 Welcome to the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast, a podcast focused on helping geotechnical engineers stay up to date with technical trends in the field. I'm your host, Jared Green, and I've practiced as a geotechnical engineer for over 17 and a half years. In addition to practicing engineering, I enjoy mentoring young engineers and first generation college students. I have focused on helping to increase the number of pre-college students that are interested in STEAM majors and fields by STEAM, that's science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. In this episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast, I'll be talking with none other than Miss Joanna Smith, a geotechnical engineer with five years of experience in the areas of pile design and inspection, technical writing, project management and leadership. At a young age, she's achieved an enormous amount of success in her career, and in this episode, we'll be talking to her about her career success and the things she's done to help engineering students succeed and women to succeed in the field. Joanna holds a BS in civil engineering from Morgan State University and an MS in geotechnical engineering from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She's a well-traveled geotechnical engineer and she's worked in West Biden, Germany, Cancun, Mexico, Jamaica, West Indies, Washington DC, and she currently works in New York City with AECOM. She's currently the geotechnical lead for the $1.9 billion Hunts Point Interstate Access Improvement Project. She's also a member of the Women in Deep Foundations Committee and the Ground Improvement Committee of the Deep Foundations Institute, and she is the ASCE Metropolitan Section Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Wow, I would say Joanna is very active and that's not all she's done. Joanna has also founded Daily Smith Incorporated, which is a STEM program as well as a musical experience. As a musician and engineer, she believes that music and math intersect and build confidence in technical skills. From her program, her students have excelled in math and science and have been successful in getting into the schools of choice upon excelling in auditions. Engineering is truly something, she says. It teaches us so many lessons and gives us so many perspectives, not only from the past and present, but also to the future. And with that, let's jump in with our conversation with Joanna. Joanna, welcome to the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. We are honored to have you on the show. I just went through your bio for the listeners. Wow, you are busy in the geotechnical world. How are you feeling? I am feeling great. Jared, thank you so much for having me. It's really an honor and I appreciate it. I'm doing well. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, I'm glad that you were able to carve out some time in your schedule to be here on the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. And we'll just start out, Joanna, in your own words, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about what you do at AEcom on a daily basis? Oh, sure. As a Geotechnical Engineer, there are various facets of my field. And so I can kind of speak to a little bit of design for the most part on various types of projects, whether they are airport projects, designing different foundations for that. Also designing different foundations for resilient projects. I know we had a project out in Hemel's Y and we had to do some rehabilitation there. Also looking at the geotechnical field investigations, which are very important at the preliminary stages, kind of are seen throughout the geotechnical program. That's very important. And the geotechnical investigations are not only just going out into the field and actually taking a look at the soil conditions, but also writing the reports. Also operating somewhat as a Geotechnical Project Manager, I like to call it. You are involved in the various stakeholders, the clients on the AEcom side and also within the field and outside of the field. And so it's definitely a niche. However, there is a various different types of aspects of engineering that's involved. And so it's not just doing one side of the work, but also working alongside different individuals. And so your communication skills and your soft skills as well as your technical skills are all a part of the development of leading out in the geotechnical field. So alongside that, you know, part of that is what I do and also getting involved with different organizations within geotechnical engineering, which is also very important within AEcom for me, not only like Deep Foundation Institute and ASCE, but also AEcom's aspect of geotechnical engineering, where we are a global company. And so we are always, especially for myself, I'm always looking to see how I can incorporate the geotechnical engineering persons in the Americas and also internationally and be a part of different projects, not only in the United States, but around the world. That's awesome. That's awesome. And, you know, as far as geotechnical engineering, there's a lot that you could do within the geotech world, there's a lot you can do within the civil world, but what is it that drew you to geotech? I would have to say it was the hands-on part of everything, right? A lot of the time. Well, I guess more for like civil engineering. When I thought civil, I always thought structural. That's usually how we were taught in school. There are