 Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. My name is Rola Dieb. I'm a senior principal at Geosynthetic Consultants in Oakland, California, and a member of CAGA. I have the pleasure of moderating today's discussion. Really briefly, CAGA is the Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering, a sustaining committee of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. CAGA was established as the focal point within the National Academies for government, industry, and academia on technical and public policy issues related to earth processes and materials, soil and rock mechanics, responsible human development and mitigation of natural and human hazards. If you have questions about CAGA, I'd encourage you to contact Samantha or Sam Moxino. She's the National Academies' Staff Director of this committee, and her contact information will be dropped into the chat box momentarily. This webinar is part of a quarterly webinar series produced by CAGA through support from the National Science Foundation. We will be recording this webinar and posting it on YouTube, and an announcement will be sent when it is available for viewing. We'll be introducing the speakers, but for detailed speaker bios, those will also be dropped into the chat box. After very short presentations from our speakers, we will have plenty of time for Q&A. So please submit your questions anytime using the Q&A tab on the Zoom panel on your screen. And we will continue with questions and answers as time permits for this one-hour webinar. Before we get started, I have a short disclaimer. Any opinions, conclusions, or recommendations expressed by the panelists or anyone during this webinar are those of the individuals and do not represent conclusions or recommendations of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, or Medicine. There are several people behind the scenes that have been instrumental in setting up this webinar. Sam Maxino and Emily Bermuda set up this webinar and Mindy Enriquez is producing it. So we're going to go ahead and get started. This is the webinar on managing your Geotechnical Engineering Career Trajectory and the Trajectory of the Profession. We'll have four speakers, Lisanne Gilbert with Keywit, Alan Maher with Geocomp, Priscilla Nelson with the Colorado School of Mines, and Sissi Nicolaou with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. This webinar will start with introductions from these four individuals on the choices they have made and the events and circumstances which have shaped their careers and how they have benefited from mentoring throughout their career and how mentoring can positively impact the future of geo-related professions. Our first speaker will be Sissi Nicolaou. She is a geotechnical and earthquake engineer. She has more than 25 years of consulting experience involving critical facilities, infrastructure projects, and high-rise buildings worldwide. She joined NIST in 2021 as the leader of their earthquake engineering group, and she currently has a leadership investigative role on the geotechnical aspects of the National Construction Safety Team investigation to the partial collapse of the Champlain South Tower condo in Surfside, Florida. Sissi volunteers in professional technical societies and committees, including her serving as the 2023 president of the ASCE Geo Institute. Sissi, we're delighted to have you. Please get us started. Thank you, Rula. My focus is going to be on sharing my story in geotechnical engineering and my thoughts after all these years that I have been working in this field on the importance of innovation through diversity and inclusion. So just, and I walk down memory lane, I was born and raised in Athens, Greece. I had the natural curiosity about how things work from very early on. And I had somehow a fascination with bridges, with tall buildings, but particularly bridges. And this is where I had my first and maybe most important mentor of my life, my grandfather, who was a construction manager in projects. And we are here on the lower hand corner on a not significant bridge in Greece. And he would always say, oh, you can build much better than these. You can do great things. And that is something I never forgot. I went on a public school in a military community because of the background of my father who worked in the army. And I'm the happy person in the middle. And why I wanted to share that is because the environment that I grew up and I studied in was very, very homogeneous. Following that, I had my 80s style here. The rocker that you see is my brother. And I started studying, again, in a public university in the National Technical University of Athens in civil engineering, and then came to the states to the University of Buffalo, which at the time had the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research headquartered there. And I did my master's and PhD in geotechnical engineering and earthquake risk analysis. So what I have learned, it has been many, many years since I finished my PhD, more than 25. What I have learned is where magic happens and magic has happened for me is when you get out of your comfort zone. And for a lot of us, somebody like me who has been told numerous times that I don't look like an engineer, that I have an accent, which I refuse to admit, it is difficult to get out of your comfort zone. But really this is what is going to push you to the next level. So I spent about 18 years in one consulting firm and then moved to a bigger firm for another five years in a corporate environment. And I did have the chance to be part of the design and construction of magnificent bridges, like the woodworks and bridge that you see on the left. And iconic high-rise buildings in very difficult geotechnical environments, like you see in Mexico on the right and DC and Washington Convention Center and be part of the recovery and construction of the World Trade Center and many, many other amazing projects. It hasn't been easy. And I am showing all the nice outcomes of my work, but I have felt strongly the difficulties and I have faced failures. And this is what drives me to move forward. And I think the most important lesson and experience I can share of how I made decisions of moving and what to do with my next step in my career was to listen to my gut. But that has taken a lot of mentorship and mentorship doesn't require for you to have 20 people mentoring you. It takes only a handful of people or even less that they can say the right words. So some of these people, it's not just these two that you see here, is my advisor, George Quezadas. He's the one who made me understand that people who have made it to the top are also human. I went to a reconnaissance mission with him early on in my career and he showed me two buildings identical. One of them had collapsed. The other one had not. Same foundation, same