 Have you ever thought of a parking garage as your destination beyond just parking there, like maybe visiting a park on top of the garage or one of the stores within the parking structure? Well, in this episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast, we are going to be speaking with Tony Metty and Jay Chamberlain of THP Limited about Park Smart parking structures. They're exactly what they sound like. Park Smart is an interesting parking garage structure that incorporates finances, environment, as well as social benefits into the parking structure, really so that they become community-centric. And what this will do for you as a civil engineer is it's going to help you to be more well-rounded and pick up yet another benefit for your clients or colleagues learning about the Park Smart structure. So let's jump right in. All right, now I'm excited to welcome our guests on to the podcast today. Tony Metty and Jay Chamberlain of THP Limited. Tony Jay, welcome to the Civil Engineering Podcast. Anthony, how are you? Doing great. Good to have you guys. I know we're going through some interesting times right now, so I'm glad you were able to carve out some time. And we're going to talk today about something that is very interesting. At least I think it's interesting. I think our listeners are going to be interested to learn more about it in Park Smart. However, before we get to that, what I think would be great is to just talk a little bit about what THP does and what each of you do so that our listeners can get a little bit of your background in your own words before we jump in here. Okay, so THP, we're an engineering firm that started in the 1970s. We have offices in Cleveland and Cincinnati. The original firm started in Cincinnati the last five, six years is when we opened the Cleveland office. There's about 60 employees, mostly engineers and architects. We serve four main industries in the engineering kind of services that we provide. We did start as a structural engineering firm originally in the 1970s. So of the four services that we provide, we have structural engineering, parking, consulting, restoration and waterproofing, and building envelope. So Jay and I will kind of both kind of just talk about what we do here, but I work mostly at the restoration and waterproofing service where we focus on restoration of kind of parking garages, plaza, stadiums, outdoor structures, underground structures. Then the building envelope group is kind of pretty much restoration of pretty much small school buildings to high-rise buildings from the whole envelope encompassing the roof. Jay, you want to kind of just talk a little bit about the parking group and what you do? Yeah, sure. I am a project manager in the new parking structures group. So what I do is I'll do everything from design of the parking structure itself to the functional layout of the parking garage. So that kind of goes along with our parking consultant work is we'll actually lay out the spaces. We'll lay out the garage on the site to figure out the most efficient parking layout. We'll design the systems for the gate management and all of that. Additional follow-up about THP, I guess from the standpoint, we do work nationally in the in these kind of divisions. We do have kind of specialty seismic work that we do engineering services in Asia and Latin America too, which is actually interesting for a few of our employees that actually travel there. But of those 60 employees, there's eight of us that are park smart advisors as engineers and architects. Okay, perfect. And that kind of leads us into our next, what we're going to talk about for today, which is park smart. And for those of you out there listening, the reason that I asked Tony and Jay to come on today is because I believe that one of the goals of this podcast is to help civil engineering professionals to be as well-rounded as possible. And we all know that there are many different avenues in civil engineering. There are many different components of our projects and kind of sometimes the more you know about them, even if it's just a little bit, you have more knowledge that you can bring to your clients, the municipalities you serve to other colleagues across your company. And so that's why I thought this was being an interesting topic. So let's talk about park smart. What are the key differences of park smart versus traditional parking structures? I guess traditional parking structures, pretty much when the client asks, we want to build a garage, it's how many parking spaces can I fit on this footprint for the most cost effective? Because a new garage can easily cost 20 to $25,000 a parking space to build. So when I guess thinking from a traditional aspect is how many, what's the most efficient structure and layout and how many cars can I fit in that garage to have the best return on my investment? So park smart, you're kind of looking at it more holistically. You're doing that same design, but you're also kind of, it's a voluntary program where you're kind of looking at in my new garage, how am I more energy efficient? How do I have reduced, I guess, impact on the environment? How can I make my garage efficient for space management? What other mobility services can that garage provide and kind of be connected to on the kind of the grid where it's serving? And the other thing is kind of making the parking garage your destination as much as you may not think that there's a lot of garages now where they're, there's overbuilds on top of them for commercial aspects or there's parks and that