various aspects of civil, but it seemed that everything was kind of by the book, very manual based, kind of sit down in a cubicle and do calculations. And I am a person that loves to move around. I love to kind of have my hands in different aspects of things in order to create this wholesome approach. So, you know, when I think about that, that's kind of like my outlook on geotechnical engineering. And why I got involved in geotechnical engineering, because it wasn't just manual, but it was also a lot of field that was involved, as well as, you know, being in the office as well as speaking to the clients. And so I was really able to see a well-rounded view of my career versus just kind of staying on one side or being in the office, really. So I would say the hands-on approach to geotechnical engineering is why I decided to take that route. Makes sense. And definitely as a geotechnical engineer, you're able to move around quite a bit. And it looks like it's working out well for you. I understand that you're currently the geotechnical lead for the $1.9 billion with the B Dollar Hunts Point Interstate Access Improvement Project. That sounds like a huge responsibility. Yeah, it is. Oh, definitely. So, you know, in 2017, we won the first phase of this project. And my superior at the time, Ms. Karen Armfield, was just so excited to put me on this project. And I worked alongside her and she said, hey, I think you can lead it, you know, after some guidance. And it has definitely been, you know, an amazing experience. What I thought was really interesting about the Hunts Point project is that I am from the Bronx. I'm from the northeast Bronx. However, you know, south or north, it's very important to recognize that you're able to use your degree and impact your community. And you're getting paid for it. So that's even better, right? That's a win. That's a win. That's a win-win, right? And so, you know, this to me really, you know, I developed many sentiments through this project. Karen Armfield, who was my superior at the time, was very helpful in taking me under her wing and teaching me, you know, some of the very important aspects of managing a project, especially within geotechnical side from, you know, doing the bids to getting it awarded, which are actually something that I learned while I was on my internship in Germany with Army Corps of Engineers. So it's kind of interesting to see that through college, you know, doing internships also impacted what I'm doing now. And so I was sitting on those boards with, you know, with the Army Corps and I was choosing the subcontractors based on, of course, the numbers that we were getting and also their capacity to do the work and, you know, their performance and just different subsets of checklists that we had. And so to see the same thing kind of happened here at AECOM was very helpful. And so I went from managing METOC and Jock projects, which is job order contracts and multiple order task contracts in the Army Corps that range up to from $500,000 to $1 million. Now I'm managing, you know, $1.9 billion project. So it was really interesting to kind of see how these things kind of move together in terms of saying, OK, well, this is the internship that happened in 2010, but 10 years later now we see, you know, the real offspring of it and what has come forth from it. So this project as well is a rehabilitation project. And so we are filling different aspects of Hunts Point in terms of filling in some of the embankments that are there right now. We are also moving in terms of an exit ramp and an entrance ramp. We're changing the locations. We also had a GPR serving to do there as well because there's an under tunnel that's running underneath the ground, a subway tunnel. And so these were some major things that, you know, I was working with. Also the geography and the, the, we're right next to a fault line right there. And so there are parts of this project where rock can be found at five feet. And there are parts of this project where rock can be found at 110 feet. And so we can see a drastic change at the fault lines. Also the type of rock changes as well. We have shifts. We have cords over there. We have, I'm trying to remember what's the other camera wrapped off my head, but we have inward marble. And so you can see where the plates are kind of interconnecting and you can see where the fault lines are changing. And so this project was very challenging. It was exciting. Lots of time schedules and constraints here. We were, I had approximated finishing this job, I would say face to face. And in two months they wanted done in a month. So, so, you know, how do we condense this, how do we make sure that, you know, we're, we are hitting the location that we need to in terms of pair locations and what is most necessary in order to have this contract awarded. And then for the contractors to be happy with the information they were getting so that we get a decent price, right. So, you know, this project has definitely been one that I've learned from a lot. It's definitely been one that has allowed me to to grow as an engineer, and also as a leader. And for that, I'm definitely grateful. It's awesome. It sounds like you got a little bit of everything there as far as the change in, you know, geography. Sorry, geology, going down below and then you know the timing of the schedule a little bit of everything. And you hinted at what you were doing in Germany so as an intern I understand that you were responsible you're working on a