everything. And I said, why did this happen? You are a god of social interaction. Why did this happen? And he said, I do not know. And I was like, he doesn't know. So I can say I don't know. That's very important. And he also said, when I finished my PhDs, like PhD is just the beginning. It's not the title that you put on the wall or like a crown on your head. It's just the beginning. So I always see every step of my career as a new beginning. I also worked under and a member of the National Academy, George Tamaro. I have learned tremendously from him under very difficult project conditions. And when I told him, how was I selected for the frontiers of engineering? You must have something to do with it. He said, no, it was all you, you deserve it. I just put your name there and they selected you. And of course I was, I did not believe I was worth it. But if you hear it a few times and if you have some recognitions, you should take it in and accept it. So flashback, 25 years later, I was called back in my alma mater at Buffalo to give the commencement speech as a distinguished alumni in my NTUA back in Greece. I am honored to be leading the Geo Institute this year. And I am most honored to have mentees. And I think we all have the obligation to have mentees, especially when we have been mentored and it's the most rewarding experience. And still, having the imposter syndrome, I could not believe I was asked to the White House in 2016 by President Obama to participate in the earthquake resilience summit. So during COVID, I was happily working as a consultant. I saw an announcement by NIST for the new earthquake engineering group leader. And when I read the description, it's like my essay of what I wanna do with my life. Especially when I read the values of the Institute which they hold very dear, which is perseverance, excellence, inclusivity and integrity, my own personal values. I applied, I never thought I would be hired because I had my own stereotype of what they would be looking for. And I did a very open interview and I was hired. And now I serve, I have the opportunity to make meaningful changes in how we do things and to participate in important investigations like the one for the surf side from the collapse. So what I have learned is that innovation is key. It's key for everything we do and we inherently have innovation in our blood as geotechnical engineers. When we combine that with diversity, diversity is a driver of innovation. Because as you can imagine, if we limit who can contribute to solving a problem, then we limit at what problems we can actually solve. And if you look at the examples from the book in Deep Excavations by Fuller, the risk that we have is that although codes of practice begin with very good intentions and safety, they often constrain innovation and ingenuity eventually become the only basis for acceptable design. And for me, that is a risk of our profession becoming a commodity. We can do better than code. Code is a minimum requirement, but to do better, we need to innovate. So how diversity and innovation, how people psychologically are driven to be part of the innovative process. One is their differences that are visible. And typically it could be the skin color, the age, the gender, or how unrepresented the group is. Generally the rule of thumb is less than 15%. And we know from recent studies, it's a great reference, it's called Elevate Her. It's about women data. We still have a long way of having equity in women in engineering. We still see for the different architecture, engineering, and construction industries. We have a ratio of one to 3.4 in engineering. We have a ratio of 9.3 to one in construction. And we need to do better than that because for every hundred men who are promoted, only 86 women are promoted. And I'm not gonna go much into the differences in salary and all that. So I hope this makes sense that what are the odds of one single person or many single persons who are identical in profiling will have the best solution for a problem. So how do we convince businesses and decision makers that this has to be implemented? It's not the flavor of the month. It's not just the right thing to do, but it is important for our future. So how do we get around with this? We need to be inclusive, offer inclusive environments. The more we are, the more shots we are having in creating new solutions. We need diversity of thinking and diversity of thinking is not just the intellectual and academic background, but also the experiences and cognitive toolkits that each one of us has. We also need to have equity in payment and career paths for everybody who is different than everybody else. And we need to make the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion. And some of the big 500 fortune companies have done that. There is research to support it that a diverse talent is a driver for engineering innovation as a key to global competitiveness and corporate survival for many firms which can be the essential byproduct of diverse workspace, especially for young people of diverse backgrounds to consider and remain in engineering. It's important for organizations to create excitement about the field and inspire them in creative ways. This is from Doug Harris, the CEO of Caledon School. So in closing, I want to leave you with, I wish to think out of the box and to say that we as geo-professionals have demonstrated leadership through innovation and can develop solutions to solve the pressing global engineering challenges that are imposed by our infrastructure, extreme events, and climate change. However, in this path, thinking out of the box is necessary and should be supported by diversity, equity, and inclusion work environments. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Sissy, for your very inspiring comments. Our next speaker or panelist is Lizanne Gilbert. Lizanne works for Keywood Infrastructure in the Underground Division, helping to deliver complicated infrastructure projects around the country. She has been in the underground industry for over 23 years, having worked as a design consultant and in the construction industry. She enjoys bringing these two aspects together on projects and believes very strongly in team success above individual achievements. Lizanne was elected by her peers to the Moles class of 2021, which is heavy civil industries, the most prestigious fraternal organization. She was elected for her leadership, dedication to promoting the industry, and passion for encouraging young people to pursue a career in heavy civil construction. Lizanne, please proceed. Well, first of all, good afternoon, everybody. It is definitely a pleasure to be with you all today. I also want to call out that one of the other panelists that you will hear from is also a mole, Priscilla Nelson, and I hope she mentions that. So we recently at Keywood had a