 Welcome to the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. A podcast focused on helping geotechnical engineers stay up to date with technical trends in the field. I'm your host Jared Green and I've been practicing as a geotechnical engineer for over 17 and a half years and in addition to practicing engineering, I enjoy mentoring young engineers and first-generation college students. I've focused on helping to increase the number of pre-college students that are interested in STEAM majors and fields. By STEAM, I mean science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. In this episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast, I am excited to be interviewing Karen Durham Aguilera, more commonly known as KDA, who is the executive director at the Army National Military Cemetery. We will be talking about her career and her role at the Army National Military Cemetery and also she's going to provide some great advice to Geotechnical Engineering leaders. Before I tell you more about our guests, I'd like to let you know that the Engineering Management Institute has several engineering-related podcasts. The newest is this week in civil engineering and it's coming very soon. There will be a short weekly podcast with all the important news in the world of civil engineering. You can find all these content channels on their civil engineering media and entertainment page at cement.media. Again, that's cement.media. Now, I'd like to formally introduce you to our guest for today, Ms. KDA. Ms. Karen Durham Aguilera is the executive director of Army National Military Cemetery and the Arlington National Cemetery, serving as the principal advisor to the Secretary of the Army on all matters related to Army Cemetery. Ms. Durham Aguilera administers and oversees policies, doctrine, plans, and standards with all stakeholders to include the Army staff, major commands, and the other services. She establishes and sustains grave site accountability, provides technical guidance, training, staff assistance, and inspections, educates burial exceptions, disinterment, expansion requests at nearly 40 Army cemeteries across the nation. As executive director, she oversees the nation's premier military cemetery, over 6,500 burials, 4,000 ceremonies, and 3.5 million visitors each year. And she manages a $70.8 million annual budget, a $130 million in existing major constructions and expansions, and the planning of a new $350 million expansion. KDA has a long and very impressive bio that we'll include in the show notes of this episode. And with that, let's jump right into our conversation with Ms. KDA. KDA, welcome to the Geotechnical Engineering podcast. We are honored to have you. How are you feeling? Actually, I'm feeling pretty good. And I mean, it's really my honor and my privilege. I just love talking about being an engineer and especially what engineers can do in this world. Excellent, excellent. We appreciate it. We went through your bio for the listeners. I got to say, you have an impressive bio. And I'm not the first person to say that to you. Well, I've been really fortunate. I've been really blessed in my career that I've been able to do a lot of different things in many parts of the world. Wonderful, wonderful. Well, KDA, sharing your bio with the audience, you know, it's obvious that you truly have had an incredibly accomplished career. Now, when you think about in your own words, can you share with the listeners, let's say, a brief synopsis of your career journey and then also let them know today, like what does a daily day look like for you in your current position? All right, thank you. Well, first, I am an engineer. I'm originally from Louisville, Kentucky. That's Louisville for everybody outside Kentucky. And I went to the University of Louisville. I received both my bachelor's and my master's there in Louisville. And Louisville's engineering school, which at the time was called Speed Scientific School, had a requirement for anyone getting a master's and that's that you had to work a year as a co-op. It didn't necessarily have to be a continuous year, but I was lucky enough that that I started my co-op early, working for an AE firm in Louisville before it actually began while I was when I was still taking classes. And so that was really my first introduction to being out in the field, being out in the real field with the construction crew, as well as working with the engineer on the technical piece. And then the other part of that co-op is I spent about nine months working for the Tennessee Valley Authority in Tennessee for the Hartfield Nuclear Plant, which never came online. But at the time, it was this massive construction site. And so the biggest things that I learned from that, that's the first time I became aware of scheduling, using earned value, critical path method, just a whole bit. And the other thing that was very rare at that time is there were the two lead engineers that I worked with were both women. That time was extremely rare. I mean, even when I graduated from U of L with my master's in civil engineering and I focused on geotech, there were only five of us counting me. So yeah, things have changed a lot, which I'm glad to say over the years. I started out in private industry, first working for an AE firm in Decatur, Alabama. And then the thing I still remember to this day is there was a water tank foundation