EPR LIVE from Fort Lauderdale with Fred Wagner, Tiffany Duong, and JD Reinbott

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

We are so thrilled to be releasing this special episode of EPR! In this first ever special LIVE recording, we bring back our amazing guests, Sunny Fleming, Fed Wagner, JD Reinbott, and Tiffany Duong to talk about diversity, ESG and environmental law as part of the NAEP Annual Conference and Training Symposium. We had a lot of fun bringing everyone together, so we hope you enjoy it!

Show Times;
1:08 Nic & Laura talk about the worst advice they ever received 
4:10 Tiffany Duong and JD Reinbott
18:54 Sunny Fleming
36:00 Fred Wagner

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Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Okay, well hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nick and Laura. On today's show, Laura and I are going to discuss bad advice and what makes it good advice. But we have a really fun show. We're gonna have some of our past guests on. There are a lot of fun. We chose them on purpose because of that and not just because they live really close. That'd be silly. And finally, starfish eat by extending their stomachs outside of their bodies. Just super gross. Very thankful we don't do that. It'd be a lot more awkward or intimate. I

Laura  
think he does do that.

Nic 
Yeah, you think? Oh, thank you. I see what's happening here. All right. Ready to get started?

Laura 
I'm ready. Hit that Music

[Nic & Laura Segment: Bad Advice]

Nic 
All right, Laura. Alright, so what are we what are we gonna talk about today?

Laura  
Yeah. So normally we started conversations with some talk about life leadership, sometimes totally nonsensical things. And so today you wanted to talk about that advice. So

Nic 
yeah, and I don't know we give a lot of good advice on the show. And I feel like everybody in this room has received information that was maybe less than ideal. And my favorite one that I ever heard of was the leadership seminar years ago when I first started really getting into this, this work. And there's a whole panel of people and they're going around and asking them about work life balance, and how do you manage staff all these things? And we get to somebody who has very cool projects, and I know that because he told me, and then he said, I'm an asshole, because I can be and people just get over it. So yeah, is that good advice? Or

Laura 
I think it's good advice if you are an asshole. Yeah,

Nic  
yeah. So if that sounds good to you, what we're trying to say is this is an intervention. I'm looking at some people not kidding. What are you? Do you ever have any bad advice?

Laura 
Yeah, so when we initially we premeditated on this. So I was trying to think of like some, you know, big loss advice like that. But I kept thinking about these little things that I've gotten over the years and I was like, why are these little things sticking in my brain so badly things like, so I quit my environmental career. Job in 2016 and started doing my own businesses. And then I would ask people for advice. And I have gotten things like you should change your email address. I've gotten things like you need to have a different area code. Like okay, I would like some real advice. I would like something that will take me to the next level. So bad advice. What is bad advice?

Nic  
What is bad advice? Yeah.

Laura 
Why are those bad advice?

Nic 
I mean, because it doesn't help you do anything. Yeah. Is that the answer you're looking for? I

Laura 
think it's one of three Yeah. They're shallow. Yeah. Secondly, they aren't personal. Yeah, they're not like, cool. I see what you're doing. I like I want to help you do that. Yeah. It's like, I think thirdly, they're they're just repeating something someone probably said to them, or they read somewhere. So I took a branding class and it says you need an area code that matches where you live

Nic  
and it has to have three colors and two of them have to be an odd Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that helps you won't work for it.

Laura 
Well, Brandon does help if that's the I think the other thing is that they were not solicited. Yeah, one was listed. I was asking for advice from a another consultant who was a step ahead of me like mentor, so mentors out there. When you're giving advice, please make it personal. Don't make it shallow. And don't just repeat something someone else told you.

Nic  
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me. Yeah. So are you ready to do this thing?

Laura 
Yeah, I think I'm ready for some interviews. All right, for sure.

Nic 
Well, let's bring them up.

[Tiffany Duong and JD Reinbott]

Laura 
So our first guests are gonna be Tiffany Duong and JD Reinbott. Tiffany is an ex lawyer turned ocean storyteller and explore championing effective solutions and telling stories that move people. JD is a marine conservationist working to promote diversity above and below the surface. Now they're flatmates, who work together in the keys and beyond to help the ocean.

Nic 
The first question we have for you guys is when did you guys know you wanted to do the jobs you have?

Tiffany Duong  
I didn't. So as Laura pointed out, I was an ex lawyer. I worked in renewable energy and then I burned out really hard after scuba diving trips showed me how much happier I could be around the ocean instead of in a corporate building. So I quit my job. I sold my house and I was really lost for like, honestly three years but like to my mom a year. And then I tried everything possible in ocean policy and advocacy. And that eventually brought me to the Florida Keys to intern at 32 out of coral restoration, nonprofit learning how to be a scientific diver and then when I was running around town trying to get free lionfish tacos I met of the local newspaper who heard me talking about cool things happening and he was like, Do you want to write and I was like, I mean, and then he's like, I'll pay you. Okay, and that's how I started ocean storytelling. And from there, I now write for Paddy and scuba diving magazine and eco watch and all these big dive publications and I get to dive and then meet cool people in the ocean and tell their stories. So it's a pretty sweet gig. It's pretty opposite to lawyer life, so I never knew I wanted it. But now I can't imagine doing anything else.

JD Reinbott 
Man. I'm kind of like the complete and total one ad of TIFF. For those of you who listen to the podcasts that I was on with these amazing human beings over here. I grew up knowing I always wanted to be a marine biologist. That was the field that I wanted to be in. I harassed my family, so they probably wanted to strangle me to make them go to aquariums to do you know, beach trips, scuba diving trips, the whole nine yards. But I think the really cool thing with marine science and marine biology is you kind of learn to grow into what that position actually is. Because if you ask the two year old version of me that was screaming at my parents saying taking you to an aquarium, what I would now be doing as a 25 year old in marine biology, I think those answers would be totally different. I've worked at a scuba instructor. I'm now a boat captain. I've worked in multiple countries, Costa Rica, Mexico, the whole nine yards and just have kind of really dabbled in a bunch of different fields in different niches of Marine Science. So it's really cool just to kind of see that growth. But yeah.

