanted to make it this awesome job like the one I wanted, but it's also really beneficial to me as a business owner because I've got these amazingly niche trained, talented environmental managers and I don't lose them. Right. And they stay up to date and ready to work because they have part time work during these periods where they have more family obligations and so I sort of get, you know, instead of having a person for two years, and then they go away for five and then I bring them back on at the same level they were when they left. If I flex with them over their family planning periods, I end up with someone who's got seven years experience and ready to be full time when they come back. Right and so to me, that's worth it monetarily wise, and you know, in the feelings too. And so it is a bit of a struggle to manage all of that. And then there's an old fashioned term for it called job sharing where we have some positions where we've got two people in it who are both kind of at the same stage of life with family, and so they can kind of share the job and I have one full time equivalent of two people doing the job. So that's the business model that we've created. And it's been very, very profitable for me because our employees stay they're fanatically loyal. They love working here and I work very hard to make sure that they do love working here and it's made it very easy for us. To get top talent because they come to me. Like hey, Shannon, have you thought about hiring me for this job? And I'm like, I have thought about that.

Laura 
So that's great and they're all women.

Shannon Oelkers 
So far. Yes, they are all women. We are not opposed. To men. I get asked that a lot. Oh, we only have women. But I do think that some of our flexible modeling and some of the things that make the job appealing to a lot of women are not as appealing to men because they they're looking for the big career. The builders they want to work for big name recognition and we're a small boutique firm. We're never going to be the Jacobs of the world. And I don't want to be the Jacobs of the world either. So we have not had a guy yet. But I'm waiting. I'm sure we will eventually have somebody who that will find this appealing.

Nic 
No, I'm sure. I mean, I think we just mentioned it right post COVID world. That's your model of basically set up how we're going to be doing things in the future. I think

Shannon Oelkers 
Well in what's interesting is when COVID hit it didn't really affect us that much. On the office side. It was just traveling to rural Alaska for our site visits. That was the only thing that really stopped us up. But yeah, it was seamless on the office side. We already had everything set up to be secure and networked online and yeah, that just sort of grew out of us thinking ahead and thinking outside the box. And it served us very well in 2020.

Nic 
I mean, it really is very forward thinking I know that a lot of people younger people were clamoring for this all over the place. And most of what I was told what other people have been told is well no you have to be in an office because it's an office and you have to be there. What?

Shannon Oelkers 

But it's not true. I will say one thing that we do invest in team retreats about every other year so that we can get some face time and sort of get to understand each other on a physical level. And we do use certain tools to help understand personalities that you just can't get because there's no water cooler. So we use like Clifton Strengths Finder, for example, to understand how people work. I love that tool. It's so great.  People look at it initially like it's some weird horoscope thing but then how we work and what makes you feel good about your work. It gives you this whole level of understanding of how or why somebody is doing something that's not just well she doesn't like. She just doesn't like this job or the way you're asking her to do it or Yeah, so we didn't use those things for the in person piece. But we're talking a minimal investment over time. I mean, nothing like that rent check every single month that an office for 10 people would cost me.

Nic 
Yeah, exactly. I love that too. It's something we've Laura and I talked about a few times, but it's just like, everybody is so wrapped up in their own brain. You have to remember that like when you're wrapped up. I wonder what they think about me they're also asking the same question. So it's good to be there.

Shannon Oelkers 
yes.

Nic 
But you also mentioned so Alaska again, very unique environment. Fuels are really important. Like you said, communities are spread very far apart. So you're, you know, both fuel permitting expert. So what kind of projects do you actually work on? And do you have any idea?