kind of incorporating the garage into the environment. So it's, it's kind of promoting that as a voluntary program and getting people to think differently and trying to prove that garage investment from day one. That's interesting. So really in a sense, it can be more than a garage. Yeah, and it's the ParkSmart, they have their standard and we'll kind of talk about that later about how you process it, but it's kind of, it's kind of just a road map for clients and for engineers and architects to understand. How do I think about it, like you said, a little differently just then parking cars on it? What else can it provide for the community? That's great. Now, what are some of the key benefits, you know, kind of building on that, that civil engineers should be aware of for their clients if they're dealing with clients, there might be property owners, what are some things that they should be aware of? Yeah, right. So, you know, typically when you talk about benefits to the client, you're always going to talk about cost. You know, everyone thinks the client wants to hear cost, cost, cost, what's going to save me the most money. However, with ParkSmart, you know, cost isn't your only benefit point there. So, I guess, I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but there's this thing called the triple bottom line. And so it basically evaluates the economic, the environmental, and the social aspects of something. And then so, if you picture it as a Venn diagram, so you've got one bubble that's the economic, one that's the environmental, and one that's the social, where they overlap, that's where you get sustainability. So, I can make, I can make your parking garage cheap, but I, you know, it might not last forever and you're going to be putting a ton of money into it. I can also, you know, we can also use halogen lights and, you know, a bunch of non-energy efficient fixtures that are going to have a detrimental impact on the environment. So, basically, what you're trying to do is you're trying to sell the owner on this fact that I can, I can give you this product that's going to help your social through helping the community. It's going to help the environment by making it more efficient and energy efficient. And then it's going to help you by making it costless over time. And a couple of ways it does that. So, it's going to help the client by making a garage that's easier to maintain and more efficient. So, one of the steps in ParkSmart is creating a proactive maintenance manual for the client. And basically, what you're doing is you're going through the, with the client and you're coming up with ways that the client can do little fixes to the garage every year or every so many years that are going to, in turn, prevent that large maintenance item from occurring occurring. So, that'll help them keep their maintenance or their cost down on maintenance. You know, you're going to put in energy efficient fixtures. You're going to put in LED lights. You're going to put in energy star rated HVAC if there's any type of office space in there. So, that'll keep the running costs down. And then the social benefits is you're going to try and make the parking structure a destination as honest as that sounds. You know, normally now it's a destination as you drive up, you park, and you leave. Right. You want to get in and out? Right. So, what you're trying to do here is you're trying to work aspects into this garage that will, will almost make people want to come to the garage just to see that aspect. So, you've got an underground garage and you build a park on top of it. So, the park's the destination. You've got a garage and in the lobbies you do art installations of local artists. So, you know, people could come and it's almost like a mini gallery where you can go look at the local art for the people. If you've got, if your site's big enough and you have enough extra space, you know, you could build a, a park next to the, the garage. So, instead of just doing like surface parking next to the garage, you take, you incorporate those spots into your garage and then you build a small park next to your parking garage that's going to allow people to come enjoy the facility. Seems very community-centric. Right. And that, that, that is what they are trying to do. There's also things like, you know, we're going to put bike parking in to have, to try and have people come there for another reason as well. You know, you don't necessarily have to drive your car there. That's great. And really that Venn diagram idea, Jay, is a great way, I think, to explain it. I guess the triple, the triple bottom line, finance, the environment and the social benefits of it. I think that that's great because you can really, if you're thinking about explaining it to someone, you're a civil engineer and you're working with other consultants, you're working on a project that has a parking structure, that's an easy way to kind of, kind of throw it out there. And really like, you know, practicing as a civil engineer myself, I know that a lot of times with these projects, there's lots of different hurdles and one of them is of course, public meetings and, you know, public opinions. And so anything I think that you can have with the social benefit aspect of it, can actually make your job easier or, you know, the design team's job easier and trying to seek approval on certain types of projects. That seems like it would be, it would be a benefit. How might ParkSmart have positive impacts on other parts of the site or the property, if any? So that'll