that the firm had been hired to design. And the lead engineer let me do the design and it was in an area that was mostly limestone. So he designed the blasting pattern to actually identify all of that. And I designed the foundation. And after I left that firm about a year later, he sent me a postcard. It was a picture of the water tank. Yeah, all I said was your water tank is still standing. So I guess I was successful. There you go. And then after that, I found myself in New Orleans. And I worked for a geotech firm, McClellan, which changed names a couple of times and owners since then. But I spent most of that my time working offshore. So I was working on jack up barges or drill rigs, literally doing calculations by hand for piles where you'd have a drill rig just waiting for us to be done. So they would know where to set and how deep to set the foundation. Wow, incredible experience because that meant that we were doing literally soul borings, you know, in the ocean doing the analysis on the ship. And then I was doing actual calculations, literally using a calculator, which means you really had to know how to do all that. Exactly. We should pause everything else is incredible. I couldn't do it now, but at the time that's what we were doing. Wow. And again, I was the one and only woman that was doing that. Wow. At this time, at sometime during that, the offshore and onshore oil support industry took a nosedive to including a e-farms. And the US Army Corps of Engineers was looking for engineers and they were looking for engineers that deep foundation experience because they were doing an in-house design of the old river auxiliary structure, which was a dam of spillway. So all of my experience at that time was in deep foundations. So I was lucky enough that I heard about it. They were recruiting people and they hired me directly. And so that's how I ended up having what eventually became a 34-year career with the Army Corps of Engineers. Wow. Started out all in geotech, though at the time we called it Soils and Foundations. Okay. You know, it became known as geotech eventually. And I was able to be both the lead engineer for the design of the pile foundation for the old river auxiliary structure. And after a couple of years, I realized that I really liked being a geotech. I could be the best geotech in the world, but I would only have limited influence and a limited spear. So I decided to switch over because I really like construction. I switched over to being a construction manager, project engineer. Okay. And I never looked back from that. So from there, I went on to Germany. I was in Germany for nearly four years in a couple of different places as a project engineer and a supervisory project engineer where I worked on things like design build, family housing projects, weapon size, just all kinds of things. But what really stood out about that, aside from the experience, were two things. First, you know, I was in my late 20s at the time, thought I knew everything like most of us do. Exactly. And then I find myself overseas and I became aware that the world had a very different view of America than we did. Wow. And so that we really just, it just really made a mark on me of just finding out about different perspectives and different attitudes. And a lot of the attitudes towards Americans was not good. The second place that I worked over there, I remember this clearly, it took me 20 different times to find an apartment. Because the first 19, I was told, we don't rent to single women or we don't rent to Americans. Wow. And even though I was only in my late 20s, I was considered a spinster. Wow. And I had numerous German men that I was working with telling me, don't worry, maybe you'll find yourself a good husband. True story. Unbelievable. But anyway, the other thing that I learned to do because of one of the high visibility projects that was on is be able to, to clearly breed people at high levels, three star, four star generals, cabinet secretaries, just all kinds of people that you can think of. And that was my early exposure to that. And I found out that even though I'm an engineer, I actually had a knack for it. Wow. Amazing enough, I was good, I was good at it. From there, I went to Pueblo, Colorado. I was a resident engineer on on flood control works. And at this time, it was the first ever cost shared flood control project between the Army Corps of Engineers and the local government entity. Okay. And then because we finished early, was able to bring that project again early and under budget. I found myself at Holloman Air Force Base for less than a year. Again, as a resident engineer for all types of military construction support facilities, mostly to the Air Force, of course. Okay. And then I spent the next several years at Cannon Air Force Base as a resident engineer. And this was lots of firsts for me design bill, but not only being the resident engineer, I was able to talk the agency until allowing me to be the project manager as well, at least during the design phase. Okay. Major hospital renovations, which I had never done before and very, very complicated to oversee that kind of work. And then after that, I was able to go to Anderson, Alabama as the area engineer on chemical demilitarization facility. These are facilities that were built to dispose of mustard gas and nerve gas agents that had been stored in bunkers since