 A PMP certificate can be very valuable in your civil engineering career. But what is it? And how can it actually help you? In this episode of the podcast, Jason Dunn, Chief Risk Officer at BRPH, a licensed professional engineer and PMP, is going to explain what the certificate is, how you can go about getting it, and how it's helped him in his engineering career. Let's jump right in. All right, now I'm excited to welcome today's guest to the podcast. Jason Dunn. Jason is the Chief Risk Officer at BRPH. Jason, welcome to the Civil Engineering podcast. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Looking forward to chatting. So Jason, I'm really excited to talk to you. We're going to dive into a little bit on how the PMP certification has helped you in your career as an engineering professional. Of course, you're a licensed engineer as well as a PMP. However, before we jump into that, I want to talk a little bit about your company and your position at your company, Chief Risk Officer. First of all, tell us a little bit about BRPH and what services your firm provides. Sure, sure. We're a multi-discipline firm, architecture, and engineering. So we have all disciplines in-house, not just architecture, but we have civil, structural, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, everything you need to do a project and we try to keep that in-house. We are 56 years old and have been doing mostly work in the manufacturing, aerospace and defense, commercial, entertainment, and education market sectors. Those are kind of our base market sectors. And it's a good mixture of those to counteract ups and downs, ups and flows of the market conditions. So it's a good mixture of the markets. And we are spread out all over the U.S. and strategic areas really. We're based in Melbourne, Florida, which is right near Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Our first client as a company was NASA and we still work for NASA today as well as other space flight companies that are in that region. So we've held our headquarters there. We have a presence in Florida, Melbourne, Orlando, and Boca. And then we have, I'm in our Atlanta office, which is a regional office in Atlanta. And in that area, we have an office in Hutsville and Charleston, South Carolina. And then office, we just opened a new office in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And we have an office in the Seattle region. And what's the rough number of people you have? We are right at 350 folks. And it's a pretty even split between architecture engineering. I'd say it's about 50-50. Wow. Okay. All right, great. And I know that there are a lot of benefits to having the services in-house together in terms of just effectiveness on project production as well as cross marketing and business development. So lots of good stuff there for sure. That's right. And like I said, we try to use our in-house services as much as possible for a client in a way we do everything, essentially turnkey if we can. Yeah, that's great. Certainly something to think about as a civil engineer, if you're listening, you know, when you think about what firms you're going to work for, if you're not out of firm right now. You know, firms that do have those different disciplines, it's a different, it's kind of a different ballgame, I guess is a good way to say it when you're working there. Because you're able to be kind of more of an all-in-one solution for clients. I know I worked at a multi-discipline civil firm. And so, you know, when I would go out on a project site, I'd be able to say, hey, if you need some geotechnical, you know, soil examination, we can do that. If you need some wetlands investigation done, we can do that. If you need the survey done, we can do that. And so, you know, it makes things easier. But Jason, what I also want to talk to you about, you know, when I originally contacted you, you know, we said we were going to focus on talking about the PMP, which we will. But your title Chief Risk Officer seems like it's a title right now that, you know, our position right now that a lot of firms would want to have someone in. Talk a little bit about your responsibilities with this position. Sure. So, we developed this actually, it's fairly new. We decided to go ahead and make it formalized this year. You know, for one, what we do is risky, right? Inventory architecture is risky. There can be bad things that happen when things go wrong. But beyond that, you know, we, my firm, we do engineering design, architecture design, but we also have a construction arm and a separate construction services group that'll do, you know, primarily build, we try to leverage that for clients, almost like an extension of service. So, we're not out there bidding huge projects, but we offer that as more as a, like I said, an extension to offer value to clients. So, there's, as with construction comes a risk. And so, what I have, what I've been tasked to do is really identify, assess, and come up with responses, mitigation plans for any risk that I see in those areas, but not just architecture, engineering and construction, but also things like IT. You know, there's obviously IT risk now with ransomware and those sort of things, identifying those, you know, anything from actual legal risk that sometimes those pop up. So, I handle those with any disputes with our owners, with contractors, even into the mediation areas and things like that, which is necessary to solve those disputes. But I'm looking at it, I've been tasked to look at it from an entire enterprise standpoint of all of our services. And that came from, you know, my prior role as I was hired into BRPH was Director of Project Management, which basically was acting as a PM, a law officer. I created the standards from a project management division and enforced those and, you know, make sure we're in compliance, the way we plan projects, the way we earn revenue, the way we deal with clients, and the way we work internally and externally with team members. So, it kind of grew from that as that kind of developed and matured, you know, I started handling, you know, some