kind of, you know, it relates back to the last question kind of, or at least part of my answer, where, you know, you can, you're not just developing the site with a gray box, you're developing the site with a destination or a mobility hub, if you want to call it that as well. You know, I'm going to have... What do you mean by that? When you say mobility hub, for those not familiar with it, can you talk on that? Right. So in most parking garages, you're going, you're parking your car and you're walking away in a ParkSmart parking garage, you are trying to locate the garage so that it's close with mass transit. That's one of the big key features. If you can get a bus stop right out front of your garage so that people can come downtown, park, and then hop on mass transit and travel around town, that's going to be a big plus. If you've got bike parking so that people can ride their bikes around downtown and then come park their bike in your garage so that it's safe, you know, whereas just leaving it on the street or chaining it to a meter or something like that, it's going to help out a lot. And then also items like having a zip car, for instance, like a car sharing program, just having dedicated spots in your parking facility for those types of programs helps make it just kind of more of a mobility center than just a parking garage. It's really interesting. I mean, really what you're talking about here is, and I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you're talking almost like a mini city, you know, like you're starting to think about within this structure, like how many different components can I have to it, whether it's a park or, you know, the shared park, the shared car ride, the, you know, maybe one of those bicycle stations outside or, you know, whatever the case may be. But I like the idea of it's, it is very holistic, like Tony said, and it is very much maximizing, you know, your space, right? Where you live in a world where, you know, real estate is valuable and you want to kind of maximize every inch of it. And this sounds like a way to do it where you can really be, again, community-centric and build something that people are going to be much more happier about than just a structure that someone drives in and drives out of. So that's, that's really great. Can you talk briefly about the history of Park Smart and how you became interested or involved with it? Yeah, I guess it's kind of, if you look at the history of how it came about, it's interesting because it was in the 1990s when the U.S. Green Building Council started in that kind of development, developed a lead rating system. So you have these buildings that are getting rated and trying to get certified and at that time they saw parking cars, garages that part of the problem. So there was this void kind of existent industry for all these garages being built. The lead system, it's connected with a negative or it was a part of the problem to have a parking garage. So it was in late 2000s when the Green Parking Council started to kind of fill that void that there's cities that right now cars, who know, 20 years from now when my kids are older, who knows what the transportation options there exist, but and it's fast evolving like everything else today, but garages are still being built left and right right now as these cities grow and we become more urban. So that void was kind of starting filled with this green garage parking council. So that started in the late 2000s. So at that point, the U.S. GBC looked at it and said, we need to kind of merge with and kind of adopt and kind of put this under our umbrella. This makes sense. We should be looking at it holistically kind of the same way we're looking at parking garages. How does it affect the entire community? And how can we incorporate if we have a lead building here and there's a garage here, how do we incorporate this and improve the entire system? So that was kind of when that merged, there was a merger kind of in the about 2014 where ParkSmart was brought in under the U.S. GBC. And it's kind of where this all started. So there's a long history there from the 1990s to almost 2015 for this whole process to happen, but it's interesting. I mean, it is interesting that I like, like I said, the holistic is the best word I think to describe it. And you can see that this is something that I think will continue to happen with all different aspects and components of a project site. I mean, we're talking about parking garage, but it's already applied to other things and other avenues and other aspects of it, whether you're the lobby of a building becomes something else and things are evolving and evolving, which is why I think that this is a really interesting topic. Now, in terms of the design side of things and the design team, what additional technical knowledge is needed from the design team if you're incorporating a ParkSmart into your site? Right. So really, you need to kind of have knowledge of the current technology. That's the best way. So all right, let me start over. Let me. So each of your design team members is going to kind of have to have a different knowledge base, right? You're a mechanical engineer. You're going to want them to be up on all of your the current most efficient lighting systems, all of the lighting control systems like photo cells. So that, you know, if we're getting light, if it's an open parking garage and I'm getting daylight in there, I don't need all of the lights in the parking garage on, you know, I'm just wasting electricity. So if you've got photo