projects where you're rehabilitating military structures in Germany with the core. So these were different structures. I'm not sure. Well, yeah, don't tell us anything that's top secret but I mean a high level. Yeah, they were definitely different structure that we are working on. I remember I was in Rammstein, Germany. We had also got to visit on General Kip Ward, who was a four star general. He was in Stuttgart, Germany. And he was definitely very receptive to us is about seven of us who had gone out there, very rigorous selection process. And I was the only one who was able to work in the installation support branch, as well as working on some of the fiscal year money that we had and you know looking at how we had to get that money allocated to projects before the year without or else the money is gone. Right. So, so these were some of the building blocks I would say, you know, that allowed me to be able to do what I'm doing now. Wow, that's that's awesome to hear because, you know, we often talk about the importance of getting an internship and how an internship can help you to get a full time job but but more importantly it kind of gives you an introduction to what it looks like to be an engineer. And it sounds like you made a great transition from, you know, now, 10 years from after your internship, you're actually doing that on the mainland, which just, which is awesome. It's awesome. Now, the publisher of the podcast, the Engineering Management Institute, they believe in diversity and inclusion. And from what I know of you, you've often said you're passionate about diversity and inclusion as well. Can you tell us more about how you strive to improve diversity and inclusion in the civil or geotech world in your spirit. Definitely. Thank you so much for that question. I think that we have to start at our, our hiring management levels for the most part. And I'm going to kind of speak about that and also I call it the pipeline effect. I've been having these conversations with some of the executives within a common it's really been great to be a voice and advocate, especially at this time. But when I want to speak about I want to speak about the hiring process simply because I think it's important for us to develop relationships with universities. Internationally, and doesn't only have to be, you know, as I said, it can be international, it can be also in the Americas or wherever you'd like it to be, but universities are also diverse in just like how they're diverse in the type of subject they teach, you know, the scope of work, the intensity of the different subject matters at our time. We're also diversity. Also, they are also diverse in, you know, ethnicities and the way different people think because they are from different spaces. And so I think it's very important for us to look creating partnerships with different universities, and also creating partnerships with the different diversity programs that are in these universities. When I spoke about Germany earlier, I was a part of a program called Amy and it was American Minority Interest in Engineering that pro advancing sorry advancing Minority Interest in Engineering. And that program was very helpful for me because of the opportunities we had so I went to Morgan State University, and Morgan State we had a plethora of opportunities available for us that Army Corps of Engineer project was also in Hawaii was also in North Korea. It was also in a few other fun it was in Germany because I was there, but it was pretty much an international, you know, affiliation and so I think that when we are purposeful and intentional, these words are very important in making sure that we advance, you know, those spaces, then we can definitely create that within our environment. And so that's very important. And I think that's definitely something that we can do moving forward and I can be moving forward as as an advocate and I haven't advocating for so I am working alongside some of the executives and it's definitely been a great, great time to be a time, especially within within this timeframe. I'm talking about the pipeline effect. I think this is also very important. I'm not sure how many schools are, or how many, how much of corporate America is involved. I'm sure we have a few companies that are, but I think that working on the middle school level and also the high school level is very important and we are getting into the schools, whether it is being a part of a STEM program. And I say at least try to impact, maybe 500 just within the first five years right different offices have maybe five regions in the America the whatever it is, say hey we're going to you know, 100 students over the course of this five year for each region. And, you know, that's definitely something that would be great to put your name to not only just for what it would look like but for the impact that it's having on generations forever really forever. And it's really a way to leave a legacy and so that is what I think is very important in terms of looking at diversity and inclusion. And so because of that and because of my love for that. I've created my own company called Daily Smith Incorporated, which has a branch of STEM as well. And so I'm going to be pushing that forward this year and for years to come within our communities. So apart from that, I'm also the vice chair, not vice chair anymore, look at me I'm still in last year on now the chair for ASPE for the Metropolitan section and that's very important, I think, you know, to be able to