the early days of the Cold War. And the last thing you want in your neighborhood, you know, is stored, you know, nerve agents. For real. Yeah. But aside from being very tactically complex, because this was one of the first one of those facilities that had been done to reduce that stockpile, there was very hostile public sentiment for that. There were people that did not want us to be doing that at all, despite the good it would be doing for the community. To the point that people would protest, you know, lay down in front of the excavators, our workforce, and we had a very diverse workforce from all over the world. But some of our workforce that had children in school, when their schoolmates found out what their parents did, then the school were being harassed. Really? Wow. Yeah. So that's when I first really became aware of true risk communication. Took some courses on how to successfully communicate difficult topics with the public, and some of those techniques I'm still using today. And so what that taught me is, aside from the tactical aspect, which was incredible, it's the public aspect, especially the risk communication part, on things that the public initially is very much against. I mean, this is one of those places where universities were giving students college credit for civil unrest, and would bust them out even from different states into the area to attend public meetings. It was really amazing. Really amazing. Fascinating. That makes it complicated to do what you're supposed to do. It made it very complicated also to stay focused. I had, this was what's called a GOCO. In other words, government-owned contractor operated. So that meant design bill during the design and construction phase. And then once it was commissioned, then it was contractor operated to actually dispose of the stored stove and your gas and mustard gas. Okay. But it really meant that the team was embedded throughout. Wow. I had the contractor's foreman. Actually, he was the overall project manager. Tell me that I had an ability to see through smoke. In other words, see through all the different things that were going on and keep the team focused on what was important. That's incredible. It was really difficult. The other thing that I did while I was there, first, I spent the first year of that before the construction really got going, standing up the construction program for all of the Kim D. Mill sites that the Army Corps Majors was taking on. And then I also spent several months in the Army Corps, but near headquarters where I really, really learned how government works. What it takes to get a project through all the different wickets of appropriations, the different federal agencies that are involved, and also the network. So I learned a lot of lessons that I came to use later on in my career. Wow. After a few years there, I went over to Sacramento and I was the chief of construction operations that operated across several states for a variety of missions, not just military construction, but civil works that included dams, flight control dams, numerous construction projects of all different types. And then also disaster response. So between the detail and that's when I first got involved in flood fighting and responding to other disasters. And while I was there, I did another detail at the Army Corps headquarters. This time as an acting senior executive, which at the time they had never done before, plus never had somebody there from the field. And Washington D.C., anybody outside the Beltway, Washington D.C. is called in the field. Not the real field. What I would call the real field, which is an operating site, construction or a dam or whatever. But I was in the office located in Sacramento, though I oversaw that work all these different places. But bringing somebody in out from outside the Beltway at that time was something they had never done. So what I did was give them ground truth of the impact of policies that they were trying to promulgate. And what it gave me was really opening up my eyes on first what a senior executive could do, that I could do it, that I could do it. And if I wanted to continue to span my sphere of influence, then that would be my next step. And I had never thought about that before. And then I had people encouraging me, other SESs as well as general officers, saying, hey, you can do this. You need to apply. So I did. And so I became a senior executive, which has been over 17 years now. I started out Northwestern Division in Portland, Oregon, which oversaw work across 14 states to include some really complex civil works projects such as the high head dams and hydro power all up and down the Missouri River. And the high head dams and hydro power across the Columbia Snake Rivers, and being able to actually operate to deliver all those different missions, flood control, water supply, navigation, would also do it and meet the needs of the endangered species. And then Columbia at Salmon in Missouri, it was several different species. So being able to do that work across different agencies at the time for the Missouri River, there was litigation from 14 different states, Indian tribes, numerous other stakeholders, SGOs, it was really incredible. So we actually were successful. I really just invaluable experience. While I was there, one of the things that the Army Corps of Engineers does, since the days of Vietnam, they've been