Shannon Oelkers 
Sure. So what our firm does is we provide environmental permitting, planning and inspection services for large industrial groups that serve fuel in bulk or have really complicated, permitting around what they do, but it's not primarily what they do. So our classic client would be somebody who has bulk fuel farms in five or six communities in a region in Alaska, and they have to maintain and operate those facilities within all of the environmental permitting that Alaska has and Alaska is one of the most regulated states in the nation. You may remember something called the Exxon Valdez oil spill that happened in 1989. That happened here. And so when the EPA issued Open 90 and 1990, the state of Alaska, follow that with a series of regulations in 1992 and 1993. That regulate the transportation and storage of fuel heavily. And so we have some of the most restrictive and most complex regulations around storing fuel. And so the ability of the average, small to medium sized business to be able to do that well on their own is limited and so they bring us in as like experts or to help with the renewal process of some of these permits every five years because these are 1000 Page permits, and they're they're operating permits that are essentially legal documents with some spill response stuff tucked inside, right. These permits cover everything from like how to respond to a spill to how to maintain your infrastructure and how to have safety measures or precautions in place. So spill prevention in addition to spill response, and so our firm helps kind of all aspects of that, but we've also as we've grown larger, we started adding like air and water permitting compliance because you know, large tank farms have vapors, and they emit vapors. They also have stormwater discharges and they also have sometimes APDS or NPDs. water discharges depending on how old the facility is and what kind of things that they do. We've also taken on other industries like shipbuilding and seafood processing because they're doing one thing right fixing ships, processing seafood, but then they have all these permits and their ability to have an environmental program manager on site that understands all the pieces of it is limited and so they bring us in as pinch hitters to sort of help them figure out a big problem or get a permit through or understand where they're going wrong with record keeping. So that's what we do in general, a project that we're particularly proud of is recently involved in the construction of three new tanks in a community in a community called North Pole, Alaska.

Nic
No, stop.

Shannon Oelkers
It is. I'm actually from North Pole. I went to North Pole High School.

Laura
That's amazing.

Shannon Oelkers
But I have an end with Santa if you need it.  Wink, wink.  So they're constructing these three tanks, or were in final phases of constructing these three tanks in North Pole, Alaska to support the nearby Air Force Base, Eielson Air Force Base. And we were brought on originally to do the environmental operational permitting that is required for a new tank farm and they're like just get it all done for us. Okay. And this project of course, is like three years in the making and so when they originally bid it there was suspicion that PFOA, PFAS was in the groundwater, but they haven't necessarily gotten past that. In the three years that this project has been in development and gone through PFOA, PFAS has changed from something we should think about to it's definitely a problem to the state changing how they've allowed groundwater that is contaminated with PFOA, PFAS to be used drastically. And the state declared a critical water management area in the exact location where  this tank farm is and so that affected a whole lot of the engineering because, one they were relying on groundwater for the firefighting system. Which requires like 100,000 gallons within a 10 minute timeframe of water to fight fires. And it also affected the tank construction because normally when large steel tanks are constructed, and these are 8 million gallon tanks each so the really large tanks. Normally you construct it you Inspect your welds and then you fill the tank up with water and see how it settles and make sure there's no leaks in the tank. Well because the PFOA, PFAS groundwater was contaminated and there was no other source of 8 million gallons of water. They had to do a different way to do it. alternate method allowed them to the engineering standards and so we were part of all of that working with the state with the PFOA, PFAS actually brought in experts from Ahtna about PFOA, PFAS who've been handling everything at Eielson to kind of make sure we what we could and couldn't do because it was developing as we were trying to figure out what to do about it. And then we also work with the state to allow for that alternate testing of these large welded tanks. And so it was really fun. It kind of got to use all of our experience in one project at a really high level. And then it was kind of exciting to have stuff develop as we were looking at it and having to react really quickly. So that tank farm I think is one of our cool projects that we've done that I'm prouder of

Nic 
Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you brought it up because we haven't really talked to like PFOA, PFAS on the show much. But it's absolutely like you said it's a rising concern in the environmental field. You just walk us through. They're like Well, it's kind of maybe it's an issue. Oh no, no, it's absolutely a concern. So can you maybe give us a some of our listeners that don't know what that is kind of a brief overview of why it is so important.

