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back another day. Today, much of my fieldwork is remote – whether that’s in the mountains or far out in the desert. There is zero chance of a hardware store run in the middle of the day if I come up short on my equipment list. There is also no help coming if a bolt refuses to budge or you drop your only wrench into a deep lake. Those situations begin to ingrain a healthy, “This is what we have and this is the situ- ation – get it done!” attitude. Six hours rotohammering into a cliffside to secure a stream level gage really puts my occa- sional reluctance to check my office voicemail into perspec- tive! TZL: You’ve worked on the $82 million Icicle Basin proj- ect in North Central Washington. This is a high public- profile project with a large stakeholder group trying to collaborate and overcome varied water disputes. What have been some of the challenges and accomplishments you’ve experienced working on this project? TD: The Icicle Basin project effort has many facets. I quickly learned that my role in large projects is to take ownership over a small portion of the project and support the over- all mission to the best of my ability. Engineers love details and it was difficult to not get wrapped up in trying to track every effort that was going on simultaneously. There was a learning curve to accepting my role and making my piece of the technical puzzle fit with the greater team effort, but the end results have been greater than the sum of their parts. I’m really excited to see how our efforts might help solve a critical local issue. TZL: As a consulting engineer, what’s the most impor- tant lesson you’ve learned about communicating with cli- ents? TD: My clients seem to value responsiveness above all oth- er aspects of communication. Four years ago, I would have interpreted “responsiveness” as having my phone on at all hours of the day, but I see nuance to it now. My clients value timely responses where I don’t come in swinging right off the bat with the “magic” solution. I am learning to make room for the client to talk and fully explain their circumstances, then present option-based ad- vice instead of laser focusing on what I determine to be best alternative. There is a skill to structuring those options to help clients make an informed decision rapidly that I am still developing, but I find the better I do at clearly laying out the possible paths forward with their respective chal- lenges delineated, the more satisfied the client is with the solution. TZL: In 2015, you moved across the country from Virgin- ia to Washington to work at Aspect. Any culture shock? What attracted you to the firm? TD: The day after I applied, the associate engineer in Wenatchee called me directly to let me know what he was looking for in a staff-level coworker, described what Wenatchee was like to live in, and to get to know me to see if we would be a good fit working together. He had person- ally read my resume and cover letter – not a computer look- ing for keywords, not an HR manager in a different city with no knowledge of the day-to-day feel of the office I wanted to work in. There was no generic questionnaire asking what three things I would bring to a desert island. Aspect was the
first engineering firm I had applied to that used a direct- contact approach and that instantly shot them to the top of my list. As far as culture shock, when you ask someone in Central Washington what they do, they rarely start off by describing their day job. They start with their family, their hobbies, and their outdoor pursuits. It’s dangerously easy to get invited into the world of white water rafting or Ultimate Frisbee or powder skiing and, before you know it, you have a shed full of gear and every weekend booked out. It’s very different than the status jockeying that dominates when you live and work near Washington, D.C. “As much as I knew there must be women engineers out there in the world, it was a very different experience witnessing them in action ... I suddenly had a dozen role models that were like me in some way and actively encouraging me to get involved in the missions they were passionate about.” TZL: You are a young engineer who has been with your firm for four years now. What made you decide to stay? Benefits? Work satisfaction/opportunity? TD: I have been the oddball among the peers I graduated with by staying on with the first firm I joined. To tap an earlier question, I’m always looking for role models that are wired like me but are farther along in their career. In Vir- ginia, the only path forward seemed to be the Washington, D.C. life of wearing suits to work and commuting two hours on the subway each day. It was refreshing to find associates and principals at Aspect succeeding just as well in life wear- ing blue jeans and kneeling in the dirt of an apple orchard. The reassurance that I can be me and succeed in this career outweighs the higher salaries available in bigger cities TZL: You just became a project manager. That’s a work- horse position with tons of responsibility. What are you learning about yourself? What are you learning about the work and those you work with? TD: This is the make it or break it time. The top down direc- tion for project managers is to keep doing everything you’ve been doing at the junior level, but also get better at doing all of it, start learning delegation, make new client connec- tions, step up in managing existing clients, scope larger projects, take more ownership over reviewing work prod- uct, and lean further into the technical specializations you want your career path to follow. Also, it’s not all about you and make sure you’re working on teams to keep your tech- nical skill set growing, take on work from a variety of se- nior project managers, tag up with your peers who are also learning the project manager ropes, and bring junior staff up alongside you just like your last project manager did for you. When you’re not a coffee drinker, you start wondering if there are enough hours in a work week to do all of those things. I try to keep in mind that it’s a marathon, not a See APPLE ORCHARDS AND WATER RIGHTS, page 8
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uly 22, 2019, ISSUE 1305
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