of the problem projects that would come up from time to time or clients who weren't happy and talk into those and try to mitigate those issues that kind of led to the chief risk officer rollout now. Wow. And I would imagine, I mean, of course, with everything going on with the pandemic, but, you know, even beyond that, like you said, with construction and, you know, construction litigation and cybersecurity risks, I would imagine that your position, you're pretty busy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've actually just was formalized this month, but I've been kind of ramping up to it for several months now, especially with the pandemic, it kind of accelerated risk and the need for risk management, as we saw it, as a corporation. Yeah. And I would imagine that more firms are going to have positions like this going forward based on this pandemic and the other, you know, there's always cybersecurity threats and things of that nature, especially as firms grow and there's just more that's right and more locations and things of that nature. So that's very interesting and really, Jason, what's interesting about your career as I hear you speak about it is you had some positions where you've been able to really kind of help and influence your company in terms of the project management and creating the standards now getting into the risk stuff. That must be something that's kind of exciting as a professional. It is. If you feel like you can contribute, especially change the way things are being done at the company and it's a betterment, you know, to the way we do things and it allows us a better platform for growth. That's very exciting and that's been wonderful to be a part of and that's what I was brought in to do at my current firm, BRPH. We were, I joined seven years ago and I was brought in to help, like I said, just create those project management standards. They didn't have any in place and they were in tremendous growth mode when I joined. We've over doubled in size since I joined seven years ago. So that kind of tells you, gives you a magnitude of what happened. But just to develop those standards and kind of get everybody on the same page and more uniform approach, even across all the multiple markets, has been very helpful to our growth in the last several years. That's great. That's great. All right. So let's jump in here and talk a little bit about the project management professional certification of the PMP. And for those of you not familiar with that certification, it's an internationally recognized professional designation that's offered by the Project Management Institute. And I believe at this point in time, there are about a million active PMP certified individuals kind of across the globe. Jason, talk to us about the certification. What made you interested in going after it? Sure. So as I was brought in for that role as director of project management initially, started researching a little bit about standards and what makes sense from a design firm versus construction because there's different kind of project management paths, you know, related to design and construction and anything else. So I started researching it and joined PMI at the time and really thought that would be a great learning experience and tool for me to use and utilize across our firm. So I did go through PMI research, different learning classes, preparation classes for the PMP. And so that's what I looked at. And what I ended up doing was taking a four-day almost crash course training class that's offered by a PMI licensed trainer. And basically it's four days of intense training and learning, basically 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And that was effective. It was intense. It did get me away from the office because you were at a location away from work and you could focus on that. It was four full days straight. And then after that you're eligible to take the test. Now some folks recommended taking the test on the Friday because it was Monday through Thursday. I would not recommend that because your brain is overloaded after those four days and you need a little break. So what I did was I took I think two weeks to kind of digest the information, relearn it, recalibrate it, and then took the test and it was effective that way. Wow, that's great. And so in terms of the application process and the preparation for it, so you apply for it, you felt some kind of application for the exam, is that correct? That's correct. It's through PMI.org and you have to show certain years of experience in managing projects. And at that time when I took it I had well over 10 years of experience performing management process, actually 20 years. But what they had to do is a pretty intense process for application. You had to break it out into what they call the five project management knowledge areas, which is basically the process timeline of a project, which would be initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling, and closing. So all five of those areas you had to really segregate your duties and your past experiences of how you interacted in those areas and in any stage of the project. So it's a pretty fairly intense application process to complete. Wow. And then so once you were accepted to take the exam, you took the week-long preparation course, as you mentioned, the four days. Was that something that you took, that was like your extent of studying, or were you also preparing before that on your own or after that? I was preparing on my own because PMI does offer certain tools and things to start reviewing. They have the project management book of knowledge that's available online. So I did start to prep, but the class was the essential tool. They went through each knowledge area in the same procedure that you would take the test. And they offered many practice tests together as groups in the class itself. So it was very hands-on instruction. I would definitely recommend that approach rather than say doing an online course on your own, because I think it keeps you focused. Right. Being able to get away from things, stay focused on