Shannon Oelkers 
I'm not sure I can tell you off the top of my head what all the PFOA, PFAS initials stand for

Nic  
Yeah, no we don't worry about that

Shannon Oelkers 

it is poly fluoro. It's basically the components of firefighting foam and in places that had large military complexes or large airport complexes they used it for since the 1950s as part of their fire suppression systems. And one of the operational requirements that the fire marshal has had since the 50s is an annual test of the PFOA, PFAS or annual test of the firefighting system the AFFF system, which usually involves spraying foam all over the runway and then washing it away. So most airports and military installations have PFOA, PFAS  contaminated groundwater surrounding them. It's something that I think has always been there and has been there since the 50s and 60s, but it's now a concern because it's the molecular construction of PFOA, PFAS is likely to be cancer causing and the EPA has recognized that and they're being conservative and doing the research now to try to show that it is or is not. And so that's created this very odd space where we don't necessarily have regulations saying that it is cancer causing. We have a lot of protective stuff right now saying we think it's going to be here's how you're going to handle it in the meantime. And some of the very specific issues that we ran into that I thought were probably indicative of things that are going to go maybe in a national bend is with most contaminated groundwater. They allow you to use it for things like construction. If you de-water, if you pull water from a source as long as you're putting it back to where you know sort of like a no harm no foul rule. If you're pulling groundwater to use for wedding erode in the same area the groundwater is contaminated. They let you do that. But PFOA, PFAS  is very sticky, it sticks to materials, it sticks to rocks, sticks to tires, and so they are not allowing that if you pull PFOA, PFAS  water for a construction site. You can't use it for de-watering and you can't use it for mixing and so that is a significant cost issue for a whole lot of people that are doing work in places that have PFOA, PFAS  groundwater contamination and for us that was the the original plan was to use this large gravel pit on as the water draw for this AFFF fire system. And that had to be completely reworked and we ended up building a reservoir and are using potable drinking water from the nearby community. But we have to have 100,000 gallon reservoir so we can meet the engineering standards for firefighting, right? Yeah, soPFOA, PFAS , I think it's going to have really large impacts to the nation as a whole because it's going to fundamentally change how construction happens in places that have it much less drinking water and all the all the other things that go with living in a place like that.

Nic 
Yeah, wow. I mean, brilliant answer, so thank you. That's perfect.

Shannon Oelkers 

Hopefully I got it all right. I'm sure somebody whose a PFOA, PFAS  experts like what but but I would encourage you to go to the EPA's PFOA, PFAS  page. If you have more questions about it. They have a lot of really good material for just the average Joe wants to know about it, but they also want some information for environmental professionals who are interested in learning more about it and I I will say I think this is a really good opportunity because it's going to be a giant problem. And so if you can become an expert in it now, now's the time to do it.

Laura 
That's smart. That's good advice. Yeah. And there's there's a lot of different projects you can be involved in with it. Yes. So thank you for sharing that because it was a very clear way of stating what the issue is, and interesting because I actually mostly have heard of it from more of the like, paving standpoint, I hadn't heard that from like the way you described it. So that's awesome. And now it's time for Field Notes the part of our show where we ask our guests about memorable moments in the field. And I'm just imagining you probably have hours worth of things that have happened in the field in Alaska, especially in rural parts. So is there something one or two things that stands out?

Shannon Oelkers 
Sure. Well, one time we were doing phase one surveys for a micro communications tower company, and it was actually the coolest job of my career because I got flown around in my own personal helicopter to mountain tops all over Kodiak Island. It was amazing. I know it's it's amazing, right but we were doing it in the springtime. And so at one point, the helicopter touched down and I was supposed to hop out of the helicopter because we're very windy and he was just going to take off again. And so I hopped out. And the sun of course had been hitting the snowpack and it was very icy and I went and I started sliding off the mountain, and I didn't have an ice pick or anything and I remember I just dug in my pen and I'm not joking. I dug my pen and that's somehow slowing down enough to stop. Wow, okay, I didn't fall off the mountain and then the helicopter lifted away and I got up very carefully and then when the helicopter came back I asked him if he had any ice cleats and he said he sure did and so I put them on.