cell sensors in there, then those lights could turn off when they're not needed and turn on when they're needed. Also, if you've got offices or any type of space in there, if you've got a retail space, because it's a mixed use component, then, you know, you're going to need, you're going to want those energy efficient systems from a structural aspect. Your team is going to want to know a significant amount about durability measures of parking structures, because what you're going to want to do is the idea is to build a parking garage that is going to need, isn't going to need major maintenance for 30 years or something like that. So if you incorporate a bunch of nice solid durability measures into your project, then you're deferring any major maintenance out several years, and you're going to get, you're going to benefit the client that way. From the civil aspect, it's good to know about low impact developments. So basically rainwater runoff. Right now, if you've got a parking lot, when it rains, all that rain is going straight to the storm sewers, and then it's going to start overloading your infrastructure, which is why a lot of people are, I mean, a lot of municipalities make you put giant detention tanks on your properties. However, with ParkSmart, they're going to reward you if you put a green roof on your project to help limit that runoff. If the landscaping around the project is going to help absorb some of that water, if you're going to use permeable pavements around the project, so that, you know, some of that runoff is just going to get absorbed in by that permeable pavement, then as far as your parking consultants really going to want to know about the most current technology in gate equipment. So one of the big aspects is limiting the time it takes the user to get to their car and then be back on the street. So we don't want people sitting in the garage idling. I'm sure we've all been in parking garages, especially after an event. Right. You know, you're in a line just waiting to queue to get out of this parking garage. And so all these cars are just sitting there idling. So the goal is to try and put technology in this parking structure that allows your patrons to get out as soon as possible. And then also to put technology in like single space detection. So basically each parking space has a green light above it. If there's a car in the spot, the light's red. If there's not a car in the spot, it's green so that you're not spending all this time circling this parking garage trying to find a parking space. Wow. So Jay, what's an example of how you might shorten the lines? Like what would, if you have something that you could just share, that would be an example of that? Because that sounds like it's this big problem that could be. Right, right. So one of the one of the key things that everyone's doing right now is pay on foot machines. So you know, you take your ticket with you instead of leaving the ticket in the car. You're taking your ticket with you. And when you come back into the parking garage, you're just getting to the machine, putting your ticket to pay in, you're getting in your car. And then all you got to do is when you pull up to the machine, you're just throwing your ticket in. Right. There's no line. You don't have to wait on line to pay or anything like that. Right. Yeah, you're not waiting on everyone trying to get their credit card to work. I think a lot of universities that sell these permits, you have the radio frequency between a card in your car and the machine. Instead of having to hold out a tag and let it scan it, it picks your car up as you approach the gate. So the gate just automatically opens. You're really not stopping once you hit that gate. You're relying on that radio frequency to pick you up and just open and close the gate for you. So it's a constant flow in and out traffic. Right. That's great. And you know, one follow up question on this is, I know you guys are park smart advisors, right? What does that mean? And do you have to be one to be involved in this design? And you know, we're talking about the design right now. So just want to understand that part of it. No, I mean, from the stick, and that's something we kind of skipped over. So when park smart, there's kind of three main categories. You have the management category of how the garage is managed from pricing to recycling programs. You have the programming of the garage of kind of how you've, from the placemaking, making it a kind of programming it into the community. And there's the third categories of technology and kind of structural design. Those are the three main categories. Then you have a fourth one for innovation. But from the standpoint, I think the big thing that THP was kind of on the forefront is kind of getting to know the program because as structural engineers were, we have the division of parking consultants where we're kind of doing the layout, functional design architecture of the garage too. So it's kind of knowing kind of the standard and measures you're educating your clients about this. So when you do a certification, it's the design team just as much as the owner. If the owners and the best owner is when they have a project manager that's enthusiastic and that's part of their mission as the owner, they're looking at it, we're making this a sustainable structure because they're highly involved in kind of the programming, setting up the garage afterwards and making sure it's just not during the design process, you're looking at it. Once I have this garage, how do I maintain