couple of new hire summits, and what we realized was that the younger engineers and really all of us appreciate seeing the progressions that each of us have taken through our careers to end up where we are. I would also say that for myself and for many of us, where you start out and where you end up generally are not what you expected. And so that's one of the pieces of advice that I like to give to young engineers. Remember, it's just the next job. It's not the job that you will necessarily be in for the rest of your life. So take it for what it is. I started out as a design engineer of graduate engineer at Fugro. I think a lot of us geotechnical engineers had some time at Fugro. And from there earned my PE and really at that point was decided to start a family. So I had my first child. There's always the discussion about work-life balance in all of our careers. And I would say that that was a decision that I made at that time. I was expecting that I might stay home. So I took a year and a half off and stayed with my daughter. It was a great and challenging and a point in my career where I realized that I think it was a more important decision for me to have some work. So I went back and was still local in here in Austin, worked for a little firm HBJ and then had my second child. That gave me a lot of flexibility to be able to have two young children staying locally here in Austin. From there, I went to URS. I was given the opportunity. And I would say that from here on the decisions that I made in my career were in many ways driven by the things that were exciting and interesting and the opportunities. I moved more consistently in the direction of having more opportunities rather than focusing on one thing in particular. And that served me really well. It gave me an opportunity to do lots of different things. I am a person that enjoys a diverse tasks, diverse days. I don't like the same thing every single day. And so this gave me an opportunity to really explore that from URS and doing more program management and leadership on the project side of things. I decided when I was given the opportunity to join the contractor side, which I will tell you was a very surprising invitation. I had no expectations at all of being a contractor. Took me eight months to decide to be a contractor. And once I moved over, I realized that this was exactly where I needed to be. The other thing that I think has been surprising in my career is that the most challenging engineering that I have ever done has been on the contractor side because what we are building and what we are doing is tomorrow. We are designing something and testing and then going and building it. And that's a fairly high stress, high pressure, but incredibly exciting way of working. So for the last 11 years, I have been on the contractor side. And again, I believe that I am exactly where I need to be. I'm very, very pleased at the work that I get to do today and the diversity of experience that I have and how every single day is different, but exciting nonetheless. So as I thought though about my career and what it is that allowed me to progress and allowed me quite honestly to even start on this path of engineering, it is mentoring, hands down mentoring. And you can think back in your life to the people who have actually supported you and made a difference. And I would say that one of the first support mentors that I have was really back in seventh grade. It was my math teacher and that experience and his support of my learning math, which at the time we were in pre-algebra, I believe, or algebra, I guess. And it was not something that we had ever done and his encouragement and really promotion that I was actually okay at this and that I could keep going at it changed how it is that I thought about things. And from there, when I got into my first jobs, I would say that I tend to be a person who identifies where it is that the most efficiencies are happening and then I wanna do that. I really liked learning how to do things well. And so I looked to the people around me and when I find somebody who is doing something well, I want to talk to them. I want to see how they're doing it. How did they approach that that was a different way than what I had approached it? And my goal is to really connect with that person. And so I would say that my career has been really highlighted by the people that I have managed to connect with who have guided me along and encouraged me along and in many ways allowed me to have the confidence to step into something that might be a little bit bigger, a little crazier, a little more exciting, a little different than what it is that I had expected to do. So I've had a chance to do some of this work in terms of what is it that keeps people? What is it that attracts people? What is it that retains people? And then what is it that promotes people in our industry? And I've gotten some chances with the companies that I've been with to explore in depth. And this Harvard Business Review article really stood out to me. It looked at a number of different programs that companies implement and it really explored which are the most successful. And we can talk for just a second about why they are the most successful, but if you look at across the board, the only category that has the broadest and the most positive effect on diversity and what I would call workforce sustainability, which is bringing a diverse group of people in and then keeping them and that's mentoring. And again, when you talk to people anecdotally, they generally refer to some person who encouraged them along, who helped them overcome a challenge, who really gave them the tools and allowed them to bring the tools that they had to the table to be able to go to that next level. So this Harvard Business Review article in my mind really stuck out as evidence for what it is that I knew to be true. The next question then always becomes, okay, so should we all just have a mentoring program and everything will be much better? Do you implement that or do you make it voluntary? And by far and large, the case for things being very organic far surpasses anything that we would put together artificially or in a setting where it's required. And that's because relationships are very organic. They're very individualistic and it really takes the responsibility of both parties in commitment to that relationship in order to be able to trust and share sometimes really difficult challenges and be able to talk through those things so that you actually get the needed advice and input and guidance to be able to get to the next step. So there's lots of discussions. And one of the things that I really find just very interesting and really compelling is generating and developing momentum around an organic mentoring program. So that's generally where I stand with those things. And I would say