Laura 
I'm having a mini panic attack I hate I don't ski because I'm afraid of the lift.

Shannon Oelkers 
Yeah, that one was not maybe my like I that was one where I was like I need to be more careful.

Laura 
Yeah so smart to use your pen though. Oh my gosh.

Shannon Oelkers 
Yeah, I screwed the pen up though. It was not happy

Nic 
I love that pen. Oh, wow. That's pretty incredible. But yeah, do you have you got have Eagles around there too. Right. Do you have anything? 

Shannon Oelkers 
I do have, Yeah, I do have an eagle story. So one of our tank farms is in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. And you guys probably are very familiar with that from shows like Deadliest Catch and eagles when they are nesting are viciously protective of their nest and they sometimes nest around the cliffs in a tank farm in Dutch Harbor. And I came up to do an inspection and I wanted to go to the top of tank four. And they're like no. Nope, you can't. The eagles are over there. And I was like how bad could it be? I'm like, What are they gonna do to me? I got a hard hat on and they're like, well take a look at Fred. And Fred, maybe two three weeks before me with a hard hat on and the eagle had dive bombed him knocked his helmet off and scalped him like grabbed. Oh my gosh, it just grabbed his his hair and just like rip that chunk of his head off. And he had to go get a bunch of stitches. I was like, You know what, I'm good. I could just take from here I don't need to kind of that stuff so they seasonably close that tank for anything because if you climb up that stairway the Eagles are going to get you and then I went up there with representatives from the USDA to like remove the eagle's nest and this is something I didn't even know it were I live in Anchorage there's lots of trees and the Eagles build giant nests out of sticks right? So I was imagining a nest full of sticks although, I don't know where they would have gotten sticks in Dutch Harbor because there's no trees but in my mind I was imagining in essence, right. So we go up it's well past the meeting season and they're like well just remove the nest and then hopefully the Eagles won't come back next year and Fred can climb the tank without any fears. We show up in the nest is nothing but a ring of Eagle poop on rocks. I was like oh well we can remove it but they'll go back real quick. I can see that. So in Dutch Harbor, the Eagles make nests on a bare rock out of their own poop.

Laura 
Wow, fascinating.

Nic 
Yeah, what else can you say?

Laura 
That's yeah, I need a moment here.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah,

Laura  
That's crazy. Great. story. I would also would have thought sticks. Yeah. I don't know. I thought eagles were a little more regal than that. But you gotta do, what you gotta do I guess.

Nic 
oh, man. I mean there's there's a like a secret joke that eagles are basically a vulture  with a really good PR agent. That's that's a little mean. But that's basically it. Yeah.

Shannon Oelkers 
They're really big. I think people I don't know, maybe in the lower 48 are smaller, but the ones in Alaska are large. Like they're they can be like four feet long, just like talon to beak to. And then their wings are pretty wide too. I mean, they're powerful birds. But yeah, they are kind of scavengers, like they'll, they'll take the path of least resistance every time.

Nic 

Yeah, you have those instead of seagulls. Right.

Shannon Oelkers 
Oh, no, we got those too,

Nic 
You get those two. Well, there you go. But they're all at the dump. Right? They're all and you know,

Shannon Oelkers 
the Eagles and the seagulls. Yes.

Nic 
Tuesday Good to see you bud, yeah.

Laura 
All right. Well, the fieldwork sounds amazing. The work sounds amazing. What are you doing to take care of yourself and in your downtime, what kind of things to do for fun.