it. Exactly. That's great. Yeah, I can see how that can be helpful. And so I was going to ask you kind of how difficult it was to study while you were working, but it sounded like that was the strategy to get around that a little bit, was getting yourself out of work. Yep, it really was. And what I did the next week before the test, after work or in the evenings, I would refresh the material away from the family in a quiet room just to kind of gather my thoughts. It's a lot of material. I will say there's actually a lot of memorization and process order of things, how things are prioritized and things you're going to do first before you proceed the next step in that approach. So it's very comprehensive, but the way it's structured is very scalable to the organization you work in. So I modeled the same approach that PMI uses for our project management standards and BRPH, the same processes, those same knowledge areas, the same timelines, just scaled back a little bit because there's not everything applies to what we do that PMI enforces. But, you know, PMI does it from a global standpoint. It is scalable to use that to set standards for our design, for any other firm, each user do so. That's great. And what is the actual exam like? Take us through that. How long is it? How does it work? It is a four-hour test. And actually, it was performed, I don't know how they're doing it now with COVID. It may be virtual, but it's at a secure testing center. So you cannot bring any materials inside. You know, you leave everything in a locker and it's a four-hour test, 200 questions, actually all multiple choice. So, you know, there are some trick questions involved, you know, try to trick you up, you know, process-wise or terminology-wise. So you got to be careful with how you answer it. But for half-day tests, that's secured locations how it worked. And then what I liked about it, as soon as you hit submit, you knew if you passed or failed right then, you didn't have to wait for a... Oh, wow. Yeah, it is nice. You know, for mail or whatever. So it was great. Instant feedback. So you talked about how it's impacted you in terms of your company. It's obvious that you've really used that blueprint to help you build the PM standards of your PH, which is great. And I see that that's tangible and very valuable. But how has it impacted you personally, like in your career, the way you think, the way you approach things, the whole PMP process? I'm an engineer. And so I'm very methodical and analytical. So it kind of helped me hone those skills a little bit more when it comes to project management and anything else related to the PM world, you know, meetings, reduce sessions with owners, team meetings internally or externally. It kind of made me focus more on the right process to follow when it comes to those sort of things. It really helps me to become a little more organized and procedurally wise. It actually also helped me... I perform all the project management training internal at the ER page and have been for a while. We're looking to maybe expand that soon to maybe use outside sources. But it helped me develop a good training program for our new upcoming PMs or new PMs that we hired within the company to kind of train them on the platform to model that for our standards. You know, it pretty much modeled the PMI platform, but what I would do in the training sessions would show them how it applied to our standards, our tools and templates and things like that with BRPH. That's great. I think this is a really good thing for a firm like yours that's obviously growing and you're trying to scale the company up to have standards like this, to have guidelines, to have someone there that's really focused on building these guidelines the right way, these PM guidelines is really important. I think that just in terms of building an engineering design consulting firm, that's one of those key questions. At what point in the firm's timeline do you really dig in and develop your PM guidelines? It sounds like your firm was really diligent about identifying someone in yourself that could do this, make sure you get the right trip. Well, you ingesticated the training and got the certification and then transferred that into the actual kind of operating procedures of the company. It is essential with what we do. Our project managers, I mean, we teach them, they're the front line folks of our firm, so they're interacting directly with clients. I mean, they're the ones responsible for winning work and getting the work done. So it makes sense to me to have a strong project management presence and training and approach to make that happen because they are, you know, our PMs are the lifeline of our organization. Yeah, for sure. And so if we have listeners right now that are listening, Jason, that are civil engineering professionals, they're working in their careers and they're trying to decide, this sounds like an interesting certification, should I get it? Like, you know, what would your advice be to them? Is there a specific type of work that makes it more sense for you to get it or what kind of advice can you throw out there on it? Well, yeah, sure. You know, I started out as a civil engineer in the design arena. It was a very technical starting out. What kind of helps me go to that craft? My first firm right out of school, I went to Georgia Tech and went to work for a firm here in Atlanta. And that firm offered me a very big variety of different types of projects. I was working on hydrology, I was working on dam rehabilitation projects, working on land development projects, working on resorts, a big, you know, big mixture of different types of things. So I would recommend to civil engineers, go that route first, learn your technical trade. And then as you develop into more project management, I was early on in my career, after I developed this technical skills, I was able to make good connections with clients early on. That was something I learned how to do from my first supervisor there. And I started managing clients and started getting to more project management roles more so than technical. So