Nic 
And, you know, one of the themes of the conference has been, you know, environmental justice doing better as environmental stewards. I want to ask you guys to share a little bit about being diverse in the environmental space.

Tiffany Duong 
Sure. Um, so I grew up like first gen immigrant household, my family's Vietnamese, and like, my mom doesn't even swim. So it's not like she was like, go be an ocean warrior. at all, you know, she was like, be a doctor, be a lawyer, a businessman if you fail. You know that that was kind of the tiger mom, Asian parents. So it's not like I had like an aunt who was like, you know, a scuba diver or I didn't even know what that was. So I think it's hard for people who don't necessarily have access or even representation in these fields to understand that they can be and I think like maybe in a different version of my life, I could have been a marine scientist because I do love the ocean. And I'm very intrigued by science happening around it, but I came to it late, you know, I came to it as a second third career. So for me, like I think being diverse means like, reaching backwards and helping people who might not necessarily see themselves in the field. Understand that they have a place in environmental professional like jobs and like that there's spaces for them.

JD Reinbott 
And I think I kind of really reiterate and share what Jeff just said, as an openly gay man who's been out for almost 10 years when I first started in the field of Marine Science, I really struggled to just be proud of who I was and really kind of question if I was going to be able to succeed in this career. Growing up watching TV I saw you know, the typical idols. of the marine science field that never really saw myself on TV. Yes, I am a white male. There are plenty of white men on TV, but I never saw a white male who was also gay. And that was really hard because as someone again who's been out for 10 years, I can walk into a room and say, hey, here I am. But growing up that was really, really hard. So I think kind of like what Jeff was saying, it's really important to just kind of push those conversations and share that limelight. And I think it's also really important to mention that with diversity that there isn't really kind of a set representation or image of what someone can be when they work in this field. I mean, you look at TIFF, Tiff has blue hair, I'm covered in tattoos, and I think it's really just kind of important to just even push that a little bit further.

Nic  
And you are allowed to woo in the audience.

Laura 
That's awesome. I appreciate you guys putting yourself out there and being mentors for other people have you got a lot of feedback from people that they appreciate that or that I'm not know those people watching you? No, I do. Yeah.

JD Reinbott 
I one of my previous positions. I managed an intern and volunteer program which for those of you who like paperwork, I would highly recommend it for those of you who do not like paperwork, avoid that job at pol con. But that was kind of the moment that really pivoted my career and made me realize kind of the importance of being a beacon within this field. I actually had multiple individuals who I was managing both interns and volunteers who would see me come in over the top flamboyant like 7am in the morning like Palau. And over the course of time that I was actually managing them, they would come to me and say, you know, I was really uncomfortable being loud and proud about who I was, but sitting and seeing you do that yourself made me realize that I'm okay to express this and then I can also have this career. So there's definitely been some really cool responses on my end.

Laura 
Awesome. How about you, Tiffany?

Tiffany Duong 
So I've had a lot I've shared my story about leaving law and finding the oceans on a couple of different platforms. And I have a lot of really unhappy lawyers who reached out and they're like, You made it possible. And like just people who want to switch from corporate and who are just like, you know, like, I have nothing lined up and I was like, I didn't either, and like, you know, I have things to do and I it's nice to be able to talk to them and get on the phone and just say like, there's always a way to figure it out. Like if you really want to like there's things you can do like I had to move back home for a bit. I, you know, was an intern at 32 Like there's things that you'll have to sacrifice but if your passions and your dreams are big enough, they can outweigh whatever negative feelings you have about those other societal ideas.

Laura 
Okay, awesome. So I know we give you questions in advance, but we've had an audience submittal somebody wants to know more about being a boat captain.

JD Reinbott 
It is stressful. Oh my god. Everyone's like, oh my god, you drive boats. That must be so relaxing. You're out on the water. It's beautiful. No, I mean, like there are days like that like the other day it was like flat calm. You could look over the side of the boat and like you could count the fish and like we were like watching sharks and rays and everything. But let me tell you on days where you have like, for footsies and your boat is going like this and you're like, I'm gonna die. And then it's like, if something goes wrong, it's on you. Like, it's not like oh, I'm the diver on the boat like Latuda like, I'm not gonna worry about it. This other person has to figure it out. It's like if something goes wrong. Those people look at you and they're like, cool, how are we getting back to the dock alive? But besides all of that, it is a lot of fun. It's really cool to be out in the fields and you know, help facilitate these different researchers and individuals who are coming out on the boats that I work on. And also gets a call, you know, a boat in the ocean. My office.

Nic 
Notice at the beginning he humblebrag I just want to point that out. It's not surprising.

JD Reinbott 
I'm just I haven't seen a man site yet dry.

Laura 
Speaking of humble bragging, we are going to continue our theme of bad advice. Anyway, the question is what is the best non typical advice you've ever received?

Tiffany Duong 
Sure, do you want the bad advice you give us? You know, so I did dabble in marine conservation. When I was in undergrad at UCLA. I took one intro class and I remember my TA who I assume was pretty unhappy in her situation. She was like, Do you really want to spend your whole life waiting, like made waste in dirty cold water counting starfish? And I was like, Okay, I'm going to drop this class. And so like, I think for her she wasn't happy. But she framed my whole concept of what a marine biologist was, you know, and I didn't have any context to know. There were other possibilities for what an environmental professional would be. Even. So that was the bad advice.

Laura  
That's awesome. That goes right back. So giving advice you shouldn't be giving right? Yeah, and not making it personal. So thank you.

JD Reinbott 
I would say mine would probably be a previous mentor of mine when I was in college, sat down with me and was like cool graduations right around the corner. What are you doing? And I was honest, and was like, I'm just gonna go be an intern or I'm just gonna go back to working at Dunkin Donuts and you know, get free coffee on the side and figure it out. And that individual was like, so what I'm hearing is you just wasted the past four years here at college. And they basically proceeded to go and just talk about how you need to have your life sorted and figured out that moment you get that diploma or you finish whatever you're doing if you don't go to school, whatever it may be. And that was rough. I mean, I kind of spiraled and scrambled and was freaking out thinking I made the wrong decision in life that I was just, you know, not going to be successful and admittedly rushed into things and some of those positions that I chased after just to be like, Haha, look at me, I'm gonna post on my Instagram that I'm doing this amazing job in marine conservation, but behind all those rainbows and unicorns and butterflies, I was miserable. So I really wish someone had told me you can not have all your stuff figured out and still be a Marine conservationist, marine biologist.