it? Which is cost beneficial to us using the LED lighting to the different aspects of how do I program this garage? So it's more of understanding the manual and being able to educate maybe a new owner about it and how to think about it if you're not familiar with it. So it's nice to kind of go through the class kit, the certification as an advisor, but you can download the manual, understand it, and it's just kind of a, if you don't certify your garage, it's nice to start thinking that way for the whole process of how do we build better at the end of the day. The THP was kind of, as a parking consultant, we're kind of on the forefront of thinking through that something they promoted. Okay, that's great. And I think, listen, a lot of listeners are often looking for additional certifications and if parking garages is something that they work on a regular basis and this ParkSmart idea resonates with you, it may be something, of course, to look into. So it's good to know that that is available. All right, last question around this topic of ParkSmart, obviously one of the things that we deal with as civil engineers in getting projects approved is permits and things of that nature. Are there typically additional permits that are needed from municipality for a ParkSmart structure? No additional permits. I think it's kind of similar to certifying a lead building. You have to document, there's all these measures to get certified as ParkSmart. You're kind of going through the point system. What makes sense? What's important to me? For some people where you put a garage, you may not have, in May night, there's no biking around. So we're not going to have a bike rental or a bike hub there. But it's kind of looking at it of, you have to document all those points and it may be as simple as a photo is what is needed when you apply for the certification of, here's our bike rental hub. So there's no additional points. It's just a documentation you need to go through the process and get it certified to become a ParkSmart garage. Okay. All right, that's good to know. And really, if you think about it, I mean, in terms of permitting and regulations, I mean, I almost think that a garage like this, in a lot of instances, sounds like it's better, quote unquote, more functional, has a lot of real social community benefits to it. So it's not like it would have to necessarily have additional permits. But from that side of it, I can see, Tony, what you're saying, just like lead, you got to have all that documentation to show the different benefits that you built into it and for the certification. Important from the beginning is knowing upfront if you're going to certify it as a ParkSmart garage because you can, there's some measures you have to interact with the contractor or get some documentation. So if you know that upfront, you can make the process pretty streamlined. It's to say, we need to collect this information. And it's, you're going to be, most of the information is going to be a submittal or you're going to be on a site visit, you're getting a photo as the garage is being built. So you're going to have the information. It's just kind of knowing as you do it, I have it documented and we're done and you can make it a pretty simple process. Great. All right. So there you have it. That's kind of ParkSmart and a bit of a nutshell there. And you can of course go to ParkSmart.gbci.org and you can download a lot more information kind of as Tony referenced. And you can read up on it a little bit more. But you know, I just wanted to talk to Jay and Tony to get some input from their side and having experience with this. So what we're going to do now is just take a short break. We're going to come back and wrap up with our hot seat segment and just ask Tony and Jay a couple of career related questions. So stick with us. All right. I am back with Tony Mete and Jay Chamberlain of THP Limited and we're here now for our civil engineering hot seat segment. We're going to throw these guys a couple of career curveball type questions. All right. I'm going to go with you first here, Jay. Are there any specific routines that you practice every day? For example, something you do every day in the morning? Do you do meetings or something at certain times of the day that you found to be helpful when you tackle your days? Yeah, drink coffee. And that helps? Yeah, it helps. It makes my day so much better. No. The one thing I do try to start my day off with every day is I try to come up with a to-do list. I'm really in order to stay on track a lot of times, especially now working from home, which has just been a whole different animal. It really helps me to head down to my office, get on my computer, run through my emails, and then kind of develop a to-do list. And I will sometimes I get pretty specific with it because if you've got only major items on that to-do list, it really starts to get daunting. It's always nice to throw some easy ones on there just to get some exes. Sure. Get some momentum going. Right. And then another thing I like to do now, also, which I never did when I was back in the office, is clean my desk every single night before I go upstairs and call it quits for the day because there's nothing worse than coming down to your office in the morning and just having the last thing you were working on that day spread out all over the place. Sure. Interesting. Sounds like you got a good set up routine and shutdown routine. Right. I used to have better rituals before the kids were born. I would try to, every morning when I woke up, I would