as that PM track developed for me, it became obvious that that become a useful thing, you know, you got to be organized as a project manager, you're the go to person on a project from the understand points, you got to be organized, you got to have a methodical process in place. And the PMI process works, you get like I said, it's a scalable process, it can be used on small projects, it can be used on large, multi discipline projects. That's great. That's great. So it sounds like, from what you're saying, and from my own experience, you know, learn the technical trades, immediately in your career, go for that PE license, which especially in the civil world is absolutely highly critical and highly important. And then as you start to usually kind of the next step in your career, they'll give you a your company will give you a project to manage, maybe start with a small project and you'll start to project management. And that's when you may look to couple the PE license with this PMP certificate, that could really help you to learn the intricacies of project management and the delivery processes. And, and you know, for those of you out there, your firm may support you in going after these types of certificates and licenses, you should definitely, you know, talk to them about it, talk to your HR department about it. I'm looking at the website right now for PMI.org and we'll link to this in the show notes. And it looks like the exam fee is about $500. And then, you know, you might take a course like Jason recommended or something along those lines, there might be some materials. But I think long term in your career, if you're going to be involved in civil and infrastructure project management of any kind, it sounds like this could potentially be a very wise investment for you for sure. And I also think it could open up other opportunities for you. If you work for a smaller firm, and you go this route, you can end up getting a position like Jason had where you have to actually help in developing the PM standards for your company because of the expertise you build around doing something like the PMP certificate process. So I think that can all be very valuable. So what we're going to do now is we're going to take a short break here, we're going to come back with Jason in a minute, and we're going to put him on the civil engineering hot seat, which is just going to pepper him with a few more career related questions. I hope you are enjoying this episode of the civil engineering podcast, which is produced by the Engineering Management Institute. Please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for more podcast episodes. And for all of our engineering manager ED20 shorts videos that we publish weekly where we interview successful engineering managers. Now it's time to jump into our civil engineering hot seat segment. All right, we're back with Jason Dunn, chief risk officer at BRPH. And it's time for the civil engineering hot seat. Jason, you ready? I'm ready. Far away. All right. So first question. Are there any specific rituals that you practice every day? For example, do you have a specific morning routine or lunchtime routine or just something that you do consistently on a daily basis that has contributed to your success? Yep, I sure do. It is pretty basic, but it's something to do. And even more so now with the pandemic, we're working at home a lot more. I'm working at home probably 90% of the time. So I make sure I rise at the same time each day after a good night's sleep. I do a breakfast every morning, whether it be something just to get my engines going. And then I meet at your log in to start looking at emails before the meeting craziness begins. I also keep, and this is old school, I'm going to show it to you. I'm old school. I keep a written to-do list. You've got the outlooks and all those other things to help you manage yourself. But I keep this pad and this is my to-do list. And it has everything I need to do from, and here's my engineering part coming out of me. I segregate it by business pursuits, by corporate duties, by travel, which doesn't apply right now, and then project related things and then personal things. And I've come to use that my whole career, the actual written list. And it's so nice when you cross something off. That's a very good thing to cross off. And also, we look at that at the end of the day before I shut down just to see if there's anything outstanding or if anything I need to hit first thing the next morning. So pretty basic ritual. So when you log in to your email in the morning to do that, then do you extract items from there and write them down? I do. If there's anything in particular, and I try to get on a little early before the meeting craziness, the Zoom meeting start, which they start up pretty regularly now. So I try to answer the things that have priority before the folks, you know, maybe 7, 7.30, something like that before meeting start to engulf your day. And in terms of prioritizing those items that are on that written sheet of paper, you just kind of are able, you scan them and you try to prioritize them, I guess, yourself as you go through them. Yes. Yes. And, you know, having this in front of you each day, you can kind of refresh yourself. What's priority? I have a certain system where I start things or certain circles and things just to keep myself managed. It's just a tool for myself to use. Sure. Everyone comes up with their own tools and tricks and the training that you have to. All right. Next question, Jason. What's one book that you recommend to engineers regularly or just one book in general that you found to be extremely helpful in your professional or personal development? Yep. Well, there's a couple I'd like to mention. Obviously, one of the classics, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Everyone's probably heard of that. It is a good book and it's good to refer to. I mean, it taught me, you know, beyond the technical world of an engineer. It taught me how to deal with clients, how to deal with people, you know, how to be respectful and genuine with people. And that's really