diversify the scope here. And really, I think it starts with conversations as well. You know, and just having these conversations of hey, how can we make sure that we are creating a space. How can we make sure that we are doing our best to advocate for ourselves and to also have other colleagues that are speaking on the behalf of moving and pushing excellence forward all together with what it looks like of any skin tone of any hue, but we are really looking at the talent in and the capacity that everyone has to add value to projects. And just to life in general, especially engineering from a, I call it the world view of engineering, right. So that's my outlook on diversity and inclusion. Well said. And it's great that these conversations are happening now. You know, some people call them courageous conversations of people called difficult conversations, but it's good that we're having the conversations. Definitely. You know, as engineers, especially geotechs a lot of times, you know, we pride ourselves in being problem solvers and dealing with challenges, but you know, a lot of times as engineers, geotechnical engineers, we need to give an information first. And it's like, you know, as we start to talk about diversity and inclusion, if we're not willing to have these conversations like the ones you're having with your executive team, we can't truly have change. So it's, it's, I'm glad to hear that those things are happening. And I know that mentoring is something that's been that you've been passionate about. And if I understand correctly, you've mentioned students from elementary school all the way up through like pre college. And I believe that mentorship is truly important. The reason why I've had, you know, the successes that I've had is because of my mentors, you know, but can you tell us more about what mentorship has been for you and as a mentor or mentor. Definitely. I mean, I can speak from both aspects. Actually, I'll speak a little bit from the, from the mentor standpoint. First, because, you know, being the young woman who everyone kind of looked up to whether it's church or whether it's school, just me being the one who got out of the box. And that's not in a bad way, but I'd say not necessarily conforming to the norm or whatever that that really means. You know, it's affording me many opportunities and just really being myself and really saying, hey, you know, if this is something that you want to do, you should definitely go out and do it. I think, especially within geotechnical engineering, I tell my friends all the time, my music students, they're all going to be engineers, they don't even know yet. You know, it's really just about speaking to the greatness that you have within you. So this, this kind of supersedes the aspects of engineering. Right. It's really just speaking to the greatness that you have within you. What is it that you really like to do? Who is it that you need to, to link up with and who is it that you need in your network? And really going and speaking to those people. And so for the young people that I work alongside actually have a young man who was also doing the piano with me, and he's a civil engineer. And he was so excited that he was in high school. I think he started doing piano with me when he was 16. He's excelled. He's done an amazing job. And now he's working at different spaces and getting paid for it. And did a different thing to help him to go through his civil engineering, you know, college and it's just really great to be able to talk to him and say, hey, you should join ASCE. Hey, I think you should try to lead out, you know, in NSB or hey, I think you should, you know, be a part of, you know, the ASCE bridge program that we have going on or, you know, we have internships coming up be a part. So it's really great to see how you can bridge the gap that way. And really just teaching and just saying, hey, I think that you're great at this. How do we go forward and how do we become the best at that. And so that's what, you know, the mentoring aspect has done for me, and also done for my students and really taught me patients as well. I think it's so funny because sometimes I don't think I'm that patient, apparently you're so patient with them. I'm like, really? And really that I just want them to recognize the greatness that's in them. And I want them to be able to move forward on whatever footing it is engineering really saw that. I see what you do there. So, so in terms of being a mentee, I've definitely had the opportunity to, and I'm really grateful for that to be mentored by some really great people. I would say I have some veterans in my company who have been there for a very long time is a great insight within the engineering field. They were working alongside some women and women and deep foundations, and their outlook on mentoring was that you should have at least seven mentors around the world. Wow, seven. I said, I believe it. Okay, I like it. Exactly. Right. And I, you know, the biggest thing for me was when you're crossing time zones, you're doing something. And what I've recognized is that the mentorship that I've been receiving. Some of them have been local and they have been starting out and they still are. And I would say, Miss Karen Armfield, Ali Mohammed, who's in my office as well, Gidele Pasalaka, there's some folks on my team, Mr. Jared, he doesn't even know it, but just watching him, you know, and that's the thing about mentoring that's really interesting. Sometimes we think that someone