that part of that burden initiative, whatever is for the senior leaders in your company and our companies and in this industry to give back. Again, we've all got the stories and so it's our responsibility to give back and to gather up some of the younger engineers and really take on the responsibility of being that mentor for these younger engineers so that we can attract, retain and grow the diversity in our companies. That's it. Thank you so much, Lizanne. This was wonderful. We're gonna go ahead and move on to our second to last panelist. Dr. Priscilla Nelson is with the Colorado School of Mines. And if you're interested in her bio, please check your chat box. But she started at the Colorado School of Mines in 2014 as head of the Department of Mining Engineering. She has an international reputation in geological and rock engineering. And she's been involved in the underground construction industry for over 45 years. Before that, she worked at the US National Science Foundation the University of Texas at Austin and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She is a distinguished member of ASCE, former president of the Geo Institute of ASCE, a lifetime member and first president and fellow of the American Rock Mechanics Association, AMOL and numerous other distinctions that are too long to list here but we're just happy to have you Priscilla. Please go ahead with your comments. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for inviting me to be here. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about me and then I'll tell you a little bit about what I've been doing. But my drivers are curiosity about myself and where I can go. And I like the phrase that's on this slide if you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, go together. So I'm in the range where I was younger, I went alone. I was going fast. And as I get older, I see that I want to go far so I need to go together. But what's it all about Priscilla? These are major transitions in my life. I started off as a geology student primarily because the geologists were the best frisbee players on campus at the University of Rochester. I was clueless about power, finding power, I had no idea anything about it. And I finally, well, in the Vietnam War was starting to run down. I just said, fine, I'm done. I'll be a hippie chick, joined the Peace Corps, came a jazz singer. I was just in a dissipation mode. And then I took a job on the Alaska pipeline and worked for a while and suddenly I had money. I had financial power. At the end of the pipeline, I decided to go become an engineer. So I got a master's and a PhD. And there is about growing power, accumulating power, finding it in yourself. I became a professor at UT Austin. And there I was able to use power and to empower other people, became a federal bureaucrat at National Science Foundation for a number of years. And that was all about sharing power with all of the faculty that were seeking research funding. And then I became a provost. That was about the time George Bush won the presidency the second time. I said, I'm out of here. I went and became a provost. And my middle name is provost. So I was provost, Priscilla Provost Nelson at MJIT. And there I was dispensing power but also synergizing it, making the university understand that it was more than a bunch of individuals. And then I took a job at Colorado School of Mines. I interviewed for a different position but I was asked to be the department head of mining engineering. So for the last pretty close to 10 years now, I've been involved in the mining industry, which is extremely interesting. So you see, I'm not a linear person and I'm not somebody who necessarily seeks out major mentoring. I'm sort of persistent, curious about myself and that's been the main driver for what I've been doing. But in reflection, I think it's a power story and finding power. So I spent my life in constant transformation, amassing knowledge, skills and maybe even wisdom but power is what interests me most for our future. And instead of waiting for something to transform and empower me, I'm just gonna do it myself. And everybody needs power, preferably renewable and sharing power can create synergy and strength even if you're surrounded by people who hog power and say it's mine and you can't have it. When I got to Washington, I thought, okay, sure you could become president but for real power become a lobbyist. So effectively when I was at National Science Foundation in many ways, I was lobbying for the field of geotechnical engineering in the federal government. And that was very empowering as well. But I think that what we can do now is think really clearly about harnessing the power of women through cross-sector connections. I've been in all the sectors, many of our speakers today have been in many sectors. And I think if we work together, we could figure out how to open a can of food. So let's just do that. But let's do it with malice of forethought. Let us be serious about this. So I think it's all about harnessing the power of women through cross-sector power deals. I believe that we enhance our own power by fostering connections between women across the sectors of academia, industry and government. And I think that we need to harness such power deals because the interfaces for people and careers between the sectors should be more permeable. Knowledge experience and opportunity should flow smoothly across the sectors. And that synergistic cross-sector activities are gonna be especially enriching, exciting and important for our careers. Those cross-sector activities are ways of building personal power and enhancing the power of each other. And of course, there's also as you have heard and experienced no doubt, there are so few women in each sector. So while we're harnessing, I think we should think about the goals that we want for power deals. We want increased stature. We want personal satisfaction. We want professional growth. We want agility and flexibility, strategies and tactics, access to ideas and opportunities that can't come out of your own head. We want diversity and we want to value diversity. Technical knowledge is extremely important, but so is organizational knowledge, building networks and sharing networks and then establishing international connectivity which gets back to stature as well. So all of these kinds of deals are what you need to develop in order to feel like your world is growing constantly. And I think there's a whole bunch of gerunds. I tried to think of them like, what is the currency, what could it mean? It can mean sharing and collaborating or transferring or creating or synergizing or integrating or exploiting, focused, harnessing, mentoring, teaching and learning is a form of a power deal, connecting, leading, consolidating, leveraging, supporting. I suggest we need to be blatantly, openly