Laura 
Awesome. Thank you. Do you guys want to touch on the other stuff? Yeah.

Tiffany Duong 
So the best non traditional advice I got and I tell it to like everyone is to chase your rejections. Like, don't take it so personal. Every rejection is a data point. And I talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but every rejection is like trying on a different style shirt. Right? If you walk into a store, you don't know what's going to look good on you what you're going to like. So try out different jobs, try out different interests, until you find what actually fits and like I actually keep a chart of my reductions. I heard it on some other podcasts a long time ago, and I've kept it for ever since I quit law in 2015. It's like 500 long now, but I have like, what I tried, whether I liked it or not, and my takeaway, so by chasing rejections, like I was like, I have to hit 50 this year. That means something good will hit you know, if you're putting yourself out there enough to get rejected 50 times something's gonna hit.

JD Reinbott 
And then for me, I kind of grew up always trying to be perfect and have everything organized. Don't you look at me like that. But I had a really good friend one time just tell me eff it. See what happens. And a lot of times when I'm doubting myself and you know debating what's going to go one way or the other, I just kind of sit in my head and just say, eff it, see what happens.

Laura 
That is a great advice. You don't have to believe me on that. But it's also one of those things that could be bad advice depending on what the thing is.

Nic 
All right, Mr. Gonzales broken acid.

Laura 
Fantastic. So let us know now what you're up to next. And then after you finish that where people can find you.

Tiffany Duong  
Awesome. So like I said, I am an ocean storyteller. So you can read a lot of what I write on Patti grabbing magazine and eco watch primarily if you're in the Florida Keys. I also write for the local newspaper. I will be joining a couple scientific expeditions this year. I'm going to Belize to help them celebrate their reef turning 10,000 years old which is pretty cool. And then in November, I'll be going to help document orcas in Norway with a group of like all women scientists talking about climate change with indigenous communities to have like women and indigenous led conversations about how we can try to save the planet. And you can find me on Instagram or Twitter at the handle tiff makes waves ocean. Oh cool.

JD Reinbott 
And then on my end it just kind of trying to figure out what I'm going to do the coming weeks with all the boat trips that we have scheduled. I think we have Monday through Friday for like the next six weeks boat trips every single day. So figuring out how I'm going to survive that many portraits. And then also in June, I'm going to be going up to New York and I'm actually helping be the event coordinator for the ESG Conference, which is taking place during World Oceans week. And then also planning for my 10 year anniversary coming out drag party

Laura 
where's my invitation?

JD Reinbott 
Come on down and then the best place to find me and just kind of have further conversations of interested is also Instagram. It's just the coral queen and Queen Isabel Q W E and

Laura 
awesome. Did you mention Norway? Tiffany?

Tiffany Duong  
I did. Okay. That was the orcas and the climate.

Nic  
Yes. This happens a lot on the show where I get really jealous of the people that we talk to you. I want to make sure Nick heard it. Yeah, that's why she did that. If you were wondering, that's it.

JD Reinbott 
She'll see a Manta and yeah, she already yeah

Laura 
fantabulous Thank you. If you guys aren't intrigued to hear what their song was, yet, you should be so

Nic  
yeah, it's great.

JD Reinbott  
To come up on stage.

[Sunny Fleming]

Nic 
with you guys. We're coming like you said if we have time at the end we'll be we'll be we'll do questions with everybody we want to roll through and make sure we have enough time for everybody we have on and speaking of next up we are going to bring on sunny Fleming. You guys may have heard of her before. Let's bring her up

I love it. So Sonny is ESeries industry lead for the environment. You may know her from our previous podcast that sounds that's gonna sound very familiar today. And she's very passionate about the environmental community and I think I have stalled long enough for her to get comfortable and chill just too close to me. All right.

Sunny Fleming  
You're too close to me. Yeah,

Nic 
that's actually true. So we've all been comparing the worst advice you've ever received.

Sunny Fleming 
You know what I thought was interesting about the responses we've already heard is that all of this bad advice seemed to happen early in our careers or in college. Mine happened in college as well. And it was a professor of mine. Well, I'll back up a little bit. I went to kind of an artistic school when I was a child. It was not a regular school. So all of this stuff around getting prepared for college. I had none of that and I was a first generation college student and my math and science skills were not great. And I failed General Chemistry three times. Whoa.

Nic 
Your confidence feels good now, right? Yeah, that's yeah.

Sunny Fleming 
The professor told me that I should not be pursuing any college degree. And I just thought, whatever dude. I am an ecologist. This is what I do. And I refused to let him bring me down. And so I finally passed that class and I remember going into his office and showing her my final grade and just rubbing it in his face. I was so angry at him. And you know, I've had opportunity to encounter him now that I actually have a successful career and I just I love seeing him no but don't tell young people or people earlier in their career what they should or shouldn't do. Go with your intuition. Go with your gut. Are you passionate about something great, go for it. Don't let one class bring you down. So angry?

Nic 
Yeah. Are you still angry about it? It sounds Hi.

Sunny Fleming 
I'm fine. I'm over. I believe that too. I can't stand that.

Nic 
Never crossed Sunny. That's what we're learning today.

Sunny Fleming 
I hold grudges. Yeah,

Nic  
I mean, I'm excited to actually is that on camera.

Laura 
All right. We have heard so many things. I know I heard a lot of great things about your keynote speech. And I am one of the many people who didn't get to hear it. So can you give us like a 62nd synopsis and then then we can ask you some more questions about it?

Sunny Fleming 
Sure. Yeah. Um, I just think first of all, I really love our environmental community. And what I love about my current role is I get to think about what are the impact of things like oh, this infrastructure bill or some of these other big things that are in the news? How is that going to impact us as an environmental community? And then of course, how does this relate to how can we take geospatial tools and apply that to meet these new challenges or these demands? So that keynote speech is really all around looking at what are some of the new opportunities that we might face as environmental professionals, and how can we apply really interesting innovative tools to do cooler, better, more efficient work and to your point to save the planet?