I try to meditate for 10 minutes before I leave for the office, just wake up, kind of get in the right headspace, and then head into the office. I felt like that really worked out. But, you know, ever since sleepless nights started, a little little difficult to get out of bed a little early to want to go ahead and meditate. Yeah. No, it's interesting. I had a guest recently mentioned that actually. She runs her own civil firm and she said that's been a huge game changer for her doing the meditation thing in the morning. So interesting. How about you, Tony? Any routines or, you know, habits that you practice that you found to be very helpful for you that you do regularly? I think Jay's point, the to-do list is very important anymore. And it may be the simplest task to feel like you accomplished something that day, because some days you get phone call after phone call, which you're still getting stuff done. But to be sit here, it seems like anymore, I cannot, you cannot plan out today 100%. So you kind of have to roll with the punches and see there's an issue that comes upon a project. We need hope on this. So, right. Kind of having a simple to-do list of something realistic that you're trying to accomplish, I think is important. That's the keyword, realistic. All right, Tony, let's stick with you. Can you think of a book that's been helpful for you in your career, life in general? It doesn't have to be engineering related. It could be any book that you just remember, like you always remember it because it was helpful for you. I'm going to probably go about that a different way. I think the thing I regret growing, I had four brothers growing up. So it seems like reading was not probably at a forefront of what we did, a lot of outdoor activities and running arounds. But I think now that you kind of see it in life, the importance of it and how enjoyable it is now, I guess I have three younger kids and we've made a habit to read with them a lot more. So that's great. Right now I'm reading the Harry Potter series to my daughter and we're on right about halfway through the prisoner of Azkaban. So I read the Harry Potter books in college. I enjoyed them. And so we're kind of doing that with my daughter is something to show her every night she looks forward before bed. Kind of some of the scary parts we kind of have to edit out that this before bed. But yeah, it's something she's looked forward to do. And I think she's going to she sees her parents reading more. And I think that it's going to be important. It will be beneficial for her growing up. If you have the opportunity to do that with her kids, I think is important. That's great. Yeah, I'm laughing because my son's on book number four. And we just watched Azkaban the movie because he finished the book. So he wanted to watch the movie and yeah, he's loving it. And you know what really, Tony's point is a good one is that, you know, you kind of learn from life experiences, right? So you maybe didn't read as much growing up and now you're getting into it and you can reflect on that. So I think that that's an important lesson there. How about you, Jay, any books that stand out for you? Oh, God, I'd love to say there is. But not really. My mentors tell you that on my goal list I've had for the past like three years now is the, I'm going to start reading a book just about business practices and engineering management a month. But so far I've read zero books on that. So he helps me every time we talk about it. Have you started reading those books yet? And I'm like, no, I need to do it. I've got to, I've got to start getting on that track. Yeah, well, listen, you know, people are busy, you got to incorporate things and where you can. Luckily, there's audio books and, you know, podcasts and things like that that can be helpful for certain topics. So how about this question for you, Jay, if you think about your career to date and you've had, I'm sure several different managers, maybe you work for supervisor department managers without, you know, the name any names, but just in general, like when you think of like a manager that you felt has been a great manager, you know, you really enjoyed working with them. What are some of the characteristics of a great manager in kind of the world we live in, in the civil world that you would say that would jump out at you? Yeah, I'd say my best manager was one that really helped me instill confidence in myself. Because I think one of the struggles, especially with engineers right out of school is just you get out into the field and all of a sudden all the stuff you learned in school, you're like, I don't, did I learn enough? Do I do I know enough to be successful? And the answer is, yeah, you do, you just have to have the confidence in yourself to do it. So I think early on in your career and early on in my career, I had a manager that was really, really good at, you know, just instilling that like, hey, you know what you're doing, you're not like, stop second guessing yourself, just do it. Like you, and one that doesn't make micromanage, that can be the worst because that, because having a manager that micromanages can be really detrimental to your confidence, I feel like, because if they're constantly picking on, you know, like, have you done this yet? Have you done this yet? Have you gotten this taken care of that that can start to, that can start to damage your confidence. And I think, that's, yeah, I feel like I've said it 20 times now, but confidence. Someone that can instill confidence in you is just key. And it's super