and unashamedly strategic about power. And we think about the power sources. They're not always just one thing. They could be information. If you had information, maybe you would be more powerful. Knowledge, experience, whether it's technical, managerial or cultural, global. Skills are sources of power. Connections, resources are sources of power, whether they're dollars or space or facilities, access to equipment, access to people and then a personal strength that you build as you become more confident during your career. So the kind of actions that should be on the list of you to think about in building your careers are maybe taking residencies or sabbaticals in interesting places that no one else has been, that will be a source of power. Build your personal and professional networks, joining an executive corps, becoming a board member, coaching and mentoring at peers, students and also your seniors. Awards and rewards are always important. Let's nominate each other for everything we can. Cross-sector opportunities. Think about recruitment from academia into industry or into the federal government or state government. Publications and co-authorships are ways of having cross-sector partnerships, consulting and problem solving, board appointments, strategic planning that gives you insight as to where industry is thinking the world's going to go and then leadership, becoming a director of an institute or a center serving an advisory committee. Somebody nominate me for an advisory committee. I'll say yes and get on it and learn an awful lot, posting lectures and inviting people to come into wherever your sector is and give lectures, bring in the big names, convening workshops and summit. Be the people who are convening. Take speaking opportunities and invited lectures and then of course get involved with professional societies at all levels. So I always liked this cartoon where a boy in my class called you a bad name. What's a power chick? So I'm a power chick evidently and remember as Maggie Thatcher once said being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. The same thing is true for power chicks. So to conclude, I still don't have all the answers but I think I'm beginning to ask some of the right questions. And I think we need to just sit down and think about our power, building our power, sharing our power and using our power. So thank you very much. The end. Thank you so much, Priscilla. Again, very inspiring presentation. Before I introduce our last panelist, Dr. Alan Marr. I just wanna remind our audience members to get in your questions by using the Q&A tab in Zoom and we will get to them after Alan gives his presentation. So and we're willing if needed to extend the webinar by a few minutes to get to all the questions. But last, our last panelist is Dr. Alan Marr. Alan founded and leads Geocom, providers of real-time web-based performance monitoring of civil engineering structures, including dams, levies, deep excavations, retaining walls, tunnels, buildings, bridges and utilities. Dr. Marr has extensive experience in testing to measure the mechanical properties of earthen materials, designing earth's structures, determining the causes of poor performance of geotechnical structures and developing cost-effective remedial measures for troubled projects. Alan has been instrumental in applying methods of risk assessment and risk management to infrastructure projects. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineers, is a member of the MOLS, our third one today and he chairs CAGA. So thank you Alan, please go ahead. Well, thank you. This is kind of umbling experience to follow three great presentations, very insightful information and I think I'll learn quite a bit from that. I approach this with a little bit of trepidation in that this is a new world we're in and new world from what I grew up in which was a male dominated society in the south and it's really a challenge to do some of the things we need to do to be diverse and be embracing. I started this by saying, well, really what does diversity mean? It means different things to different people and in many ways becomes very personal. So I just grabbed this definition, I won't read, but if you do glance through that it really means to treat everybody fairly, equally and give them chances and I welcome this in our company where we say we don't discriminate except by what you work, what you do. We're a meritocracy here and if you do great things for us we try to help do great things for you regardless of your background that's sad, but it's hard to achieve and some of the things I'll mention a couple of reasons for that, let's see. There are a lot of benefits, we've heard some of them already some of you see them in the public press of having a diverse workforce. I won't cover all these, you might just glance down and read them yourself. I find from my own personal experience that getting new perspectives out of a diverse team, particularly on projects or on problem solving, kind of the more perspectives we have the more chances that we are going to be inclusive in our thinking and not miss something important. It's really important to learn from others perspective and experiences and I learned this actually from two mentors of mine. My father and Professor T. William Lam who was my mentor and both of them had a great facility to ask questions and both of them told me now don't you answer the question Alan I wanna hear what other people have to say and to me that's a very important part of inclusion from a diverse group of people. That makes the whole innovation part much richer and gets to the other line I have here diversity really and inclusion really improves creativity and innovation and I see that personally in my own company for 40 years. I'm very proud that we've been quite a diverse group of people and it has been a key part of our success. Diversity broadens the talent pool and the talent itself. Many of us who run companies today are in a frantic search really for more help and more talent to help us meet the challenges of today and by being diverse and welcoming everybody we easily double the talent pool that we can reach into. The others I think you I won't go into but you can see them there. They're business reasons for embracing diversity and promoting diversity. And so you can think about those and what they mean to you and your organization. I wanna though go to what is our challenges today to achieving diversity. It's a good thing to do and many of us wanna do it but it is hard to do. It is hard to get and keep everyone on board relative to achieving diversity. And it only takes a few malcontents or maybe even one to make diversity efforts difficult or problematic or create real internal problems. And that's specifically here I say identifying and managing the rogue individuals those who are silently pushing