Laura 
So here's my follow up question. How do you think it went?

Sunny Fleming 
So for those of you that don't know and maybe you all know at this point because I was really excited about it? That was my first keynote opportunity.

Nic 
The guy wherever he is,

Sunny Fleming 
I loved it. I had a blast. I really appreciated the folks that showed up, except for you, Laura. Just kidding. Nick didn't show up. either. No, I appreciated the fact that people really showed up. They really listened. I've had great feedback from folks and started a lot of awesome conversations throughout the past couple of days. And for that being my first keynote, I thought it was a smashing success. And I was really excited that it seemed to resonate with people. That's the most important part because when do Aquino you have to come up with kind of a concept and a vision and especially during COVID We don't have an opportunity to talk with our community and get validation on our thoughts and our ideas and it can be scary to put that out there for the first time on a platform like that. So that was awesome. That was successful and that you all received it really well. So thank you.

Laura  
Awesome, thank you. I have a personal question around that because I have never given a keynote. Maybe someday that that's in my path. Maybe it's not. But if it was, I have always wondered what kind of preparation comes in how did you figure out what to talk about? What did you do to prepare for this for your first time?

Sunny Fleming 
You know, I was actually really excited about this opportunity. Because so often when you are in your work environment, maybe you're giving a presentation at a conference and you know very specifically that you're going to talk about that thing that you're working on. But very rarely are we given this opportunity to talk about just kind of what we love. What's that thing that you wake up in the morning and you're just kind of thinking about on your own time and you never really have the opportunity to flex that or, you know, just kind of the things that we pontificate about in our own profession. And that's how I prepared I was like, What is that thing that I really like to think about? What's that bigger vision that I'm like, Oh, that's cool. I feel it's cool. And that's how I put that keynote together. But the preparation itself, you get really dizzy. I practiced it once because you're kind of nervous. My husband wanted to see it. I was like, No, you're not looking at this. And, you know, you just kind of roll with it. So

Unknown Speaker 
you practiced it once.

Sunny Fleming 
Yeah. Wow.

Laura 
That's pretty amazing. I mean, I love that.

Nic 
And that for me.

Laura 
That's like one of those secrets, right? Like, I feel like if you have to do it, you're gonna have to practice a million times, but maybe you don't. Well, I

Sunny Fleming 
think if you're passionate about a topic, you've already thought about what you're gonna say in your head. Yeah, you don't really have to practice it. You know how to talk about it. You've got that confidence already, just from already being interested in it. So yeah, I mean, if you're finding that you're really practicing any presentation and Keynote or otherwise, then you might want to look at those areas where you're having to go back to your own practice a little bit more and ask yourself is this part of the story I really want to tell? Why doesn't this feel natural to me, but just go with your gut go with your intuition of it. Stephen jVb you guys

Laura 
good presentations.

Sunny Fleming 
Yes, we were.

Laura 
going awesome.

Nic 
You have anything to add to it?

Tiffany Duong 
I would totally agree. Like when we talk about ocean stuff, or coral stuff, or like climate stuff, for me it I can just talk about it. Like I'm talking about dinner at Grandma's house because it we live in every day, right? Like we're in the oceans as much as we can be. We're here in Florida. So we're like you know, at the nexus of like climate and ocean connection. So I totally loved that advice. Like if it feels unnatural, there's probably a reason.

JD Reinbott 
And then I would probably say, especially with presentations presentations are intimidating, as you probably know. I mean, like hearing you say, I only practice it once, right? Oh my god, I had I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned for like presentation stuff and just getting that out there is if you mess up with it, only you are going to catch that like if you were like oh crap while you're talking people are like, Oh, you messed up, you don't know what you're doing. But like if you slip on your words, you say something wrong. Even if someone has their PhD and is sitting and listening to you talk about that. Probably not going to interrupt you so like just taking that pause and not actualizing that mistake that you made and just keep on rockin correct

Sunny Fleming 
Amen to that, you know, great point. But I'll add to that real quick. Talk about good advice. Here's some good advice I got from my father who's a musician so he's on stage all the time. And very early on his metaphor for that was you're gonna miss a note but just keep playing. And I and I hear him miss notes all the time. He doesn't want me to say that but but you just got it. You know, the show must go on. Right. That was the best advice and it is it's just the confidence thing. Just keep on rolling. Yeah,

Nic 
I mean, I actually did the exact same thing but on local news, and then I made the face and they cut right as I made. Awesome. Local boy is full and I'm like so it is nice. Oh man. Yeah. And now it's me. Oh my gosh. So where were we? You mentioned that our social economic arenas are interconnected. Can you tell us what you know about ESG then?

Sunny Fleming 
Oh, yeah, so I briefly mentioned the word ESG in the keynote. And first of all, I'm not an investment portfolio manager. I am not a corporate business strategist. I'm but I am really fascinated by ESG which was environment and social governance. So it's not a new thing. Corporations basically or private businesses, public businesses, whatever. They have risk that's associated with the environment. So whether this is climate change, and your road that you move your goods from point A to point B on gets flooded out, how does that impact your supply chain? What if a tornado comes through and takes out you know, what are your suppliers? How does that impact your ability to provide these goods and services? So there's a lot of risk associated with environmental hazards and looking into the future really understanding how that's going to get worse or how it may even provide you with opportunity. It goes both ways, is really important to corporations to understand how their business can continue. So as environmental professionals, I find that really fascinating because this requires us to apply our environmental understanding in a different kind of way through that economic lens. And I find that so fascinating because I kind of love a little bit of all of it. And so ESG for me has been really fascinating. And I have a mentor in this space. His name's Michael McCall. And you all are going to actually be interviewing him on a later podcast. He's Wait. He's Microsoft's ESG guy, and he's really accessible and I basically begged him for some time and he was like, Sure, yeah, so he gave me a little bit of a crash course on
________

Sunny Fleming 
I have a mentor in this space. His name's Michael McCall. And you all are going to actually be interviewing him on a later podcast. He's Wait. He's Microsoft's ESG guy. And he's really accessible. And I basically begged him for some time. And he was like, Sure, yeah. So he gave me a little bit of a crash course on on ESG. Just last week, and he and I, you know, wax philosophical on this all the time, but he's a great one to follow. He's all over social media and really kind of learn about ESG and think about it from the perspective of our own careers and how we might kind of apply to that. So yeah,

Laura 
that's awesome. Love to pick your brain on questions for him.