deploying engineers to the battlefield. And so I deployed to Iraq. Really? Yes, yes. I was there as the director of reconstruction for the Army. And reconstruction means hospitals, clinics, schools, police stations, as well as utilities such as getting oil refineries, you know, water and sewage systems working. It was just really incredible. So for a couple of reasons. First, I really didn't have a true appreciation of what our military does. And this was a joint position, in other words, all branches of the armed forces, which I'd never had before, as well as civilians from across the world to include Iraqi nationals. But to see what our military does and to see our Marines, especially the way they're geared and they're on the front lines is just, I just can't even describe what it means for what our military goes through. Wow. You know, and they do, they do that for us, for our liberty and our freedom is just truly amazing. I had a two star general to set me over there saying, you will never be the same once you've done this. And he was absolutely right. But there were a lot of good things too, aside from those, those complexities and being in a war zone and learning how to be embedded with the military. I, one of the things I was really proud of is I set up a network for Iraqi women owned businesses, small owned businesses so they could partner with, with general construction firms, you know, not just in construction, but also some other businesses like IT services and supply contracts. Because at that time, one of the things that had been going on in Iraq was in the past, women had a lot of, a lot of freedom, you know, but under, under the Ayatollah and everything else and under Saddam, they did not, they didn't have much at all. So it was really good to be able to gather those women in and help help try to make things better. The other thing is as an engineer, it was shocking to learn how bad a state the country was in. Basically, if you were in Saddam Hussein's inner circle, you had working water and sewer, so they thought they really weren't operating the way they thought. Or he would direct that a dam such as Mosul Dam was actually built over a sink stone area. And then the the Iraqi spit year is filling those sink homes with grout and eventually the army commissioners and then in partnership with Iraq was able to, to repair that. Just, just unbelievable stuff. I also learned for the first time, truly had to manage a large program, which at that time was tens of billions of dollars, you know, using our earned value, you know, being able to protect, look for trends. And so that, that experience really stood me well later on. So once I got back, I spent a little more time in Portland and then I went to New Orleans. Because while I was in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina hit. And even though we were in our own nightmare, just just watching the images on TV, what Katrina did was just astounding. And one of my senior people was a colonel, an army colonel who was part of the, the guard in Louisiana, Louisiana, Louisiana. And so he just, I have to go home. I have to go home, you know, and help. I said, sure, you can go home as soon as you tell me what your replacement, where your replacement is where he's getting here because we have a mission here too. So that was incredible. So when I, when I got back after a few months, the army corps headquarters was asking me if I wanted to go to New Orleans and lead, you know, the development execution of that post Katrina repair and restoration program for the storm damage reduction. And my first response was, hell no, I just went back from Iraq. And thank, thank, thank God, the person I was working for was a two star general said, wait a second, go down and see what's going on. And he was absolutely right. And after I did that, I came back and said, put me in coach, put me in. There you go. It's, it's hard as heck, but it's historic and it's gratifying. I want to do it. And so the chief engineers just decided to do that other than being deployed. And then despite the other challenges, hardest thing I've ever done, not just technically, it was a $14.7 billion program with nearly 400 construction contracts and R and D and all kinds of things. But it was under intense public eye criticism, constantly being under a microscope because of the failures that occurred that the core was just a part of the story was the core was to blame. The reality was the core was a part of that. There were many people that contributed to making errors in judgment design. And what they thought was was a protection system at the time that it was built and even that was only partly built. So it's been several years there. I was proud to say that we actually accomplished that and we did it in incredible time, literally most of it in about four years to include just huge multi-billion dollar design build programs. Most public speaking I've ever done, you know, not just to technical but but communities, right? Community, media, testifying before Congress, testifying in the state government. I had already, when I was in Portland, I did testify on the Hill for some things we were doing, but never to the extent that I did when I was in New Orleans. From there, when it got to the point where the problem was far enough along that we did not need a senior executive on the ground, the core brought me into their