has to kind of like, we have to be shadowing them all the time but sometimes just someone's life is just a witness to you of where you can go and what you can do. So that has been very helpful for me. I would say internationally, and also just moving over into different, I shouldn't be shouting my mentors, I don't want to offend you with that. I'm going to shout one more out, Miss Marcy, I don't know if you know Marcy, she's an ASEE as well. She's definitely been a great mentor. She's a geotechnical engineer as well. I remember meeting her at an ASEE conference that I presented at and I saw her on stage and I was assessing everybody who was talking and I was like, that's her. I don't know what it is about her, but I know that she's going to be in my life forever. When I spoke with her over the duration of time, she told me that she had ran two companies of her own and now she does nothing but C-suite and I said to myself, I see that. I see myself there. I see myself in you. I saw the athlete and she had gotten into a really bad accident, but she came through and had done a marathon after that. It's things like that. When we think about mentorship, it really is a worldview. It's really speaking to persistence. It's speaking to resilience. It's speaking to continuing to go on. It's speaking to overcoming challenges and strength really in the power that different individuals have because the truth is that you don't necessarily need a mentor in your field. And I know I just kind of spoke about all geotechnical engineers, so clearly I'm working on diversifying my mentorship. You got plenty of time. But yeah, it's really about people around don't necessarily have to be in your field to mentor you, but it's a positivity and its ability to continue to grow forward even when things don't look as nice or look as great or look as promising as you expected, but just knowing that you will do better. You will be great and you are great and really manifesting that greatness within you. And so that's really what mentorship has done for me and what mentoring really means to me. That's awesome. That's awesome. And I can say that I remember, I think I first met you at ASCE, Metropolitan Section. I think you came up to me afterwards. We had a short conversation. I can say that over the years, I'm super proud to see where you are and where you're going, you know, and to be included in that list of mentors makes me feel nice. I'm not claiming that I had anything to do with your success. I'm glad that I could be on that list. I think that one of the powerful things about mentorship when it's done right is that you see the mentor, you see the mentee, and then like you talk about that pipeline, you just continues, right? So you started an organization. You said Daily Smith Incorporated and if I understand correctly, it takes STEM education, but also ties it with the musical experience. I remember when you got the, when you were acknowledged as one of the new faces to watch and ASCE, I was looking at the list, I was like, whoa, I know her, I know her, you know, and you were talking about the tie of music and geotech and engineer. Tell us more about that because I think it's fascinating and let us know a little bit more. Oh, definitely. So what's really exciting about this is that I found that a lot of engineers are musicians. I actually had a friend who was a physicist at IBM, and upon speaking to him, he was telling me that he's a trumpeter. And he IBM had produced an entire CD of only IBM employees that created a whole city of music. Wow, it was phenomenal. And I recognized, I thought I was the only one but then it definitely made sense to me because music and and math go together for all my musicians out there when you think about the scale right you have 12 scales if you're not a musician just listen up. You have 12 scales. They're major scales and they're minor skills so everything has one and almost like an inverse of each other right so you know you think about the federal equation do you think about just a fraction you think about something to the negative one power. You know all of these things kind of speak to a derivative of something, and you think about frequencies. You think about pitch those are all numbers right measured and heard so measured by a sine graph or a cosine graph. And so all of these things are really they really interact you think about pitch. You think about the number scale system it's an octave right prefix means eight. And when you play, and you keep going up as you, you know you land from one to the other and so the same note see to the next seat is eight notes in between them. And so you start to see a pattern once again same thing with math. So I think it's really interesting to, to recognize that when you start to put chords together it's a number system. So you have 12345678. And if you want to play a chord you play one, the one, the three and the five. And so there you go. Right. So all of these things really allow you to start to think critically and so a lot of pianist or folks who have taken music on or even piano teachers will tell you, you know, everyone's not going to be a pianist everybody's not going to be like a concert pianist everybody is not going to want to play on stage or play for events, but what it does for you. It definitely works on the critical thinking portion of your mind. And so it's definitely not only that but it's great to be able to show your talent. Music is a language almost like well not almost like math right it's