how projects get done. You know, it will help you. I'll say that those type of things that you learn in that book will help you when problems arise, when disputes come up and they're going to any project you work in in this career, you know, there's going to be issues that come up. And when you can have those genuine relationships with people and clients, it helps you get through those things a lot easier. So I would recommend that book. The other one for me personally that helped me is a book called The Introverted Leader by Jennifer Conwiler. It's not as well known, but it kind of resonated with me. And there's a lot of project management principles within that book. You know, a lot of engineers are introverted, they don't like to go out and, you know, their voice is heard, but they're, they have important things to say. So that kind of taught me to be a little more organized in every aspect. And part of that book references the four P's, right, preparation, presence, pushing yourself in practice. You know, and I learned early on being prepared or even overly prepared when it comes to meetings or dealing with owners is never going to hurt you. And pushing yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone is the only way that you're going to accelerate your career. So acknowledging that and purposefully doing that has helped me. That's great. I'm glad you gave us that. I mean, the Dale Carney book is certainly by all means a classic. In fact, I think out of 150 episodes of this podcast, at least 50 people. So at least a third of them had said that book when I asked that question. But that second book also sounds like it's real valuable for, you know, listen, a lot of engineers, we are introverted and aren't necessarily comfortable being out there and that sounds like some great tips to be able to help as engineers progress. All right. Another question here, thinking back on the managers that you've had in your career, if you think about your favorite manager or managers and you don't have to name names here, but just in general, what made these people your favorites? Sure. I've had, you know, at being at several firms over my career, I've had very good managers and very bad ones. But my favorite one actually was my first manager, first job I had. He was very patient with me and helped me to really learn the craft. Like I mentioned earlier, that learning those technical skills first, being a great engineer from, you know, drainage and grading and pipe design and hydraulics, all those things that you learn as a civil engineer, he helped me craft that. But he was a master at dealing with clients. And early on, he would take me to client meetings, you know, as a young engineer that's never been exposed to that sort of thing. And he actually got me into the meetings with him and I was able to watch him deal with clients. He was very calm, very smooth, very patient with them and always had answers for them, which is the preparation they had mentioned earlier. So I learned, kind of learned that craft from him and actually I followed that manager to another firm later after that first job. Wow. That tells you a lot about the importance of your manager when, you know, saying that you followed him to another place. And really again, another pattern from this podcast in terms of asking that question to people does oftentimes seem to be, you know, great managers are patient and they listen, you know, your kind of your needs. And so that's certainly something that I think as a listener, you can think about as you, you know, develop your own managerial skills and philosophy. All right, Jason, I've got one final question for you. We call it the critical career civil engineering career elevator advice questions. We've gotten to an elevator with a civil engineer and you had about 30 to 40 seconds with him or her and had to give them career advice in that short period of time. What would it be? So I would tell them, and someone told this to me when I was trying to decide the path. I went into school as an undecided engineer. And I wasn't sure what it would be. But I did research on civil engineering and saw quickly that that is a very wide open field. And so there's a lot of things you can do in the civil engineering field. And I would recommend to especially a newer engineer, you know, keep an open mind. There's a lots of tracks and things you can do in the civil engineering field. You can go into the hydrology, hydraulics you can do, environmental you can do transportation, you can do structural and you can even do construction. So I would say keep an open mind, look for the variety of things and learn as much as you can early in your career. And you'll, you'll, you'll pick a path that you think will match your interest. Even more so, I think in civil engineering versus mechanical and electrical. That's great. And I totally agree. I mean, it's amazing the number of sub-disciplines in the world of civil engineering. And quite frankly, there are new jobs being created in this industry, almost on a daily basis, with all the new technologies that continue to come to market. You know, we saw that now, you know, you think about drones now, they're kind of like an old thing. They've been around for a long time. That's right. But I know several civil engineers that have had to learn, implement drone divisions into their company. I mean, that's not something when maybe like when I went to school or you went to school, they were even knew anything about. So the point is, is that, you know, you may be in a civil engineering job or now you're like, I kind of like my job. But listen, there's probably a million other things you could be doing and maybe doing in the future, just because the breath of this industry with infrastructure and technology is continuing to evolve. And it's very, very exciting. So Jason Dunn, chief risk officer at BRPH. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day and visiting with us on the civil engineering podcast. No problem. Thank you, Anthony, for having me on. I appreciate it. 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.