Sunny Fleming 
We'll do we'll do.

Nic 
And, you know, one of the other parts of the show we really love to do is to find out what everybody does for fun. And this time I want to know, do you ever just sit and watch TV you guys are all so damn busy. And I want to know like the trash TV like don't get me like the whole of the academy award winning whatever. No, I want to know what what what do you do? TV? All right. I want all of them. I know the truth. I know the truth. Yeah.

Sunny Fleming 
All right. I'll start so during the lockdown, lockdown is your period of time. I had like 5000 goals. I thought I was going to achieve like teaching myself to speak Spanish fluently. It didn't happen. You know all sorts of weird things. But the one thing I did learn was pottery and my husband thank God for him. He like VPN and into some network in Ireland and we got channel four, which is like British Public TV. And on Channel Four, they have this awesome show called The Great British pottery thrown out by the same producers that do the great British baking show, FYI. So it's like nice people having a competition but they all like each other and then they make these awesome pots and like pottery I was so chill. I was like, Wow, nice people like American competition shows were just like cutthroat were mean and I'm like, Dude, this is my career. I don't want to deal with this on TV. So yeah, I liked that. And then the Julia Child show you know, I'm like, I need a bon appetit British accent. Is she British?

Nic  
Is that what you just said? That was your French accent.

Sunny Fleming 
That's what she said at the end of all of her shows and she was awesome. So anyways, Julia Child, I highly recommend what she makes you swatch. We do cook a lot, but I have not. I've tried one of her cakes. And that's where that story ends.

Laura 
It's all about your face. It didn't end well. It didn't

Sunny Fleming 
end well. It's dry and gross. Never again.

Laura  
All right. JD I know you have some secret TV dollars was down there.

JD Reinbott 
Not that I like think it's trashed TV. But like I binge watch RuPaul drag race. together so you can cancel plans if it's Friday. Be like, oh, sorry, I'm busy. I will sit there like with snacks, drinks, whatever. And it's like I'm watching the Super Bowl like screaming. People will come over and be like, Is he okay? And she's like, he's fine. Just ignore him. It's okay. And then like, if I'm bored and like want to do work, I'll just like put it like reruns up but then like slowly close the laptop and get back invested into watching it and he's screaming and yelling again. But that's pretty much like my my number one.

Laura 
Amazing yeah,

Tiffany Duong 
I hope we're gonna add some soundtrack as his constant play. Let's do like imagine 7am And you're not a morning person. And it's like RuPaul drag race through the Google home all the time.

Laura 
To have me be quiet.

Tiffany Duong  
So I am the weirdo that doesn't really watch TV. When I quit law and sold my house in LA, I haven't bought a TV since I think I don't have enough patience for watching things like that. It just doesn't move like soon enough or my hours are too weird to catch things. I will say I did just watch everything everywhere all at once in the movie theater and it blew my mind. It was so good. So I did watch a thing, but that's

Laura 
nice. So we need to wrap up with Sunny, Sunny Would you also like to tell people where they can get in touch with you? You're gonna miss twice on the podcast already. But

Nic 
you know do it again.

Sunny Fleming 
Yeah, well, now I have a Twitter with 10 followers or something. Yeah, so please become my 11th follower. But that's at ESRI Sunny. So I'm there on Twitter now. But you can always find me on LinkedIn. That's really my favorite platform and that's where I engage the most it's where Matthew's to call it it's not like you're there all the time. So yeah, I'm big fan of LinkedIn. So definitely find me there and that's Sonny ESRI. So the opposite as resigning and sunny ESRI, but yeah, come hang out with me on on the socials. Awesome.

Laura 
Well, we really appreciate you and we can't thank you enough for being the keynote speaker for our conference and sticking around to have our first live recording. And, yeah, thank you.

Sunny Fleming 
Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. To any awesome

Laura 
I'm going to interject something that's not in our script. I would like to do a shout out and thank you to our amazing technical behind the scenes assistant Kara Lubold. She was I think she was at well, virtually she's at our last conferences but in the last person when I think but normally she's here listening. She comes to every one of our recordings. She's there taking notes for us so that it helps Nick with the editing. And then so she's able to take notes on kind of the key topics that we have. So we're not hunting to figure out in our social media posts. What what did we talk about? So we appreciate you Kara.

[Fred Wagner]

Laura
But finally we have one more guest on the show. So we have our legal guru and rep from our repeat sponsor Venable LLP Fred Wagner. Come on

Fred Wagner 
good, bad advice. I've been listening to you guys man. The worst. The worst advice is to always use the word do to start Wordle I'm sorry, man. So So you knock out the vowels like so what? So the way to play Wordle is this way, just like totally forget that you're trying to get it in one move or two moves. You're just trying to get the word you shouldn't get to the end result. Right? And so what I do on the metro every day, is I pick a word that inspires me that I'm dealing with for the day. That's what I do. Whenever the word is it has to be five letters. So I have to find a word that's kind of close. So like today, we're talking about everything going on. With any P and CQ and I'm sorry, pick rules. Rules, five letter words or term at the freakin rule. Three out of the five letters. Hey,

Laura 
always smile.

Fred Wagner 
Right? So I'm just saying you pick a word that's your muse for the day and even if it doesn't hit on the first move, it's still your muse and then you still have five months left. So that's that's what I say.

Laura 
Well, there you go to the rest of the world.

Nic 
And your trash TV as well is

Fred Wagner 
Oh no, it's not trash. So it's not trash. So true story. I turned 60 this year. Like these guys are like 12 Absolutely. I don't look 60 Right. That's the responses you don't look 60 for it. You look great. Maybe 50

Unknown Speaker 
I can share my data, share my die.