readable. It's something that transcends your regular ability to speak or to understand the language somebody says five or six in another country unless they write differently, they can identify that right and so it is the same thing with music, or someone was to play gospel or place a box or play, you know, friends list or something you can definitely say wow that's beautiful it's definitely universal theme throughout. And so, to me there there's there's a there is a joining there of both of the sciences and the arts together. And I've recognized especially my community is I see a lot of this innate gravity towards the music. But when we come to the science and the number sometimes it's not as strong. And so for me, this is one of my mission here I know to be able to bring those together so that it's fun and it's exciting. And so when we start talking about the sciences and we start talking about combusted or we start talking about fuel or energy, or putting stuff together hey I'm going to build this, it will start to to bring some understanding like oh music we come we put this chord together and if we put that together to make that sound, then in some way shape or form I can put this here. I can construct this object or I can create this calculation in order to to yield this product right. And so that's really how that's my standpoint I think it's definitely something new I've been doing my work and my homework and trying to find books and music and math. I know herbie Hancock has some information on that and he had the whole program. But he's every time I was a whole another. But I'm finding it a little difficult it seems like it's an untapped zone I live right now so definitely something I'm doing and it's been it's been great. Many students have been excelling in their mathematics and their science practices on they've also been doing well in their abilities and being accepted to different schools that they were interested in being accepted to and so it's great to see that when you have a passion for something and you act towards it and you create a solution for it that it really it really does happen and it really does start to kind of bring life to itself. You know the area of which you would like to bring life to so music and math are definitely integrated. They move together with one and great to see that. That's so cool. I can remember you know I remember math classes as a kid I remember math classes in high school and college and it's just this stigma attached to math sometimes it's like oh it's hard or it doesn't make sense or it's not tied to reality and it's just like those are false notions but to tie it with music it's like wow you are really deep there with the chords and everything I'm like wow that's that's that's pretty cool that's pretty cool. But I'm excited to hear about those connections that you share with the next generation, you know, and with that I want to say that you know you have a quote in your bio that we shared earlier I just think so powerful you said engineering is truly something. It teaches us so many lessons and gives us so many perspectives not only from the past and present but also for the future. Can you share with us that number one like a little bit more about that quote which is heavy I mean that's not like hallmark stuff that's heavy right. But you know share a little bit about where that's coming from and then also let us know if there's an important lesson that you've found in your career that's helped you so far that you want to share with our listeners I think that'd be worthwhile. Definitely so you know when you think about at least for me when I think about engineering I really think about the analysis and also the synthesis of something so the breaking down of something and building it back up. When I was younger, my parents would, but I was always like the tomboy of the family I wasn't really the girly girl. It was funny. I remember I had to pop my sister's dolls heads off and let them blow the water. And it was so the funny part about that was even in me doing that and trying to fix them back. I remember that I was always the one that could braid my hair. You know if I needed to throw in or I wanted to braid you know expenses I would always do it. And my sister was playing with all the dolls and combing their hair. She was not the one to be hands on like that and so you know it really kind of showed me that as you look to how the mechanics of something works or as you look to figure out how things come together or or how they break apart. Slowly, you start to understand the fundamentals of that object or of those things. And so when I speak about engineering and the lessons that teach us I'm not just speaking to you know our geotechnical calculations or our design for a foundation or our design for you know a skyscraper structure and the manuals. I'm also speaking to the engineering of how if you want to think about basic things work right like okay well basic in my head of building things so so if I wanted to build a gate or I wanted to build a fence what's the first thing I'm going to do right these are the basic. What's the first thing I'm going to do and when I think about that I think about children so a lot of the times I think that we complicate everything. And really everything is really just based on basic engineering. So we know that unless we're speaking to future city and the floating city. And maybe even there, we have to have a foundation right and that foundation needs to be strong enough