 Welcome to another episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. A podcast focused on helping geotechnical engineers stay up to date with technical trends in the field. I'm your host Jared Green and I've been practicing as a geotechnical engineer for over 17 and a half years. In addition to practicing engineering, I enjoy mentoring young engineers and first-generation college students. I focus on helping to increase the number of pre-college students that are interested in STEAM majors and fields. By STEAM I mean science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. In this episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast, which I may sometimes refer to as the Geopod, I'll be talking to him as Peggy Haggerty-Duffy, P-E-D-G-E. She's the president of Haggerty Engineering Incorporated and in this episode we'll be talking to her about how she started her own firm and Peggy will also share with us some valuable lessons she learned when starting her own firm and how she overcame obstacles in her path. Peggy Haggerty-Duffy, P-E-D-G-E, graduated from the University of Louisville and Louisville, Kentucky with a Bachelor of Science and Civil Engineering degree in 1989 and a Master of Engineering and Civil Engineering degree with a concentration in Geotechnical Engineering in 1990. She worked for several consulting firms before starting Haggerty Engineering in 1997 in Jeffersonville, Indiana and the Metro Louisville, Kentucky area. Peggy has experience of both deep and shallow foundations for a wide variety of structures including municipal facilities, wastewater treatment and water treatment plants, multi-family and single-family housing, industrial complexes and many others. She also has experience with tunnel and dam design and with dam remediation as well as slope stability analysis. She has extensive experience in carstereen and has worked on hundreds of projects involving sinkhole treatment and design and construction of structures over sinkholes. Now let's jump into our conversation with Peggy. Peggy, welcome to the Geotechnical Engineering podcast. We are honored to have you. How are you doing? I'm well. This is so exciting. You know, at Geotechnical, I listen to like beauty and fashion podcasts and like, you know, serial crime that Geotechnical Engineering, I mean, that's a different level. That's even better than all of those other things. Excellent. Excellent. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. Well, Peggy, I introduced you earlier in the show, but you know, in your own words, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and perhaps even what it's like being the president of Haggerty Engineering Incorporated? Well, that's going to really depend on what day it is. Today, we're going to say it's a really good day. No, I'm kidding. I'm a geotechnical engineer and I have, I guess you could say that I came up through a rather traditional path. A lot of my work, I didn't go straight specialized straight out of school. A lot of people do that. A lot of people goes, you know, to a geostructural firm and they only design dams or they do something like that. But I spent a lot of time doing basic geotechnical investigations, you know, drilling out with the drill rig, figuring out what the foundation recommendations need to be. So we still, I still actually do some of that. I've always said one of the reasons I've kept my company small is that I never wanted to go to where I was just management. So I always want to still be in the field and have my hands in the work. So, you know, on a random day, you might find me out with a drill rig or go in over recommendations. Another thing, another area that I do a lot of work in is we are in a heavily car stereo, which owners don't like but I think is extremely exciting. They get really upset when I'm like, oh, we have the same call. I'm so excited. And they're like, no, we have a sinkhole. You're not supposed to be excited. So I spent a lot of time crawling around in sinkholes and crawling into caves that I'm not supposed to. And then figuring out like, what do we do with that? How do we make the, you know, 20 story buildings still happen and not cave into the earth? So those are just some general things in addition to insurance and taxes and managing people. And yeah, yeah, see, you have the same reaction ideas. I know, like getting the invoices out and getting the bills paid. But yeah, got to keep the lights on, you know, we didn't learn about that in school. No, we did not. And you know, engineers are really good about saying, but on paper, in paper, we're supposed to do all this great stuff and then people pay us and then we don't have to think about it. Yeah, right. That doesn't happen. Now you said you purposely kept the firm small. How small or how large is your firm? We are now down to like six people. At one point we had 25. And I've never laid anyone off. But just through attrition and change in type of work, we've gone from a model of the what's very common in my area, which is the standard geotechnical engineering materials testing environmental work. We don't do any materials testing anymore. And we do very basic environmental work or things that we pretty much handpicked. So we're down to doing a lot of specialized projects that we really like. Okay, excellent. Excellent. There's nothing better than being able to say you work on projects that you like, you know, that's awesome. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, Peggy, how did you decide to go on a geotechnical engineering? Like, how did you end up there? Circuitously, let's just say that. My dad is a geotechnical engineer and has been in practice, was still is in practice. He works for me now. And which is he loves to tell people more than I do. But he taught geotechnical engineering at the University of Louisville for 40 years. And my older brother, who's a genius like my dad, he was always going to go into the field. And to me, I'm just a year younger than my older brother. It was like, okay, they've got their thing. That's, that's their thing. They can go do that. And I was going to go into medicine. And I did some volunteer work in high school. And I figured out I was way too empathetic to ever be a doctor. I cried all the time. I wanted to take soup to all the families. And they said, yeah, but when you get to be a doctor, you will learn that this is your job. And then you won't feel that. And I was like, but I don't want to not feel that. Well, then you better find a different field, because you will make a really lousy doctor. Okay, all right. So I really enjoyed, I would help my dad on research projects, looking at riverbank erosion, you know, ride around with him in a canoe and take measurements and things. And as much as I hated to admit it, I really liked it. I really liked the combination of nature and science. And then of course, my dad's a professor. So everything is learning experience. And he would always say, okay, so you noticed what the measurement was last week and what it is now. Now see that bridge up there. What do you think the effects are of this on that bridge? And of course, you know, I'm 17. I'm like, I don't care. I'm supposed to be going out with my friends tonight. And in the back of my mind, it was like, that's actually really interesting. Oh, no, I'm going to end up in civil engineering. And I did. That's so cool. That's so cool. Whereas some kids grow up never hearing what a geotechnical engineer does. Like this is what my dad does. And you know, I've been traveling around with him and I've kind of seen it behind the scenes. You see, you know what, it's not that bad. And I'm sure that you know, you talked about crying in medicine. I'm sure you got to cry a little bit in geotechnical engineering as well, right? We try not to think about that. Yes, you do. But I like to say soil and concrete don't cry. So at least you have a good start, you know, fair point, fair point. So, you know, when I talk to engineering students and, you know, folks that are thinking about engineering, or thinking about getting an engineering degree, there's one thing that a lot of people think about for school and they say, I'm not too excited about that. And that's math class. For whatever reason, some people don't like math class. But, you know, we said in your experience, can you tell us, do you have to love math to be an engineer? No, I do not love math. You don't love math. I do not love math. You're president of an engineering company. My favorite subject in school was English. Sorry, it's out there. I know I'm probably going to get like fired from projects now. Wow. That's fascinating. Tell us more. I always liked words more than numbers. And you know, what I found when I got in college, because it, you know, the, it's the idea is, huh, you have to take 46.2 semesters of calculus. How are you going to do that? And what it came down to was I could do it that didn't mean I had to love it best. So there were things, you know, I'm sure you have a list of things as well, like, oh, polar coordinates. The first time we did polar coordinates, I was like, what are you trying to do to us here? Like, seriously, who even uses this? And then again, the worst part of it is you get this horrible feeling like two years later when you're in a class and an engineering class, and all of a sudden it's used, you know, like, oh, God, that makes so much sense. I hate it that that makes so much sense that you would use that. You know, it's like triple integrals and it's like volumes and areas under a curve and you're like, I hate that that's so useful. Yeah. Food dynamics. Yeah, that's what that's all about. Yes. But so I could do it and I could see it that doesn't mean I love it best. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's great. I mean, that segues nicely into what I want to ask you now, because, you know, one of the reasons that I knew about you some time ago is this blog that you have, you have a blog for female geotechnical engineers called underpinnings, which I love the name. I love the concept and I love the blog. And now I understand that you had that writing and that English background. So it kind of aligns that now you're just one of the things you do. But can you tell us a little bit more about that blog, why you started it, what the experience has been like? Yes. Helen Robinson, who is another engineer, she and I have had many conversations. We talk a lot about we there are not many women in our field, you know, you know this and the perception with a lot of women is well, well, I think it's a it's a misconception. A lot of people think, Oh, well, women don't like to get dirty. And, you know, of course, there's the idea that we're in mud all day every day, like you can't even see our