backward back on diversity and inclusion. They can create a lot of turmoil in an organization and they should be identified and dealt with quickly and appropriately overcoming conscious and unconscious bias you hear somewhat increasingly these days about unconscious bias and how to deal with that in a diverse workforce. But I think conscious bias is just as important too. We still have people who have very poor attitudes about certain elements of our society. They don't really belong in companies and yet we have a hard time sometimes identifying that. Understanding and embracing our differences. It just makes a richer engagement involvement. Finding and developing qualified employees from underrepresented groups is a real challenge. Companies like ours and others that are listening make strong efforts serious efforts to bring more underrepresented people in. But there's a limited talent pool not because that underrepresented people are not talented it's because the system has not produced enough and that's still a serious problem. Only 15% of the undergraduate population today comes from women and other underrepresented groups. That makes it really hard for a company is trying to achieve balance because the trained people just aren't there and they're not coming out today. That's a big problem for us long-term. And then we have, once we do have folks in that maybe they're not fully qualified to grow we need to help get them qualified help improve their skill sets so they can advance quickly. I see a lot of opportunity for underrepresented groups. I hear some of my colleagues who are members of that group talk about so many opportunities sometimes that they just have to say no. Our challenge is finding more people to come in and get us towards balance. Then another big challenge in business is retaining employees from underrepresented groups. They are constantly in our team sought out by other companies because of this limited pool. And so we have to work hard to keep those that we have and make sure they're happy and are growing and are challenged in their work. I think there's a management challenge too from my personal experience of managing expectations and individual experiences. It's hard sometimes to really figure out what people wanna do, what drives them and then try to match what we need from them what I need from them and what they are interested in doing. And that leads to my final point which is really having open honest communications that lead to positive actions relative to equal treatment and managing a diverse workforce. I am often shocked by not often but I'm sometimes shocked by reading exit interviews of people who have left and hearing some of the reasons they are leaving and only then realizing there's been a huge miscommunication or a huge gap between what their perceptions were, what their leaders of perceptions were and just the total lack of good open honest communications. I think that's really critical to us as we move towards bigger, more diverse work groups. I copied one of your slides there for solace. I think that's my last slide and I appreciate this opportunity to participate in this panel. Alan, the questions have started to come in. Just a reminder, if you'd like your questions answered, please get them into the Q&A box or tab on your screen. The first question, I'm gonna start with you, Alan, since you were the last speaker and then we'll ask the others to weigh in. In your experience, for someone looking to pursue geotechnical or mining engineering professionally, how important is an advanced degree for success in comparison to a bachelor's degree? And for an advanced degree, how important is school prestige for a successful career? That's a very, very good question and I always hate to give, every individual has their own chance but in general, from my observations, having a master's degree in geotechnical engineering is really important, at least a master's. I think bachelor's programs just don't give us enough, give the person enough and solid fundamentals to really grow on, to build on. And I know in our own firm, we've struggled with people with a bachelor's degree coming into the heavy hitting geotechnical engineering that we do. So I urge people who really know what they wanna do and are really serious about the earth and rock sciences get a master's degree. As far as what school, I think increasingly, it's not so much what school, it's what you do with it while you're there. And then it's what you do once you get out of school to advance your own personal career. Someone mentioned earlier about participating in professional activities, getting involved in committee work, giving talks and webinars, that's really makes a huge difference. And I've got some great people here who come from universities that I hardly knew had geotechnical programs. And I've had some from some of the leading schools who we dismissed after a year or two because I couldn't get the job done, so. Thank you, Alan. Lizanne, would you mind sharing your perspective? Sure. Well, like I said, I always give the advice that you should go in the direction that gives you more opportunities rather than fewer. I do agree that if you want to practice geotechnical engineering there, the master's is really an important pool to have. I would say that in my career on both sides as a contractor and a practicing geotech and designer, that I would not have felt capable to be able to take on the tasks that I do. And there are some that specifically come to me as a contractor because of my geotechnical background. So I believe that that's an important tool to have. Where you go to school, like Alan said, it's what you do with it. Thank you, Lizanne. And Sissy? Yeah, I agree. I think to be competitive, you need to have a master's degree. The master's degree gives you the opportunity to also kind of pinpoint what your interests are within geotechnical engineering. And I see that even the percentage of PhD holders has increased, the demands have increased because of very advanced capabilities that exist in our toolbox now that require specialists. And the risk with that, especially in practice is that you don't want to become an analyst that is used to run these tools, but you need to grow. And this is where it's very important to choose what your next steps is to grow as a professional. And we see all the time the lack of, and let's say writing abilities that young students, graduate students have to write a technical memo or write a report. These become as important as your ability to run software or to be very smart or to know all these things. Because if you cannot communicate, again, your career path is not going to be maybe what you would like it to be. And choosing the right mentors and having a feeling about the work environment and the people you will be working with to support you in growing