Shannon Oelkers 
I'm an amateur artist. I do a lot of painting and drawing, and it's things I can do on in the field. too. I am a biologist at heart. Obviously I wanted to be that wolf biologist and I first started out so I am often drawing interesting things. And looking and researching about animals and I'm new to this summer I got to go to the Pribilof Islands which are really unique. They're almost like the Galapagos of the North if you will, they're the people see the northern fur seal rookeries that the Russians look for for hundreds of years and they have really rare seagulls. They're called Red-legged kittiwakes. And they pretty much only breed. They're the last population on earth of them. And I just have all these really cool variants of finches and larks birds that only breed and nest there, so anyway, just a fascinating place to go. And I took my notebook and every day when I was done with the tank farm, I would hop in my little rental vehicle and book it to the seal blinds and sketch seals and paint seals and check out the birds. And anyway, I really like taking what I see and putting it down on paper and just sort of getting the art piece to it. It's one of the things that calms my mind and I only think about art when doing it. And as a business owner, I'm juggling a million things in addition to the science part of it, right like I'm trying to figure out how payroll and all these things I make sure my HR is on point, you know, like there's all these pieces to it that have nothing to do with science. So art kind of feeds that part of my soul that needs to just focus on the amazing beauty that I live in. I am so happy and thankful that I was born and raised in Alaska is one of the coolest places on earth and I get to go play that every single day and so art is sort of like my way of celebrating.

Nic  
That's incredible. It's really really cool. I love that. It's that's why we asked the question, Laura. That's exactly it. Like I love hearing that answer. Nearly all have we everybody needs that right? Everybody needs space and time

Shannon Oelkers 
And to that, someone who's someone who's north of 40, I learned the importance of doing and making time for things that are important for your health. Because when you're 20 and 30 you can kind of overshoot the runway a little bit. It starts it hurts a lot more. And you're like oh I can't do this anymore. And in fact, I need to undershoot so that I don't you know. So I would encourage people as they get older to be more conservative and make more time for it because the candle you can burn at both ends when you're 20 just it's not burning anymore at 40 and I think wisdom to like it's not really fun. To be burned out. You can do it. And it's not fun, right? It's not how you live your life for the whole chunk of your life. It should be something that happens and it's an indicator not Oh, this is how I live all the time.

Laura  
Yeah, no matter how much we love our jobs, saving the environment. We need to take a break.

Shannon Oelkers  
It's just a job. It's not going to show up at your funeral.

Nic 
You write that down. I'm writing that down.

Laura 
Well, we are close to our time. Can we visit you in Alaska? Nick and I that is

Shannon Oelkers 
Absolutely let me know. I have an itinerary prepared for you.

Laura
Kara too. I see Kara raising her hand.

Shannon Oelkers
Oh hear you guys like bears. I heard you guys like bears on previous podcast.

Nic 
Yeah, of course.

Laura 
I like it all everything. So yeah, and

Nic 
I'll get dive bombed. I don't even have hair for the Eagles to scalp. I'm good, let's do it.

Laura 
Fantastic. So Shannon, the last time I was in Alaska was for our conference, not conference. It was a board meeting in Anchorage and I have one of my best friends lives in Alaska. So I stayed an extra week and hung out McCarthy which was amazing. But you're a member of that. That board can you tell us about that? How long have you been a member and what you all do up there?

Shannon Oelkers 
Sure. I've been a member I think for years now with COVID. It gets a little fuzzy. I'm not sure I renewed in 2020 But I've been a member for about four years. And the Alaska Chapter of the Association of environmental professionals is basically it's a group of people that get together for brown bag lunches, and we sort of share professional resources and networking. And I found it really helpful because I work in this very heavy industrial kind of niche category. We don't do a lot of stuff with NEPA and some of these other things and so it's kind of nice to just tie into the the community of environmental professionals as a whole, even though what we're doing is very specific. And so also it's allowed me to refer people to other people in our chapter like we had a study once that needed an archaeological evaluation as part of it and I was able to reach out and get somebody through the association to be able to help. I was like, Hey, here's somebody that does this. And all I had to do was send an email to the AEP and they were like, oh, so and so does this also does this in some sort of sounds like awesome, perfect.

Laura
That's great. I love those stories.

Shannon Oelkers
Yeah, yeah. So it's just fun networking and then they have a pre COVID They would have like annual meetings where we get to meet and greet people. And they always have really, really good speakers. And so I really enjoyed the webinars. Sometimes they would bring in from like people from the lower 48 and it would be this webinar, and then we could talk about it afterwards. And that was almost as valuable as listening to the webinar and just hearing all these different ideas and viewpoints about what we just talked about. Were listened to.