headquarters. And I spent six years there as the director of contingency operations. So that was leading the federal engineer disaster response across a whole host of disasters to include floodstores, needles, hurricanes, wildfire, mudslides, and in particularly, superstorm sanding. But I also put together the engineering teams forward the support of the warfighter on the battlefield mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. So just a credible amount of experience and some of the big things on that was sandy. So our superstorm sandy was the first true national realization of resiliency. In other words, how to get hardening measures in place, how to truly be prepared, how to absorb and bounce back, what you have to do if you're going to live near a coast, but even having to protect your utilities from inland flooding such as the subway system in New York City, all kinds of things that people hadn't thought of or were not prepared for. I think things really changed after that. I would not say the nation's where it needs to be, but the realization, especially state and local governments, the measures that they take is just extraordinary. Yeah. After some years of that, I'll never forget this. I was at a tabletop exercise for Northcom in Colorado and I was about to fly back and on the plane with me was the deputy administrator of FEMA. And he said, hey, I need to talk to you. Are you getting stale? Am I? Yeah. I'd hear a response to that. I know. I know. What do you say to something like that? And he said, um, what big things do you have in mind that you haven't yet accomplished? And he said, I don't mean tweaking along the edges or making adjustments. What big things do you have in mind that you haven't yet accomplished? And I didn't have an answer for that. You've done a lot at this point. Exactly. And so what he really made me think then it was time to also think about what else I could do. What else can I give? And so at this point, I'd already been spending several years really after Hurricane Sandy when I needed something bigger, you know, and then just always focusing on the mission. Um, and I was a part of a group called the Patriot Guard Riders and the Patriot Guard Riders is a motorcycle based group because I ride motorcycles and they established themselves in 2005 to basically shield families, um, who were grieving were at literally burial services for their loved one who were fallen, their loved ones who had fallen in battle and that there was a group that were protesting soldiers. It was very ugly. And so Patriot Guard had evolved since then to not only support families at, uh, at burial services and the provide escorts, but also do things like greet World War II owner flights. Well, thank our greatest generation or, or do ribbon cuttings for providing smart homes to disabled vests, just all kinds of things. That's awesome. So I had a passion for trying to serve our veterans and families, you know, beyond, and, you know, just the, the military aspect programs that I've been involved in. And so prominent that it's always a national cemetery. Well, at that time, um, the army secretary of the army decided to externally recruit a further executive director. I say externally recruit because this is a equivalent to a three star general position. And prior to that, they were assigning people already at that level. Well, they decided to compete for, well, I just, I competed. I decided to compete because I had the passion as well as the skills, not just running big programs, being able to, to work with other government entities in the public and the hill, because it's very political. Um, but also there is, uh, one of the biggest street of challenges with the, it was the infrastructure. They're very old and 18 infrastructure that need to repair and modernization. Well, being an engineer and a lot of the programs that I've done was, was an excellent fit. Yeah. So the good news is I competed. I was honored. I was selected. And so that's what I've been doing for the last three and a half years. And then just one other tidbit on that. I did not know this at the time that I was selected. I'm dual headed. I'm not only the executive director of our national cemetery and the cemetery for the soldiers and airmen's home in Northwest, uh, upper Northwest DC, which is actually older than Arlington. I'm also the headquarters principals for all army cemeteries. And there's, there is another three of them that are located across the nation. And so being able to, uh, there wasn't really a good program, stand up that program for those standards, as well as take care of Arlington. For me, it's felt like a new passion and second career, but all of those skills that I had built up is what, what made me equip to be able to do those. Wow. That is just incredible. I mean, literally, like your journey sounds like the journey of like five or six or seven people together. I moved so many times. I have to look at my resume to see how many times I've actually moved or the dates, but again, I just, I've been incredibly fortunate. A lot of us being in the right place at the right time, being willing to take a chance, but it's also by having a excellent support network. Wow. Well, looking at the, uh, the tapestry of that journey, it's almost like it was created for you to be right where you are right now. You know, I truly believe that, you know, it's