Fred Wagner 
So my buddy is also turning 60 And so we're doing the year of 60. And he is a Formula One race fanatic. fanatic. I know nothing about it. So when my 60th birthday, he got me in a Ferrari hat. And he convinced me to go with him. And in four months I'm going to be Italian Grand Prix and Monza and so I am watching drive to survive about all the first way to get smart right so when i By the time I go to Grand Prix I know what I'm talking about. I'm gonna be wearing all the Ferrari stuff that I only know what it means and everything. And that is awesome. It is just a great thing. It is colorful. It's amazing. The personalities are great, just the scenery around where each races is kind of amazing. So my wife sent her I have to start marching drag to survive. I get ready to go to Italy. And it's just she rolled her eyes because she's like a Downton Abbey Kind of chick. And I am not so like when she turns on the TV to watch you know, Masterpiece Theater, it's like on God. So I said I'm gonna watch drive to survive. And she was like, Okay, I'll watch one. Just humor me, and she loved it. She loved drive to survive. So now we're totally into drive to survive this four seasons of it. So that's what I'm doing.

Nic 
You free time and all your free time,

Fred Wagner 
all my free time, but I'm squeezing it in there.

Nic 
So last time we had you on we talked a lot about what is going to go on with the Supreme Court. And a lot of what you said just started to come out. Sorry to come through before we dive into that. What did you make of the leak? Is that a big deal?

Fred Wagner 
The leak is a big MF deal. I mean, you know the way the Supreme Court works is, in theory, there is an exchange of ideas through these drafts. And the discourse between the justices, whether it's in the majority concurrences with the majority, or the dissent are born out of these drafts. And they're intentionally confidential so that for the same reason your documents are confidential. So you can put something out there and to the point where I heard earlier so that you could screw up, have somebody talk to you about it, and then you modify it. And the reason we don't want all our drafts and administrative records as lawyers is because we want that freedom of expression. So that we can share those ideas. That's why we don't put drafts in the record. Same reason why you don't want drafts of Supreme Court decisions out in the public domain when you're still engaged in that discourse. And if you're Samuel Alito, today, maybe he's has no shame. It's there's a likelihood looking at his face that he does not. But if he did you wonder how he feels about citing a 13th century scholar as evidence or proof about views on abortion. Is that the kind of thing that you want out there? Or was it the kind of thing that he was putting out there in draft form for the other justices to look at it and read and then get back to him and say, Hey, Sam, you maybe you want to ixnay on the 13th century? You know, when you're talking about women's rights, you know, and so it's it's a really big deal. And it's not because I'm an advocate of keeping the Supreme Court secretive? I am not. I think one of the best things in the pandemic was the fact that they were live streaming their oral arguments. We heard the live oral arguments and Bush v Gore, and everybody was like, Oh, wow, this is how it works. Right? And it took me wrong. I'm not into secrecy that way. But there is a total reason why these drafts and exchanges are kept confidential in order to get to the right results even if you don't believe you know, the right politically or right whatnot, but right in terms of sound firm, not crazy. I mean, rationale. So now you got the 7080 page draft out there with a whole bunch of crazy shit. And I don't know, I don't know if it's gonna, you know, I don't know if it's gonna survive in the final decision, but that's what damages the credibility of the court. Because in order to get to a final decision, you know, the justices are trying stuff, they're talking to each other about it, and they don't do it just like stopping by the hall. Hey, Clarence, you Oh, what do you think about the 13th century scholar? They do it in writing. They do it in writing and if that writing is leaked, it's it's bad.

Nic  
And it is again, thank you, as always, for your perspective on that. And you know, last time we talked about your prediction about overturning the abortion ruling, and now seems much more likely to happen. But I also want you to kind of talk through how that connects to what's coming through and environmental regulations and how those two things MAN

Fred Wagner 
Yeah, I mean, it's a red flag alert. You know, we're here somebody writes boat, you know, what's red flags? Is that bad for storms? Right. This is a red flag alert. The rationale, if it stakes that you know abortion is not in the Constitution, ergo in terms of protected rights, we don't have to worry about it as much as you know for precedent. That becomes a red flag for everything we're doing the environment because last I checked and I could be wrong, I have to double check my handy dandy pocket constitution that I carry with me. I don't think greenhouse gases in the Constitution. I don't think it is. And so, you know, the Court heard argument this last term on the Clean Power Plan. There was arguments just you know about that there was other issues as well. But if the rationale is that the authority of agencies is born from the text of legislation from the text of legislation only, and if Congress is not deemed either through oversight or through the fact that nobody knew what the heck it was, at the time, they wrote the legislation, not to include certain stuff and ergo, you don't have the authority to deal with it. That's a Red Flag Day. And so that's a real problem.

Nic  
I mean, yeah. So but how do we move forward then if that's the case?

Fred Wagner 
Right. So the way we don't move forward is expect Congress to fix it. Right? And that's the thing you know, without being you know, political about it, or which is you know, can sound contradictory. As soon as I say it, the ballot box is I deal with it. The other way you deal with it is if the Supreme Court wants true federalism, such as what was articulated in the draft ruling on Roe, which is, you know, let the states deal with it. Well, then we're going to have a balkanized United States of America in terms of regulations, dealing with all these things that are important to us. And eventually, there's going to be a coalition coalescing of these kinds of ideas. And historically, what we've seen in our industry is that certain entities lead and then the rest of the country follows. And why because works, because it works. And so you know, people aren't following California's lead and a lot of things environmental because everybody wants to be California in terms of the scope and type of regulations and things like that. They're following it because at least in terms of the things that matter, for the tax regulations that they're concerned about, you know, a lot of things work, a lot of things work. And so if we're going to have a balkanized system with regulations and programs around the United States, with different jurisdictions trying stuff, people are gonna see it's going to work and it's in catch on catch on catch on, eventually, until there is a switch and politics and time when, you know, once again, there can be an era of congressional action legislation. You know, we lived through it in the 70s. And up until like Superfund, I would argue, and then the Clean Air Act amendments in 1890. That's really been about it. There's Tosca amendments recently, but generally speaking, not much else, but I think that's where it's gonna work. I think we're gonna see States taking on the mantle of some of these programs, regulations that will have the support, there will be successes, and they will be replicated and then the pressure to build will be to adopt at the federal level, but that's, you know that germination takes a generation and it doesn't take a year or two. What's what I think might happen, okay,

Laura 
hopefully some of the 12 year olds here in the audience and on the panel, you know, will

Fred Wagner  
Yeah. For people who are planning families tonight, going home well yeah, before we start this, honey, Fred said that whatever we're about to do, this kid may result in something so just keep that in the back. You might think it'd be real motivation for the activity to fall.