important, I feel like, for young engineers to have someone in there managing them that can help them grow into that. Yeah, I mean, I say it all the time to be when they ask, like, oh, what skills should I focus on the most in terms of being effective manager or leader in the engineering. And I always go back to like, you got to be confident, like you can learn all the skills in the world. But you know, if you're not really confident in what you're doing, it's, it's going to affect the way you approach people, the way you lead your teams, the way you talk with clients. And so definitely confidence can't, can't be understated. Tony, how about you and whether it's supervisors and mentors, you know, what, what have you found the people that you've worked with, that you find felt all that was a great manager, great supervisor, great project leader, what characteristics did they exhibit? I think you, like today, you need to find somebody that you're comfortable talking to. They have an open door policy. I think they, everybody says no questions or a dumb question. I think the big thing I learned from growing up or starting out is anybody's willing to help you as long as you come ahead of time and you've thought through something. So you may come to your boss and you've thought through a problem. You put time in, but you're completely wrong. I think having a boss that will sit there and say, I'm, you've thought through this, that's great. Let's look at it this a different direction. And here's why. So you kind of build your confidence that they're there to help you coach you along, but they also need to trust you and as young engineers, you need to think through kind of, you can't just go into your boss and say, I need help with this and you put no thought into it. I think it's very important to kind of start to think for yourself, become confident and just have somebody that's there to bounce ideas off and they're there to have your back to help you out. I think it's important. That's great. Yeah. No, I think, you know, having someone that'll kind of listen to you and have those conversations can be really important to help you make decisions and, you know, go through certain, we all know our projects get complex and there's lots of issues to be discussed. So that's great. All right, guys. Last question here. We call this the civil engineering career elevator advice questions. So if you got an elevator with a civil engineer and you had about 30 to 40 seconds with him or her, and you could give them some career advice in about 30 to 40 seconds. What would you tell that individual? Tony, let's start with you. What would you tell them in 30, 40 seconds? I guess as a young engineer, you always need to figure out what the, you know all these equations, you just need to know you're solving the right problem. What is the problem the client has and what am I solving? I mean, it's important to step back from the problem and actually draw yourself a sketch. Here's a rendering, sit back and actually think through it before you start trying to put an equation to it. An equation to it. If you're trying to detail how a connection is going to occur in a building, it's almost more important to draw a solution before you put numbers to it. So you can actually visualize it, I think, is knowing you're solving the right problem and thinking through it. I think it's very important. Awesome. How about you, Jay? So yeah, I think Tony kind of touched on it in his answer to the previous question, but you know, they always say there's no dumb questions and that's true. There can be uneducated questions, but there's no really dumb questions. I talk to the guys that work with all the time about this, I guess my mentees, I'd call them, is don't be afraid to ask questions, but make sure they're educated. I don't ever want you to come to me and say I don't know how to do this. You can be completely wrong, but at least have thought about the question before you come to me and I'll sit down and I'll walk you through it, but I'm going to have much more respect for you if you at least tried at first. And I think that's the case of a lot of managers is they want to see that you put some effort in before you just come to them and say, I don't know. That's great. Yeah, I guess what I'm hearing from both of you there combined is kind of like you don't want to prefer to do this pretty much. No, bring solutions to the table, right? Bring solutions to the table. I mean, whether it's for a client, whether it's, you know, coming to your supervisor and saying, hey, we got this problem, but I think we can do this. You know, when you come to the table with solutions, it's a lot, you know, it's a lot more valuable than if you just come with questions and you're not quite clear on everything. So that's very helpful. So Tony, Jay Chamberlain of THP Limited, I want to thank you so much for spending some time here with us on the Civil Engineering podcast, sharing information about ParkSmart and also offering some kind of career thoughts and advice. Thanks so much guys for taking the time. Thank you, Anthony. Anthony. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Civil Engineering podcast on YouTube produced by the Engineering Management Institute. We're always looking for new ways to help engineers become effective managers and leaders. You can view all of our content on our website at engineeringmanagementinstitute.org and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for our weekly videos. Until next time, please continue to engineer your own success.