always about the right person at the right time because things do change. And I think that for everything that I've described to you, I was the right person at that right time, but then there's also having the right team and then being able to collaborate with people way beyond your team so that to be successful. Makes a lot of sense. I mean, when you look at, so Arlington National Cemetery, it's a very big place. It's huge. And I understand it's 624 acres. Uh, you have an average of about 30 burials weekdays and 10 on Saturdays. That's a lot of responsibility. That's a lot of coordination. How do you manage worklock balance? How do you do? Well, several things. First, it's 639 acres now. 639. Yes. This year, this year, we did a land exchange with a national park service where we picked up Memorial Avenue, you know, from the entrance just beyond Arlington National Cemetery all the way into the cemetery and actually on property inside the cemetery. So it's all ours now. And then we also gave them an internal parcel because they own and operate the Arlington house, you know, the old lean manner. And then we do have nearly 30 burials a day, every single day, which is around 7,000 a year. There are literally 4,000 to 5,000 families waiting to be scheduled at any one time because the demand is huge. And that's across all branch of the armed services. Okay. And so how do we manage that? Well, first, you know, personally, everyone needs to decompress. Whatever your passion is, we all need that. Well, we're not going to be able to have a clear mind and be able to deal with all the things that are thrown our way. Just things are always changing like the COVID environment we've all been in. Yeah. So the way I decompress is first riding my Harley. Okay. Both my husband and I ride. So on the weekends, you can find us out on the beautiful byways of Virginia. Nice. Nice. And then of course, working out, you know, I really believe that you to be mentally fed, you need to be physically fed. Yeah. So for me, it's riding a bicycle. Washington DC has a wonderful network of bicycle trails. And then I've been lifting weights for 30 plus years on a former competitor. Okay. I'm never quit doing that as well. Excellent. Excellent. Wow. So that's that's the work-life balance. When I hear your career, I have to imagine that you had some hurdles. I have to imagine you had some hardships. You know, what can you share with our listeners for how are you able to overcome any hardships over the years? So everyone has struggles is a, you know, pursue their profession. For many years, as I alluded to earlier, there are very few women, you know, not just getting out of school, but as I focused pretty early on, on being in the field and being in construction on construction projects and being a position of authority, there are very few women often. I was the one and only. I was constantly being taken for the secretary or the public affairs person or all kinds of things. So constantly being question and having to prove myself. I think we often prove ourselves. But at least then for women, it was even more so. I'm really great. It's really great to see how that's changed over the years. There are still not as many women in positions of being a senior executive, you know, or the CEO types, but it's absolutely gotten a lot better. But I think the other challenge though is what I would call bureaucracy and inertia. Being able to convince colleagues, supervisors, people that work for me, but especially decision makers, about taking an informed rest to deliver a program or project and do it in ways that you previously thought were possible. Everything from construction management at risk acquisition, to cost sharing the design piece of a design build program, to using a risk-based total project or program cost estimate and going after that as the money that's needed for the investment of the project. And then of course you have to manage within that. I could give numerous examples, but learning how to socialize, collaborate and convince a direction, especially in contrast to a past decision that people had thought was once that decisions made it cannot be shared or changed and taken a new course. I think that's, that's, it wasn't probably the big hurdles I've had all along to include my current job. You know, so being able to figure out what those hurdles are and work through that and convincing others to overcome it and take a new path is probably the biggest challenge regardless of where I've been. Probably one of the biggest challenges that I've had. Thank you for that. I know it's going to mean a lot to our listeners. Wow. Now when you think about your profession, what would you say is a common myth about your profession or field if you want to debunk? I think a common myth is that engineers can't talk. Yeah, there you go. You know, engineers are introverts and if you go any of the leadership profiles, engineers is a group are introverts and there's some funny jokes about that, but introverts that can't communicate in the real world. So engineers first have to know how to verbally and clearly communicate both verbally and the written product because if we don't tell our story, we're not going to be able to convince anyone. And that's, that's, that's could be a design decision. It could be some of the things that I've talked about with project or program delivery, but we have