Nic 
Yeah, I mean, yeah, of course. You know, we're

Fred Wagner 
doing this but it's also the we're doing this and we're about to do this, but it's the environmentally responsible thing to do that. Yeah,

Nic 
this is environmental accounting. So we should be doing

Laura 
okay, back to bad advice. Bad advice.

Nic  
You gotta love environmental humor. This was in the business will be called seamless segue. Do you have your NEPA case law update tomorrow, and obviously, we don't want to give too much away, but it's one of our favorite things with the conference. Can you give us a little teaser about what you guys are going to talk about?

Fred Wagner 
Right. I think the part of the part of the presentation is going to be the whole Sherlock Holmes axiom about the clue was that the dog did not bark. You know if you read that in Sherlock Holmes growing up How did you solve the mysteries of the dog did not bark. You know we have yet to see and we haven't seen one decision fully implementing the 2020 rules. Now one, and I think the interesting thing is not that there hadn't been controversial cases, but I do not believe that the industry has implemented the 2020 rules. And I think in large part and then those that have have maybe not been on projects that are controversial, and so those challenges just haven't materialized. And so you know, if we were expecting to see oh, what's going to happen? What's the judiciary going to say about these new regulations? I don't think it's gonna happen. We're not going to see it. And again, by the time everything starts it's going to be back with the original regulations and whatever else is revised. So that's one thing it's like the dog didn't bark and we haven't seen that. And so the other thing you know, we're gonna start seeing we're seeing more and more is that the courts are diving into indirect effects analysis on greenhouse gases. And you know, the it has matured over the last 10 years from now, you really don't have to do it, too. Yeah, you really should do it. From you know, it's so hard. We really don't know how to estimate too. Well. Yeah, we really do know how to do like 20 It was like 27 publicly available tools on how to do it. You know, from, you know, it's really not, you know, it's localized. So we don't have to really worry about it, you know, yeah, that's from an adaptation and resilience, then it's really kind of a point, you know, so it's maturing in a lot of ways. So we're seeing a lot more of that. And like many other developments that are common law with NEPA, what we're finding is that even the federal agencies implementing the regulations are now getting to a point where their schizophrenia over what to do with greenhouse gases is is kind of being resolved. You know, when NEPA first started, you know, you had the Army Corps of Engineers that when it first started, but you know, in the earlier days, you know, the the Army Corps of Engineers say, you know, we permit where the dredging goes, the dredging goes right here. There are no effects to the human environment because we're dredging right here. Nowhere else, you know, and then they changed. Now we have an organization like FERC Yes, we permit pipelines, but we don't have to really worry about the stuff that's in the pipelines that's being delivered that eventually is going to be burgeoned to the atmosphere as we just built the pipeline. You know, and that's being resolved as well. So I think those some of the couple of highlights that we're going to see there and as well as you know, some pretty stunning language on environmental justice that came out of a dissenting ruling out of the Ninth Circuit over an airport project in San Bernardino, which we'll talk a lot about. So, as always, it'll be good as always, you read between the lines and you read some of the trends that we see in some of the courts and the history of our profession and NEPA. If is anything been told through common law. You're an ocean storyteller. I think environmental law is told through the stories of court rulings, and we see those trends, and we see how courts and judges talk about them around the country and that story helps educate how we practice

Nic 
in such good answers. It's unfair. I just want to point that out.

Laura 
I know there's really no other place. I like to get my environmental updates in the law.

Fred Wagner 
And my billable fee for the podcast is so reasonable.

Laura  
I mean, I don't know how we work this deal, but

Fred Wagner 
I'm just gonna tell you how to how lousy I feel up here right now. I mean, you know, we have an ex lawyer, and I'm like, I'm just a happy lawyer.

Tiffany Duong 
Shiny

Fred Wagner 
guy with tattoos about that. I'm curious, we don't do tattoos. You know, we have all this stuff. And I'm just like, I'm just a lawyer. I'm just a happy Jewish lawyer. But his mother wanted me to do I did go to law school, and dammit, I like it. You know, so maybe one day I'll explore all this new stuff. You know, I'm totally not into rejection. If you wanted me to make a list of being rejected, I mean, I got married early because I did not like rejection. That was one of the reasons I got married early because I didn't know rejection that I experienced enough of it to know that I did not grow from it.

Tiffany Duong 
Because you didn't have a list.

Fred Wagner 
I had a list. There was God there was I had a list and it did not help and the only way I grew from it, I think was like because, you know, I eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's every every time so, so no, I'm all about, you know, affirmation, positive law. No tattoo. Let's say that I'm like, Look straight compared to this day, as some like, straight and narrow. I love it.

Sunny Fleming 
I mean, you have a hell of a personality, and I think that's what matters most.

Nic 
Wow. Well,

Fred Wagner 
I mean, lores do a personalities. I mean, not not many of them are good. Personnel.

Laura 
Let's just say no one attorney with a good personality sitting right here and one next over there. So I think that just goes back to what Tiffany was saying about you know, the advice that you give, from your perspective, whether someone should be or should or shouldn't be some thing, it's really up to them. Now, if you can't identify something early on and say, Ron, you shouldn't do law because you're too funny.

Nic 
I would have told him that.