in all aspects, to advise you into what committees you maybe want to be involved in, what activities and all these stuff is so very important in addition to your education. Thank you so much, Sissy. This next question is for Priscilla. Priscilla, the ABAT accreditation process has a massive influence over how universities organize their courses and what undergraduates learn during their engineering degree. How can we re-envision that process to create a more inclusive, well-rounded and supportive culture within the geotechnical engineering profession? So this is very interesting. ABAT is us. We are ABAT. We decide what's in the curriculum and what's not. But I will tell you that I came out here to Colorado School of Mines. I asked all of the faculty and all of the graduate students in this department to take the Myers-Briggs personality test. And because I knew I was different from most of the people that were in the department and I wanted them to understand that, lo and behold, all of the faculty scored as ISTJ or INTJ, for those of you who know about Myers-Briggs tells you something. But I think what is even more important is that all of the graduate students were ISTJs or INTJs, every single one of them. And I talked to the faculty and said, listen, if you want diversity in our profession, you have to realize that the only people you're attracting are the people who are just like you. So you have to do some fundamental soul searching about how you're teaching, what you're teaching. We're redoing our curriculum right now. I'm actually making everybody to subdivide their courses into one credit units. And let's construct it on that level. So we're not defending our three credits as if that's my course and I'm gonna teach it my way. So that you actually have to rethink the content and how you're doing it. ABET is not gonna be the organization that drives that. Experiments and success and people communicating success in using changes like I'm referring to are what's going to drive the changes and we need it. Very badly because we are cloning ourselves and not bringing in the diversity of thought and intellect that we need. Thank you so much, Priscilla. This next question I'm gonna ask Lizanne and Sissy to weigh in. Let's start with you, Lizanne. What would you recommend for early geotechnical engineers? What organizations or groups or communities would you recommend to kick-start their careers? I think this is a great question. And I think it's a great question because I think you should join all. This is truly my approach to life is sign up to everything and then figure out what actually resonates with you. What do you enjoy? I think it's really a challenge and maybe a challenge of the younger engineers where there's a lot of desire to head in a direction. I would like to be this in 20 years. So what are the things that I need to do right now to get me to that place? Who knows in five years if all of that is entirely different and the goal is to enjoy what you're doing now and that will give you the direction that you need to go in. So join everything. Anything that could possibly be of interest to you, join it, figure out if it's what you want and then switch to the things that are actually the most important and honestly the most fun. Thank you, Lucinda. Could I just add to that? I totally agree with you, but participate too. Don't just sign up and show up and sit in the corner, get involved, get engaged, do something. And be present. I would say too. I would happily give a list of all of the things that could be available because sometimes it's just not knowing what's available. So if there is a need to have a list of all of the potential organizations, we can come up with a list and then just start seeing what's around you and go. Thank you so much. Sissy, would you like to add anything? Yeah, I think that there are a lot of opportunities that are at no cost. Usually when you're a young professional or a student that will allow you to explore but I totally agree with Alan that it has to be meaningful. Like if you get involved in something, it's not to have it in your name. Like we all know committees that we go and we participate in and it's usually like two people driving a committee and everybody shows up. We don't want to create the new generation to do the same. So other activities is to create something new. If you think that there is a gap there, we recently had an amazing initial effort for the LBCDQ community, which is to support individuals that are in the AEC industry that are marginalized because of their orientation. And this became an amazing nonprofit called Quake that has helped to give a safe space for individuals and many others have joined including myself, although I'm not belonging in that particular category because they have fun events and I have seen how much they have been suffering in this industry and very unfairly. So it's not just the women, it's not just these individuals. It could be others that have differences that we cannot even see with our stereotypes. So if something is not out there, there are avenues to talk to people that you trust that are more senior than you to guide you on creating a chapter and student activity. There are a lot of different things just be creative but big organizations like AEC and the Geo Institute have all these sections that are local that have a lot of different activities but in a national level too, there are many opportunities and there are others like the Deep Foundations Institute and attending webinars like this one and having the opportunity to hear from people who have been around the blog is great activities. And the earlier you do it the better because your life is not gonna get less busy as you are growing and personally and professionally. Right, thank you so much to see. This next question is for Alan. Alan, you talked about the importance of exit interviews. Staff retention is also a major issue right now. Has your company made any changes based on feedback you've received from exit interviews? I think we're trying. One is back to the communication side of things. We try and openly encourage frequently people to voice or somehow come forth with issues, concerns, things they're unhappy about with their manager or even come to my office and to our HR people. It's really that open communication that's so important. If somebody's unhappy or unfulfilled or in the wrong place, we can probably do something about it or it else decide that they're not the right fit or we're not the right fit and help them find the next step in their career. But if we don't know about it and if we don't have an honest exchange of ideas then we're really hampered in what we can do. I think we have a lot more sensitivity to these issues than we had when I founded the company. We're very proud of our mix right now. I'm told in the most recent