to have the ability to be able to do that. And for a lot of us, that means getting outside our comfort zone. And I was fortunate enough that I was involved in projects at an early age that were very visible, that were publicly controversial. And for whatever reason, I learned I had a knack for it, but I still needed training. Yeah. So taking risk communication, training and then going out and actually applying it in the real world. And then some of the higher level courses as well, you know, I said, I let you know, I had a bachelor's and a master's. I'm a registered professional engineer in the state of Louisiana. But I've also taken advanced courses at Harvard John Kennedy School of Government crisis and leadership and some of the international programs as well, which are excellent because of the people that are in there from all over the world. So taking those personal risks, learning how to talk, being able to convince others, you know, not just with a written product and verbally, I think those are really key to engineers to truly be successful. Definitely, definitely. And, you know, when you have those skill sets behind you or within you, I should say it allows you to step out of your comfort zone more. We don't want to step out of the comfort zone, but after we do it and we survive, we say, okay, well, I'll try this next thing. And it looks like that was allowing you to really just keep climbing, you know? Yes. Yes. I truly believe that that was a big part of it. Awesome. Katie, I understand that you've given advice regarding what it means to be an effective leader. And I saw, I read that you have the four C's competence, commitment, courage and caring. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that? Yes. Of course, confidence is competence in your field. Okay. You know, none of us knows everything, but if you're leading a group of people, if you don't have the national competence to really stand when it's about you cannot give, you cannot give direction, you can't help people learn, and if chances are, you're going to end up with the wrong action because you truly don't understand it. Yeah. But you have to perform. You have to perform. Commitment, commitment is also what I would call passion. If you're not truly committed, regardless of where you're working and what you're doing, if you don't passion for it, you're not going to last long. You're not going to be happy that everybody around you will know it. Wow. That's something that you cannot, you cannot hide. Courage, of course, is taking personal risk, but it's also taking the risk to be able to, to see another way, have a new idea. Of course, it makes sense and then be able to convince others of it. And then caring is all about people. And we don't care about people. We're trying to leave people, people know. You know, I've had some supervisors in the past that were just dreadful. So I learned from them how to not be a good supervisor. But I also had some that were fantastic. They were absolutely fantastic. You know, so being able to learn from those good examples and being able to leave people, because without that, no one's going to be successful. And we're also not going to be happy. Yeah, sure. Because no matter what, you need to enjoy what you're doing. Well said. Well said. What advice would you give to leaders? Maybe somebody that is new to a leadership role and they're having a challenge with the four C's. What advice would you give them? I think my first advice would be to listen. My second advice would be to listen. And my third advice would be to repeat step one. When you have to allow others to be heard and be ready and willing to adopt their ideas, but you also have to be able to give clear direction and guidance. That means setting a vision, having the team work the details to carry out the vision, but you have to have the ability to adapt and change that vision as the work proceeds. In other words, don't assume just because you got a plan in place that it cannot be changed. I worked for a three star general chief engineers once at TOTUS, always communicate so it's not to be misunderstood. Well, it sounds so simple, but that is truly difficult to clearly communicate intent. So if the team understands intent, because if they guess wrong, they're not going to be happy. You're not going to be happy because they got it wrong. We then imagine the damage you're doing if you're going and correcting the team because you didn't clearly, you weren't clearly understood as what we were trying to do. So I think that's one of the hardest things for any of us, but that's the best advice that I can give. The next one is watch and you mentioned this earlier. You've got to watch for stress and burnout. That is real. And for the pace we have at our international cemetery, some of the things I've done since I've been here is with the team is to address those things that were stressors, the pace, lack of training opportunities. I can give many examples of constantly looking out for each other, putting in things like flexible hours, training breaks, training opportunities, you know, even, even just changing, changing jobs, you know, just changing places where someone can can alleviate stress, but it's, we really have to be careful about stress and burnout because people stress in different ways. What is stressed to some is just the normal day for others. So true. So true. When