so that I mean hopefully we're not in the earthquake simulated area, but we're going to leave that there without California today. So we should be able to create something that can stand on something for a certain period of time, amount of years or whatever it is. And so that is really the engineering how can I make this work. How can the stand how can the integrity of the state, and, and that will allow us to see how it's done now. So when you look to the historical aspects of it you say hey, how did they do it before, if you don't reinvent the wheel right and that's usually what people do they do the research. And so when you think about that of the basics of something, how do we do it before okay well how are we doing it now, and then for the future, how is it going to impact our generation right so even the engineering of saying, how does math and science, and the music work together. The engineering might have been something that they've done years ago that I don't necessarily know about, but how's that going to impact the future it's going to create leader that's going to create new thinker that's going to create a generation of, of people that recognize and understand how within them, not only just from building things, but also building their generations and so the engineering of that and so I really I love speaking like this because it really speaks to the larger perception behind what engineering is right. And so when we produce things, we also produce people we also produce no ideas we also produce new thinkers. And that's really how we create the generations that we have now and that's really how we create excellence over time. Right. So, so that's just a little bit of kind of where that was coming from in terms of the depth of that and the root of that really different things that have that I have engineered my path. I really think that, you know, everything in my engineering career really boils down to just purse bearing and just, you know, just to keep on going. And, and just recognizing. I remember, we had a talk at a around table. I thought it was so interesting someone mentioned their engineering career, almost as a jungle gym. So we don't necessarily think of it as being linear at all times, right, because it may not be, at least for me, I know necessarily has an image theme like that. But I remember that with the way I got into your technical engineering I was doing a job with Clark construction and I was a, I was a assistant superintendent at Clark construction. And it was great. Once again, I had that outlook of doing everything I was doing the man hours who was on site, I was watching the column pours I was doing the drawings checking the orientation of the columns and I was working alongside a geotechnical engineer that started writing up on pink slips. If the bento seal wasn't put on properly and the tie backs weren't, you know, weren't done to his liking and I was I was all one like no, no, no, no, no, what else do we have to do. And I remember he was it was Ramadan and it was so hot outside and we were just, we had such a great conversation but he told me you know he didn't eat because rhythm or well maybe that's why you're so cranky. You know, but that's how I got into geotechnical engineering and it wasn't just because you know I had. Well I want to say that's how I got into it but that was really what sparked my interest, I would say wholeheartedly to say okay well I'm going to go into this field, and I say that story just to say that it wasn't that I was necessarily doing geotechnical for the whole time, but I was interested in construction and then I kind of went into geotech. So it's kind of like, you know this jungle gym type of outlook of, of saying hey, this was great. I might like this right now, and I may like this right now and I'm still going to stay in the field because once again, it's a wholesome approach, everything is interconnected. I'm watching a video actually that you put up and I just want to tell you thank you so much for the content that you put up on LinkedIn they're not boring you know sometimes everything seems so dry like some rocks and some sediment over there like all the morphic rocks and all they're like, geotype, you know, but when you you you put something up about it's called six figures no suits. I might be saying that incorrectly, that's pretty much the concept so it was just really speaking to once again the unconventional way of engineering. So these folks are out on the construction field and I was really excited because I thought that they were doing a deep foundation design using post tension cables, and they were done at an angle. And what was really exciting about it was I said, oh my goodness this construction but they're totally doing a deep foundation. Right, but they didn't have to put geotechnical engineering. Yeah, but I'm just speaking to kind of like once again this wholesome approach how everything is really interconnected within the engineering field. And so that's really my experience with that quote and also with just what I guess in the whole engineering aspect has done for me within looking from the historical part of this to the present and also to the future. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Wow. So with that we're going to come back in just a moment to close out our interview with Joanna and our career factor of safety segment stick around. All right, welcome back. It's time for our career factor of safety in segment and geotechnical engineering just like many other disciplines of engineering. It's important to incorporate a factor of safety into your design. But what about incorporating a factor of safety into your career. So today of course we speak with Joanna Smith. Joanna, with all that you've accomplished and all that you've been involved with one would have to wonder how in the world does she keep from burning out. It's obvious that you must have some type of great time management and planning skills. Tell us how do you manage to give yourself factors safety against burnout and do all that you're doing. Okay, awesome. So these guys did not ask me to do this but I have a planner here and in my planner. Like I'm like teaching my planner has like a day here tells you like, you know what can you be grateful today what are your tasks and then it gives you like time slots so I'm old school I feel like to write things down as well as you know put things on my calendar. But when I plan my days out by using the time slots, it definitely helps me to manage my time a little more effectively. So I'm going to just tell you a little bit about the difficulty of that part of things. What happened sometimes is that you have to remember how much time will take you to do a certain activity. And so sometimes you may if you're like me my sister laughs all the time she's like you build these schedules that are so strong. It's ridiculous. Strong not in a good way but maybe a little bit of this over achiever type of mentality going on here. And so I would say for myself what I've recognized is okay it might take me five or six hours to do this or it might take me three to four hours. I'm not trying not to be too strict on myself and put something for two hours that I know will take maybe three or four. So I think that that has been very helpful in terms of keeping my time slot. So I would call it the carry on carry over work. So sometimes in this time slot you know you're also, at least for me, I'm looking at the, the, the priority of this task, if you will, the priority of this goal right. And so if it's something that I can do for maybe two hours or hour for that day and then kind of keep it going on throughout the week until it's done. That's definitely something I do as well. I'm also was very important to tell yourself where you want to be. So if you're not as focused you say I'm focused. Right. You kind of repeat this stuff to yourself on a regular daily basis is called a positive talk. So these things really help to brainwash you in a good way. Right. So, you know, positive so talk definitely helps you to to be where you want to be. So that's definitely something I use as well. And it has definitely been very helpful for me, as well as writing on the task and goals that I have down, as well as prioritizing them based on when they are due. So that has been, that has been helpful. And of course, using the Outlook calendar is as well. If the task seems as though it may be a little bit overbearing. I definitely think it's helpful to have someone who can be an accountability partner, even if it's a friend like Jared. Or you might have a co worker, you know, or someone who, you know, you can say hey, I know I have this to do. Can you, you know, just check up on me to make sure that it's done. But, you know, as we and that's maybe for the younger persons coming up in their careers, or the older, depending on how your friendship works with your different coworkers. But I think, you know, managing your time. And by writing it down and by also speaking positive words to yourself, help you to get the work done, especially when you have a deadline, but especially when you want to make sure that the clients are happy, and that you are happy with the work that you deliver. So that, I think is a factor of safety charge there in terms of being successful, and in terms of being able to get your work done on time, and also a building camaraderie with your friends and in the community of engineering that you have as well. Excellent. Joanna, thank you so much for coming on. And thank you for sharing the great insights that you have. And thank you for your service to the industry as a whole, and to your community. Our community, I should say. You've shared some great information and advice that I know is going to help our listeners. Where can our listeners find you? Oh, definitely. Nathan or anything like that. Oh yeah. So you can find me at my personal website, which also speaks to my STEM program and also my music program. My website is Joanna, J-O-A-N-N-A-G, my little initial, smith, S-M-I-T-H dot com. That's it. So you remember Joanna? She's coming to America. You remember Joanna, remember? Right. So, Joanna, J-Smith dot com, you can find me there. If you're on Instagram, you can find me at Joanna Smith. If you want to check out my music page, you can also find that at daily smith, I am C on Instagram. And if you're on Facebook, you can find me at Joanna Smith on Facebook. And if you're on LinkedIn, you can find me at Joanna Smith on LinkedIn. So those are some spaces you can reach me. And I'll be definitely happy to have a conversation, talk to you, whatever you need to move life and inspiration along. Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm Joanna, and I'm going to try to summary the key points discussed in today's episode, that being episode four, as well as links to any of the resources, websites, or books mentioned in this episode. Until next time, we wish you all the best in your geotechnical engineering endeavors.