eyeballs, which is not true. Those are just the fun days. But, but it's that women don't like to get dirty or women don't like or women don't like math. And once you get into the field, then it's kind of like, Oh, there, there are women here. And we have to under everything from being out on those construction sites, which, you know, I've been in the business a long time. And I can tell you what it's like today is amazing compared to the way it was 30 years ago. And we started having, you know, talking to women about the fact that a lot of this felt like you can't say that I can't say, Oh, I had a hard time on the construction site, because if you do, and you know, particularly 30 years ago, if you did, then there's a chance somebody was going to say, Well, I shouldn't put you in that job. I should put a man in that job because you want to have that issue. So everybody just, we're not going to talk about it, but there are still issues. And we, some of them are fun. And some of them are really hard. And so Helen and I were like, That it's an outlet. We're not, it's not affiliated with any organization. It's just, and we encourage women to chime in and say, you know, what their experience is. And believe it or not, I just got an email last night from someone who she said, Ah, your post from June the 10th resonated with me so much. And that's why we do it. That's so cool. That's so cool. And honestly, I'm hearing you say that and I'm thinking about your dad who was, you know, he's in the field. He's a professor. It sounds like, you know, he didn't discourage you from going this route, even though there were not a lot of women, you know, that were in the field. And I think that's, that's really powerful. It's really powerful. You know, he and I give my parents a lot of credit, particularly my dad. My parents have, since I can remember, you know, there, we have a lot of talk right now about anti-racist and people are for, who are for fairness. And I grew up with that drilled into my head. Everyone is the same. And my dad would, I played literally baseball. Two years after the Supreme Court said they had to let girls in. And at the time people were like, Oh, you want to make this big statement? And I liked baseball. It wasn't great. But my dad was kind of like, I'm taking the boys to practice there. Why don't you play there too? It wasn't this idea like it was this groundbreaking thing. It's like, well, first of all, let's limit the carpooling. And why shouldn't you play there? You're, you know, you have good athletic abilities. They always treated us as in, you're a person. What do you want to do? What do you want to be? And let's just make that work. I love that. I love that. And yeah, it reminds me of even the video that you were, I understand you were very instrumental and putting together with the women in deep foundations. The video was so much fun. Tell us about that. Tell us about the video, how it came up, what your role was in it. I don't want to give away your scenery. It seems pretty funny because you're like, right? It was going to be a building here. Oh my gosh. And it was, you know, that really came down to, I say all the time, I end up doing things through my own impatience because we had talked about doing a video because all the time we were talking about going to schools and talking to girls and they're like, Gio, what, what is it that you do? So we said, we started with, let's put together some just videos from in the field of everybody will do on their phone and say, here I am on this job site and this is what I'm doing. And then we'll put them all together. Well, as you know, in your lovely, beautiful setup that you're in right now, you know that technology is not that easy. And then we started finding out about things like sound quality and, you know, no, you can't see and that was a bad angle and stuff. I was like, okay. And the more we talked about it, we thought, well, but we need to represent more anyway. We need to like show and show quickly. So people don't lose interest. But we want to convey the idea and I'm sure you'll laugh. But the music is reminiscent of the movie La La Land. There you go. Yeah. And my whole take on this was, of course, we get halfway in and I'm in full on like, they say cheerleader mode. But I am. I was like, what we have to show is that you don't have to be going for a career in the movies to feel like you want to get up and dance in a car for what you do. We need to show that you can do, you can feel that way. We feel that way in our field. So that's what we tried to do. We tried to show that we get excited about what we do for a living and look at the cool stuff we do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I showed it when I saw it. I showed to my family, right? My wife was like, oh, this is great. Oh, wife's a physician and she's like, be great to do something like this in medicine, right? And it's like, we're geotechnical engineers and it's like, but there are women here and this is a great feel. So of course I showed it to our boys and I showed it to my daughter and her eyes just kind of lit up. And she's like, yeah, I could do that if I want to. And it's just, it's great. So know that it's making a difference and appreciate what you're doing. And women how old is your daughter? So she's eight. She's going to be nine this year, but sometimes I talked to her, it's like she's 22. So I don't know how that all works out. But I know, yes, I've been through that. Yeah. But wait a minute. So she's nine. So I'm just thinking about, you know, somebody to end up taking over my firm. So I'm sitting here doing the math. So I've written down. There we go. The exit strategy is it's key. It's key. And honestly, you know, you started your own firm, like, how did that decision come about? It wasn't the Rosie picture Hollywood version of starting your own firm. I was 30 when I started my firm, which probably I had a lot of the, you know, when you're that age, you're the, everyone else is stupid. And I kept saying over and over, I'm tired of people were working for people who are stupid and blah, blah, blah, blah, which in hindsight, it's like, yeah, and you had a lot to learn. But I also, I didn't agree with, I guess, the philosophy of many of the places where I've worked and some of the other places I had interviewed, you know, into each his own. That's why I have my own firm. Some firms feel like we do engineering, but you know, our main reason to be here is as a business. And we're going to do the business decisions first and then like the engineering ethics decisions second. It's their choice. They can do that if they want. I never was somebody who said I won't want to own a business. I wanted to concentrate on the engineering. And I wanted to do it in a certain way. And I had my own opinions about things like liability, you know, we are in a field that gets sued all the time. And as a result, a lot of firms have gone the route of the super boiler play, not really say anything specific. And I didn't agree with that. So a lot of these positions, I said, Well, the only way that I'm, I can really do this. And then when I complain, I have myself to complain at is to have my own firm. And I didn't, I had $84.63 that I started this firm with. So that is not the way that I would recommend, but you know, Wow, can you say that number again? $84.63. That is, that is powerful. I'm sure there's some listener that's thinking, you know, I really want to start my own firm. I want to do things myself. And it's powerful to know that you could step out with, you know, something like that, you know, a large sum like that, a large sum like that and make it happen. But, you know, we think about entrepreneur, you know, people say I'm an entrepreneur. It's kind of, it's a trendy word. And sometimes it's trendy, sometimes it's not. But I think that whenever anybody hears about entrepreneurship, there's definitely an element of risk is definitely an element of fear or something scary. But did you have any of those feelings? If you did, how did you overcome them? How did you deal with them? I did. Particularly on the business side of things, because I'm not some, again, as I mentioned before, it was never my idea to have a business. That side of things makes me more nervous than the engineering side of things. So you know, and so it was always, it wasn't just me, will I be able to pay my own mortgage and my family and feed the kids and do all that. But what about these people who work for me? What, you know, I have all of these mortgages now that I am responsible for. And honestly, that was one of the biggest things when we had so many people I would lay awake at night and think a year in advance, two years in advance, I have all of these mortgages on my head. And, you know, engineers typically are not big risk takers anyway. But I tend to be more of the, okay, I'm going to do this. And I'm not somebody who sits around and thinks about something for 20 years and then does it. I usually, my, what is it called, astrological sign. I'm in Aries, which we are known for just doing something. And yes, unfortunately, it fits. And then I'm like, okay, and don't look back. It's you've done it, now deal with it. I don't regret it. But it is really scary. Wow. Wow. You said something powerful there. You said a lot, but something powerful there. And that, you know, I talked to a lot of young engineers and, you know, sometimes you're in the field and you're the one that's responsible for whatever it is, checking the subgrade or making sure that the backfill is compacted. Sometimes they're laying at night and they said, man, the new cage said 95%. Was it really calibrated right? You know, it was the compaction appropriate. But instead of worrying about, you know, the aspects of the engineering, it sounds like there's a transition to now you're worrying about the staff, the people that you've hired, somebody moved from one part of the country to come to work for you, and they need work. Otherwise, they can pay their mortgage. That's interesting, that transition. You know, not thinking about yourself and your responsibilities, but now your responsibilities are now, you know, other people's responsibilities, you're responsible for them. You are. And it's, I mean, it's also everything that can go wrong. It's not just, do we, back to what we talked about in the very beginning as engineers we say, but the book says, if we do a really good job, we'll make a bunch of money, we'll pay all those mortgages and everything will be fine. Well, what happens when you have a pandemic? You know, can, could you see that coming? No. What happens when, what happens when an employee makes a big mistake, and then two weeks later, and you don't realize it, two weeks later, the IRS walks into your office, you know, those are the things that just make you absolutely sick. And, but, you know, you get to a point and you're like, this is another thing for another day that I have to deal with. And there's a big difference between a year into when, after you start a business, and, you know, 20 something years in where now you say, ah, it's a pandemic, it'll be fine. I guess as the saying goes, you get through all your tough days, right? You got through them basically. So if you had to look back, Peggy, did you make the right decision starting your firm? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There, there are a lot of things that I've gotten to do because I started my own firm, not just in terms of type of work, but we do a lot of community outreach and support of like community construction projects and things like that, that I get to be the one to say, you know what, I'm not going to make as much money this year, but I want to do that. And I've loved having that flexibility. That's so cool. That's so cool. If you could do anything differently, is there anything you could think of that you would have done differently? I think I would have, I don't know how you do this. I think some of my mistakes were in, I don't want to say being too emotional, but I tend to, you know, I'm an extremely loyal person anyway, but I tend to invest a lot in employees. And there is a point, much, we're going back to the doctor scenario too, where you say a doctor, a doctor can't sit and cry with every patient. They would be a horrible doctor. Well, you learn after a while that if you sit through with every employee with all of their like personal problems and everything else, you're not being a very good manager, you're not being a very good boss. And that takes a little while to learn. I mean, some people are the opposite. They just don't care about any of that stuff with their employees. I will never be that way. But I wish I had learned more quickly to step back a little bit. Got it. Got it. Got it. Wow. If there's a geotech that's listening and they're thinking of starting a firm in the future, I mean, what's your advice for them? Okay, really great, great thing to think about here, which is if you are thinking of starting a firm in a year or two years, start learning about taxes and insurance and everything else because you're not going to go in and a month later be the size of GE. You know, you will need to know those things. And sometimes you're going to hire people in your administrative positions who maybe it was a bad hire, maybe they don't do a good job. And then you are on the hook. You need to know what a 941 is and what your workers' responsibilities are. And if I decide I'm going to go work in, do a project in New Mexico, what are all the things I need to know how to do? You need to know those things in advance because you will, as a small business owner, which you'll always start off as a small business owner, knowledge is power. You need to know those things. Wow. You're right. And I guess the learning just never really stops. And I guess time management is something key as well for all of us. And I don't know how you do it. You're running a business. That's amazing blog. You're making videos for organizations. And then, you know, I've also known you as someone that's very, very active within ADSC, the International Association of Foundation Drilling. I think you've been there since 2013 as a technical director. It's like, how do you do all that? What is that responsibility? And how do you find time for it? And how does it align with what you're doing professionally at your bread and butter? Well, the ADSC is actually that is my biggest client. And I serve as their technical director. They, it is, it's a fantastic physician. I oversee all the technical committee work. I oversee any of the research that's done with the association. And I'm also the liaison with federal agencies, state agencies. So, you know, if we have a member who has an issue with a concrete specification in a certain state, I assist them in trying to sort that out with the state. I represent members on all sorts of technical issues. I answer questions. And I work with just outstanding people every day. So it's a lot of member involvement and engagement. And then talking, talking, talking, talking, which you can see I have no problem doing. But that works in well, because I have, you know, I've worked in the field, I've worked with drilled shafts primarily, but also micro piles anchored earth retention, which are the technologies represented by the ADSC. And I've been in the field doing that stuff for a number of years. So now I can go back and, you know, see all of the implications for like regulatory issues and specifications. And I can actually jump in and help change things for the better, help our members. So it's plus, as I said, I also get to meet and work with all kinds of great people. So cool. And, you know, I know one of the challenges for younger engineers is you're learning your craft, you've been out of school for some time, you learn what it means to be in the field, to be in the office. But, you know, at what point in your career should you start looking at organizations, professional organizations, such as like an ADSC or something like that? When do you make that transition to get engaged? How does that work? I would say as soon as you can. Obviously, when you are a year out of school, you're going to have, I will say this, and most people are probably a lot smarter than me, but I was out of school for three full years before I felt like I had any clue what I was doing. I mean, you know, you're on this part of the learning curve and every day is what? Okay, yeah, I can do that. You know, I had calculus, does that count for anything here? It's so, you're learning so much, but by the same token, there are all these people out there who have done this or do this. It can't hurt to get involved and you may say, I can only go to one meeting a year or my boss won't pay for anything and I'm going to pay for this myself and I'm going to go to one meeting a year. You go to one meeting, you meet one person who helps you with one enormous thing and it's a life changer. And then as you get older and you're not learning, you're not on that steep part of the learning curve with your actual career, then you can start incorporating more of the benefits of the associations. Okay, I have to agree with you. I find that, you know, when people wait 10, 15 years in their career and sorry, now it's time for me to start giving back and getting engaged. It's like keeping so far out of the loop or you're so far into the way you think about things. Really tough to make that transition. So you're saying start early, start before you even feel like you can. Start, absolutely start early. And for people who are in school, you know, a lot of our organizations, you start with ASCE when you're in college and, you know, get in the habit of being involved and there is always something to do and always a benefit. You're absolutely right, you're absolutely right. All right, so on that note, we're going to take a quick stop and we're going to pause for a minute and we'll come back to close us up with Peggy in our career factor of safety segment. So stick around. All right, welcome back. It's time for our career factor of safety in segment. So in geotechnical engineering, like with many other disciplines of engineering, it's important to incorporate a factor of safety into your design. And we actually have a guest that has referenced this because she's, you know, a design professional. But we were to ask the question to Peggy, you know, how do you incorporate factor of safety into your career? So Peggy, you spoke about your career transition earlier, and this led you to achieve great successes in your career. What advice would you give to geotechs that are listening? You know, if they're thinking of starting their own firm or how they could build security in their careers, or have have some factor of safety on, you know, being more resilient in their actual career. What would you say to that? I would say the most important thing they can do is diversify, so to speak. And I don't mean that just in terms of the number of skills or the number of, you know, I've known people who the only thing they ever did or wanted to do was design foundations for power plants. Okay. But the thing is, and what I've seen so often is it's not just things like markets that can go bad, but you might get stale. You might, you're working with the same people all of the time. I think that if you do what you said, like you get involved in associations, and maybe branch out a little bit in your skill set and branch out a little bit in the people with whom you come into contact, it will always help you because markets do go bad and projects go bad. And sometimes you get to certain points in your life and all of a sudden it hits you that I don't want to do that anymore. Or this part of my brain is shriveling and dying. I need to have something to fix that. And the more you have diversified what you do and with whom you come into contact, the better chance you have of making that work. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Peggy, we want to thank you for coming on and for sharing the great insights that you have. And I want to thank you also for all that you're doing as an engineer and for the industry. You've shared some great information and some great advice that I know is going to help our listeners. So my last question for you is where can listeners find you if they wanted to get some more information about something you said? Are you on social media or email you feel comfortable sharing? Email is perfect and that is Peggy at HaggertyEngineering.com. Haggerty only has 1G. I always remind people of that. There's actually a story behind that, believe it or not. Also, I am on Instagram as Peggy Haggerty Duffy, which I'm on DMs, whatever, if you want to comment on my pictures of my tomato plants, I'm up for that too. Awesome. Peggy, thank you so much. Keep up the great work. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. We would love to hear your feedback, comments, and or questions. Please feel free to go to geotechnicalengineeringpodcast.com where you'll find a summary of the key points discussed in today's episode, that being episode 7, as well as links to any of the resources, websites, or books mentioned during this episode. And don't forget to check out EMI's newest podcast, that being this week in Civil Engineering, which can be found at Twice.News. That's T-W-I-C-E.News. And make sure to subscribe to the show to get weekly updates. Until next time, we wish you all the best in all your geotechnical engineering endeavors. Peace.