you think about a good engineering manager, a good engineering leader, what are some of the qualities and characteristics that come to mind? So those are some of the things. Being a patient listener, what are my weaknesses is impatience. I always want to get to the actions. I've had to really discipline myself, not always successful, to discipline myself, to, to truly be that patient listener. I think the other thing is, is you have to be able to identify the in-state because if you don't have the end goal in mind, you're not going to be able to leave a team and you're going to stumble along the way. In the engineering business, that can mean getting out of scope, getting out of budget, not being able to deliver on time where you end up with, you know, an unhappy client, unhappy public or whatever the case may be. So having that in-state in mind, on truly achieving quality, which includes schedule, cost, drivers, etc. And then the other thing is being able to work as a team. And these days, that means a matrix team. It's not everyone who works directly for you. It's a matrix team of that function. But in the Army lingo, especially now we have distributed operations, we never quit working under the COVID restrictions. We're only working in a different way. You know, we have people that are working virtually or we're teleworking or we have people on the ground, we have people in numerous geographical areas. So being able to truly walk work across that matrix team is really key. And for us, I don't think we're ever going to go back to where we were prior to COVID because we've learned how effective and efficient we can be. But that being said, if you don't have that personal touch at the time you need it, people will end up isolated and disengaged. And then not only will you affect the work, but you're going to affect people's well being as well. So true. So true. Wow, a lot of good stuff here. A lot of good stuff here. We're going to come back in just a moment, take a quick break. And then we're going to close us out with KDA in our career factor of safety in segment. All right. Thank you. Welcome back. And it's time for our career factor of safety in segment in geotechnical engineering, just like many disciplines of engineering. It's important to incorporate a factor of safety into your design. What about incorporating a factor of safety into your actual career? Today, of course, we're speaking with Ms. Karen Durham Aguilera, more commonly known as KDA. KDA, with all that you have done, one would wonder, wow, what can an engineer do when we think about a factor of safety for our career to continue to advance? What can engineers do? What would you say? Well, thanks, Jared. So I talked about some of my milestones in my career, but engineers can do an incredible thing. Engineers can be successful in a myriad of fields. Engineers are problem solvers, but being able to take that engineering background and apply it in different ways, it's boundless what engineers can do. But I think also engineers, you take that foundation, no pun intended, even though I'm a geotech, but you take that foundation and to be able to apply that in different ways is just invaluable. For me, especially being asked to develop and lead this new program in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that job was actually coded as an engineer because having those engineer skills and especially the geotech part was absolutely vital to figure out and work with a team on knowing what to do to put in a system of structures for storm damage risk reduction that had never been done before. And then finding myself at onto national cemeteries, something I would never have considered. But I tell you what, we have a lot of engineers there now, not just our engineering team that's in our infrastructure repair and improvement. We have engineers working in other parts of the business as well, just because of how much engineers can bring. Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and thank you for all the great insights you share with us. Thank you for your service to the industry and more importantly, thank you for your service to our nation. Now, if our listeners wanted to learn more about you or to find you, what's the best way for them to find you? Okay, so first email. Thank you. We do have a public website on to the cemetery.mil that can tell you about all the different programs that we have. Excellent. I do have an official Twitter account at Kate Dermagular, because you can always find me on that as well. I have to tell you that I basically stay off Facebook these days just because it's just kind of become a mess. But you can find me through a public website and you can absolutely always find me on Twitter. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate the time we're able to spend together. Thank you. It's been my honor. It's been fun. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. We would love to hear your feedback, comments, and or questions. Please feel free to go to our webpage, which is geotechnicalengineeringpodcast.com, where you'll be able to find a summary of the key points discussed in today's episode, that being episode number five, as well as links to any of the resources, websites, or books mentioned during this episode. Until next time, we wish you all the very best in all of your geotechnical engineering endeavors. Peace.