Laura 
Awesome. Maybe when we visit Nick, we can make it to one of their meetings.

Nic  
Yeah, I'm in, I'm totally in Alaska

Laura 
We'll overshoot the runway together. Right, right.

Nic
 
This is when it's okay. This is when it's okay to do that. I haven't hit 40 yet. So I still have time.

Laura 
So we'll be staying on the sidelines and watching you overshoot the runway. Is there anything else you want to talk about that we didn't get to ask you

Shannon Oelkers 
I would like to talk about scientific literacy in schools. It's something that I feel like will really help the next generation understand some of the things they're gonna have to understand to make good decisions. A lot of environmental regulations are the result of public policy decisions. And I feel like we need more objective and critical leaders of scientific reports and news reports. And we work really hard. It's one of the things that we partner with a couple different school districts in Alaska and we work really hard with we partner with the science fair, for example, to get kids linked up to professionals in their field that they're interested in. And we work very hard on increasing scientific literacy and understanding how the scientific process works and what a robust science experiment is. I'm sure you guys are aware with kids that there's scientific demonstrations. That are called experiments, but they're not actually scientific data gathering. Yes, projects, right. And so kids grow up thinking a demonstration is an experiment and they don't actually learn about repetition and repeatability. And so we work really hard from kindergarten on up to have good quality scientific programming in our schools so that the kids understand the difference between demonstrations and accurate scientific data and how those come to be because I feel like they need to make those decisions for everything from drinking water to how we handle historical contamination to chemicals in the food that we eat, you know, all these things require some basic scientific literacy and whatever we can do to make that stronger and better is really important. So that's my soapbox. I'll step off of it.

Nic 
No, I love it. I I work at the science fair here as well. And I love that that exact thing and giving back and, you know, sometimes it's hard because like you what you do is you say, Okay, well these three projects are really good, but okay, I saw a lot of terrible projects. I saw a lot of stuff that wasn't even a project. It was just like a I found water outside, you know, and so

Shannon Oelkers
 
and that's why we need scientific literacy because their parents and that kid worked so hard on that project, thinking it was real science and it is the beginning of science, right? But they they don't even realize that it needs four or five more steps before it gets to the point where it would be rigorously tested in the eyes  of a science based observer. And so we work pretty hard to use the science fair to educate parents and kids and then we also provide content to schools that ask for it. We also do a lot of stuff with like energy, like how energy gets to your communities so they understand where the power is coming from. Because for us, it's a barge with fuel on it that delivers fuel right? Yeah, they don't know that. Like it comes from the power plant like, yes, but the power plant has two large tanks full of full and it came to the community in a barge. So we sort of connect the cycle and make sure that the kids understand where everything's coming from and their community.

Laura 
Very cool. That's That's great work. And so if someone wants to get in touch with you, how would you best prefer that?

Shannon Oelkers 
The easiest would be on my LinkedIn account. If you find me on LinkedIn, and you'll get a never ending stream of cool Alaska photos because I travel quite a bit. I know Laura's seen them already.

Laura 
Love it. Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been fantastic and can't wait to hang out with you in person.

Shannon Oelkers 

Yeah, awesome. Anytime, for real. I would be happy to host you.

Nic 
Sounds great. Now we're in. We're in. I'll see you tomorrow.

Shannon Oelkers  
Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate the time.

Nic
Thank you.

[Outro]

Laura 
Thank you for coming. That's our show. Thank you Shannon for joining us today all the way from Alaska and early in the morning. This was super fun and such great conversation. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday and don't forget to subscribe rate and review. Bye.

Nic 
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai




Shannon's special "And Finally"
Nic & Laura discuss gender workplace challenges
Interview with Shannon Oelkers starts
Alaska
Fuel Tanks
Field Notes: Not so regal eagles
Science Literacy