reviews of us where we're doing well for an engineering company in our balance of underrepresented groups but that doesn't mean we should stop. We don't have enough senior women in our team now we've hired but we lose them because they're very attractive hires for the larger firms. I just think being a lot more open and dedicated to trying to be successful at the diversity challenge. Great, thank you so much. I'd like to address this next question to Priscilla and Lizanne is from our audience members and it reads as follow. Although it has been very helpful to me in the past sometimes it is not as easy to find the mentor that can guide me through a new career path track or growth opportunities. What would be your advice on how to find approach and shadow a mentor? And let's start with you Priscilla please. Okay, so I think one of the most important things to do is to be very brave and to be very honest and to say what you think you need. And I mean, I don't think of myself as having mentors because I think I'm so old that there weren't anybody around to be a mentor so I just became my own mentor. So when I start talking I forgive myself for whatever it is I'm going to say because I have no idea what's gonna come out of my mouth and keep your sense of humor with you. Make people think that you're curious, that you're interested, that you really value what they have to say. And you're building a relationship. It's more than just asking someone for directions, do I make a left turn or a right turn? This is really all about building a relationship that feeds back into you as an individual, gives you confidence that someone else has valued you but you have to give people the opportunity to do that. So you have to put yourself out there so that people can respond to you and then you can choose who you want to ask what question of. There are some people that I know that I would never ask them certain questions because I don't want to know their answer is. And there's others that I would choose very carefully. Who's answered do I want to hear? So you can select your mentors and they may not even know that they're mentoring you if you do it right. Lizanne. So I completely agree that you definitely have to be brave and you have to take a chance. I would say that the places that I have chose mentors have not always been the same. One, one mentor that I chose, I found out through this various personality tests and things like that, the Myers-Briggs similar but that the chairman of our board and this was a large company and I found out that he and I were the only one who had this type of personality and we approached problems similarly. So I just cold called him and just said, I hear that you and I approach things the same. So that means when I am running into a bit of a challenger of block about how to get through this thing that I don't have to explain all the background about why it would be or wouldn't be. And I would appreciate it if you could help me with a couple of things that over the next year or so that I might be able to bring to you. And he was completely delighted and didn't look like me, didn't have a similar background to me, didn't have any similar experiences to me except we were both same personality type. So it really takes taking some initiative, being brave and honestly realizing that the most of the time that people who you're asking are going to give you an answer that's yes. I would say make good use of their time. When I came and I had a conversation with him, they were generally 30 minutes. I generally had a couple of things that I really was looking to get his feedback on and then it made it nice and easy to both receive and give that information in exchange. So it was great, take a chance. Thank you so much, Lizanne. All right, this next question is for Alan and Priscilla and Sisi, sorry about that. Alan, if you may start, this person is asking for advice about whether it would be better to start working after completing a master's degree instead of immediately pursuing a PhD program. So taking a break and working is not preferable to continuing straight through for a PhD. Alan? You got the money, take a break and go on a vacation, I would guess. I never got to do that. I went straight on. Again, I think this is a very personal thing. There's no right or wrong answer to this. It has been so much on circumstance. Financial abilities, offers that are being made to you. I don't think there, again, I just don't think there's a right or wrong answer. Thank you, Alan. Okay, so let me chime in. First of all, I think that we don't have enough graduate internships where people can actually gain experience while they're doing their master's or graduate work. And I think we need more permeability between the industry, particularly the consulting world and the contracting world and academe so that we can actually pick up experience in way. We have to accelerate our ability to gain experience. We can't sit around and wait for the next 30 years to gain 30 years equivalent experience. We have to be faster. So we have to think differently about what we're doing, I think in terms of dealing with gaining that experience. But I think we also have a situation with faculty because we have some faculty who have gone straight on through from their bachelor's, master's, PhD, gone right into a faculty slot and they've never left. They never worked in the industry. They are not invited to work with industry and that's a different kind of impermeability between our sectors. So I think if we evolve the way I want like us to evolve, we will have that permeability. And then this question won't arise because it's not go straight on for a master's and don't gain experience. It's go straight on for additional professional development while you're gaining experience. And after you get your master's, you continue to gain professional development experience. We don't stop learning with a master's or a PhD. And I think that's something that the Geo Institute can actually do more better is provide this very important continuing professional development experience. Thank you so much, Priscilla, for that excellent perspective. And I'd like to thank all our panelists today for joining and our audience members for your excellent questions. Before we wrap up, just a reminder to look out for an email announcing that a YouTube video of today's proceedings will be available if you had technical difficulties and couldn't join at the beginning. And just again, the disclaimer that any opinions, conclusions and recommendations expressed by the panelists or anyone during this webinar are those of the individuals and do not represent conclusions or recommendations of the National Academies of Science, Engineering or Medicine. This concludes today's event. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you found that useful.