Fred Wagner 
You know, I mean, like, I definitely got told early on in my courtroom career that I was gonna, you know, they wanted to tone it down. You know, and that was, that was good advice because you know, what sells in the living room or around the family dinner table or something like that, or with your friends and associates that you trust isn't necessarily true for strangers. Yeah, you know, but the better advice for preparing presentations, as you talked about and others is that you cannot hide your personality under a bushel. You can't I mean, you are who you are. And if you try to present a project to somebody else, your vision of some tech talk that you saw on on YouTube, that's a sure way to to fail, because you've got to be who you are. And that's how you connect to the audience. I mean, one way that I connect to the audience, you know, was that you know, what I always try to talk about something personal when I start my presentations, not like, totally personal like, where I feel scars or something like that. But, but but personal in the sense that I want my audience to connect with me. Who is this person that's standing up in front of me, you know, I don't know this person necessarily. I may know of them maybe, but probably not. So why am I going to listen to this person for the next, whatever, half hour or whatever. And so, you know, this has been a busy week, I ran across town to another conference, believe it or not, that just coincidentally happened to be in town. And I just went back and I started my presentation there with a story this happened this week when I happen to be here in Fort Lauderdale. I hadn't been here for eight years because my parents used to live here. And they both passed away and they're buried, but 1520 minutes from here, and I realized that I had not visited them because I had no reason to be in Florida. And so Monday night, I took the opportunity to go to the cemetery. And why did I pick that? Because it was a connection that I wanted the arts of healing, and when I told them was a bunch of services had just broken off, there was just a thunderstorm. And so literally, this large sums, I was the only person there. I was the only person there. And I was free to have a conversation with my parents. And what I found was that I was editing my conversation with my parents told them all the good stuff. Yeah. And then I said, Well, let me catch up on some current events. My dad, you know, as well, you know, 2016 is you know, and then the pandemic and I said, No, I'm not gonna do that because my just get worried if I'm cold. But it was the kind of story where it was local. It was here. It was important to me. It was a meaningful day, afternoon in my life. And then it gave the audience a picture of who I was. And within the first 45 seconds, they had me and I had them and so they got a sense of who you are, and you project who you are. And if you're authentic, whether you're a big personality, whether you're a liberal, and whether you like drag or whether you're a straight laced as it could be if you project who you are, and you let the audience know that they'll connect with you. So that's, that's what I tried to do.

Laura 
That's awesome. JD I would not do that in certain places Texas. not planning on. I say we let it shine. Just certain places, most cases yes, but certain places know your audience do you know balance? All right now Good. How are we doing? On time?

Nic  
Got one more and for the whole group.

Laura 
Okay, that one more Oh, wow.

Nic  
Okay. Yeah, it says Laura on here. Just want to point that out. So if you go into Italy, the summer, anything else a lot of crazy plan while you're going

Fred Wagner 
now wild and crazy. But I have a four day trip to Israel for a family wedding. Wow. And it's four days because they scheduled the wedding like the day after I get back from another trip. So we literally have to pick up a new bag, race the airport, pray that our flights on time and then go see the family and stay there for a few days in Israel. So that's gonna be you're pretty excited. We're kind of the last American family. This is a family that moved to Israel directly firm before and during World War Two. The patriarchs of the family were there before Israel was a state and now it's a very large, you know, big family in Israel. So that's all we're looking forward to that.

Nic 
Oh, all right, sonny.

Sunny Fleming 
What do I plan? Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. So I liked that. You mentioned the wheeze will be going back to Belize and I will be diving in Belize. I also have a lot of Jewish ancestry in Israel. I have some family there as well and that is in my plans but not currently enacted. But that means a lot to me as well. And so your story, I was sitting over here trying not to cry. I was successful, but I really appreciate your story. I appreciate what you all do. And I felt like there's kind of ties to all of it. So

Nic 
we planned it. Are you guys

Tiffany Duong 
so to continue with the ties my nephew who's seven months old like tomorrow, his middle name is Monza because his parents are Owen fan. Middle Name it's not an Asian name. So so like there's a connection.

Fred Wagner  
This is the 100th anniversary of the monster Grand Prix this year. Just so you know. Yeah.

Tiffany Duong 
They tried to bring him nugget Southern and they did make me watch a little bit of drive to survive because they were like your nephew is named after this. So it is a good shot. So I'm going home to California to see Monza looking forward to that.
____________

Tiffany Duong 
Southern and they did make me watch a little bit of drive to survive because they were like your nephew is named after that. It is a good shop so I'm going home to California to see Monza I'm looking forward to that.

Unknown Speaker 
I don't have any summer

Nic 
I think it's just gonna be working honestly. Maybe try to get a dive trip or to somewhere fun in different. Oh, I'm actually I totally forgot I'm not really summer but my really good friend is getting married in Ecuador in November.

Fred Wagner  
I'm also a huge plant person and like Ecuador is like the Holy Grail of rare plants. So

Nic  
I'll probably use I will send stuff back in my suitcase that aren't quotes do so and save them from there. So

Unknown Speaker 
if you need a lawyer, let me

Nic 
know always we really do appreciate having you on before we let you go people where they can find

Fred Wagner 
Sure. Directly the venerable website, my personal email fr wagar@venable.com. The social media I don't do much on Twitter. or Instagram, again with the theme of not being hip and full. But I do a lot on LinkedIn and I am over 60 now so I'm on Facebook

Nic 
for Fred everybody

and one more thank you for everyone. I just found out yes also everyone else yeah. This is the Emperor we're in probably. Alright, before we go I want to take a minute to thank all of our repeat and longtime sponsors. One of the things venerable for all they've done for us Dawson, environmental career coach and ESRI as well. Thank you guys so much for being here. If you do want to sponsor the podcast, this is my shameless plug for you to give me money and I will gladly take it. So just come talk to us. Listen to the show. Do any of that stuff we do highly encourage you to pass it on to others as well because that's how the show gets gets views gets downloads gets our messages out of there out into the world and we do genuinely need and appreciate that so we're doing great are a top 5% of podcasts in the world. That's pretty cool. That's kind of awesome. So thank you so much for being here and dealing with our technical difficulties. It's kind of how it goes. But thank you everybody for being here.

[Outro]

Laura
I'm gonna fill in with all the stuff that I skipped over. Yeah. Our show covers a wide variety of topics for environmental professionals in the community. As Sandy mentioned, it's a great show for people especially in their virgin careers. So share this with your young professionals, people you mentor. Check us out each and every Friday on your favorite podcast player. were everywhere. And now.

Nic
See everybody.

Laura
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai