The Dept. of the Interior, Reinventing Yourself, and Workplace Culture with Ryan Hathaway

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

On today’s episode, we talk with Ryan Hathaway, Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, about the DOI, Reinventing Yourself, and Workplace Culture.  Read his full bio below.

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Showtimes:
1:44  Nic & Laura talk about Managing Social Media
8:41  Interview with Ryan Hathaway Starts
9:12  The Department of the Interior
20:18  Reinventing Yourself
27:53  Workplace Culture
36:07  Field Notes

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org

Connect with Ryan Hathaway at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhathaway/

Guest Bio:

Ryan Hathaway is the Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Department of the Interior (DOI). Previous he led the Department's Major Infrastructure and Renewable Energy Program, and prior was the Branch Chief for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Land Use Planning at the Bureau of Land Management. Ryan has his Bachelor's in Wildlife Conservation from the University of Delaware; and a Master's in Natural Resource Management, and in Sustainable Development and International Policy both from Virginia Tech University. In his free time, Ryan is adjuct faculty and sits in an advisory board at Virginia Tech Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability and University of Delaware Biden Center for Public Policy, he sits on the boards of several animal shelters and NGOs around the world, and coaches and mentor's youth soccer goalkeepers entering the US Olympic Development Program. He enjoys travelling, playing slide guitar, smoking BBQ, managing his hobby farm with his wife, and being barefoot and outdoors whenever possible.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Hello and welcome to EPR have your favorite environmental enthusiast Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Warren I discuss managing social media. We talked to Ryan Hathaway about the Department of Interior, reinventing yourself and workplace culture. And finally, pigs are actually very clean animals. Despite the reputation, they will not relieve themselves where they sleep. That kind of seems like a low bar for being clean, but all right. They also cannot sweat so they cover themselves with mud to cool down it also keeps them from getting sunburned so double bonus, and that's why people think they're dirty, when in fact, they're just being practical. How about that?

Laura 
They're also very smart.

Nic 
Thank you. Let's not forget

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Laura 
that don't forget to check out NDP leadership blog which offers insights on workplace culture climate change, progressive leadership and other topics in the environmental space. Check it out@naep.org Looking for a great sponsor opportunity. 60% of listeners have bought something from a podcast ad and we're up to over 25,000 downloads with over 400 per episode, which is pretty exciting. If you'd like to sponsor the show, please head on over to environmental professionals radio.com and check out the sponsor forum for details. We certainly appreciate you immensely and you are the people who keep the show going. Let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura Discuss Managing Social Media]

Nic 
Social media is kind of funny because you meet me you hear me talk to me. enjoy being around people. I like connecting. I love doing all those things. So I don't know I always have a challenge with social media, knowing that it's very, very important and I need to be doing a lot of better. I need to be doing a lot better about it in general, and feeling better. I mean, just engaging with people. I mean, it's something that you know, it's also like a job in a way you have to treat it with a lot of respect. You can't just be like, oh, I'll just post something here and then leave my I'll do that once every three years. You know, that's not You're not helping yourself. You're not you know, your team, anything. And of course it'd be dramatic in a way but well, that is me and dramatic.

Laura 
You are dramatic because for sure.

Nic 
I would love to say I'm not. That's not true.

Laura 
I'm really impressed with some of our past guests and how well they do with social media like Shelagh Intiman and Sonny stoppering. Yeah, like constantly posting but not only just posting that cycle, yeah, just posting helpful, valuable things, and they're engaging with people and they're doing all the right it also looks like they're doing the right things like are you guys doing this? When are you working? Or is this just part of work and it's, you know, this is the new way of working and engaging community is part of that or do they have helpers you know, it's like it's hard to get you can look at other people and be like, Man, I suck at this and but then you don't know they've got four people who are helping them do it, you know?

Nic 
Yeah, but that's true of a lot of things. I love that you said that. Actually, you know, we do that in effort. Musicians say that. I've heard comedians say that. That band is better than mine. Yeah. Okay. Well, you have a target. You have a goal. You know how to get better. You need to get better and it's attainable. I mean, it absolutely is, I think even and again, there's no age limit on that either. Right? A lot of our guests are in their 40s, late 30s. But you can be great at social media at any age. It's not about that. It's much more about, like commitment to it, treating it like a job. I think that's the first thing even in comedy that people aren't as jokes writing. The joke is you want to be you actually want to be a stand up comedian. It is a job. Right? You want a musician, it's a job. That's what you do. You have to put you know, you're 40 hours a weekend, you know, etc. To really be good at it. You have to treat it that way and are saying social media up, leveling your time on it, but you have to treat it with respect. You have to treat it with a lot of a lot of guidance. And you know, I don't know it's hard for me. It's not the first thing that comes to my mind. I don't think about it on a day to day basis. I want to but you know, especially this time of year I feel so overwhelmed with all my work stuff on social media. But it's very important. It's a really important tool. I think that a lot of it in the workplace. It's less important, I think, but for marketing purposes. getting your name out there getting brand recognition, that kind of stuff. It's very, very, it's vital almost these days. You know, we were federal government's a little different. Our version of social media engagement is going to conferences and stuff like that, but people need to know who you are. They're not going to know if you're hiding,

Laura 
too and I think the ones that I see doing a lot are really they're establishing themselves as experts, right? So a lot of it is not even so much for marketing and branding, but just to say like, Hey, I'm the person who knows about this stuff.

Nic 
Which button you know what, that's another good point that I would say that is market. I would say that's absolutely establishing yourself as an expert. I know this, you guys should too. And then people come back and be like, oh, yeah, that's the guy that knows the thing. Yeah. That's the role model person, you know. Exactly. So I don't know but I want to be better at it though. So tell me more. How do I get better?

Laura  
I mean, seriously, I think you gotta have a plan. You know, what do you want to do? Like anything else, like, do you want to do, what kind of posts do you want? Okay, content do you want? What platforms are going to be the ones you stick to? I think part of the hard part is trying to do all of them. I don't think that's realistic. But at the same time, once you make it easier for yourself, that's when you can get help her and they know what your plan is. For you. I know marketing expert but I think that just from what I've seen, the consistency is part of it too.

Nic  
Yeah. Like say doing a podcast once a week for example.

Laura  
Well, yeah, I mean, it does. It makes a difference every week versus whenever you get to it or manual, and that'll just makes it harder and even for myself. If you're doing something routinely I don't know if you know, my photography Instagram page had 7000 followers on it at one point that I had gotten on my own, like, legitimately they weren't fake followers or anything. But algorithms have changed and it's much harder so it gradually goes down and down and No, no, but it was all engagement. It was just about putting something out for people to engage with and then actually talking to them and building like I have people. Still today. I have a hashtag and there's almost 35,000 photos in my community hashtag and all of those people they have made friends with each other. They still message me on my phone invites all over the world to go and meet people through my photography page. It was all just engagement and I can't tell you how many sites I'll make a comment on and I don't even get a like on my comment or reply and I'm like well, that's the last time I'm engaging. So I think that's a big part of it. And that's a hard part too. You can post all day long, but if you're not engaging with your followers, then you're gonna limit your capacity.

Nic 
That makes sense. So yeah, and it's funny, it's, I think there's even for me, sometimes I'm like, Well, who would want to hear this and necessarily, like, defeatist kind of mindset to like, just doesn't matter. You know, you're putting stuff out there. That's important to you. That's why you're doing it. And if other people appreciate it, great, but yeah, it's got to be a foundational thing to like, this is what I want to talk about.

Laura 
Yeah. If you're just talking because you think people with what people want to hear that's not going to be something you can do long. It's not

Nic 
that you can only build yourself so much. I love that willpower is great and perfect, wonderful. But when it runs out, everybody's done. Right or when it joins a gym and leaves three months later, that's guilty. That's willpower. You're using willpower but you didn't. Didn't do the other part. The harder part. Yeah. Committing

Laura 
Yeah. Let's talk about that another time. What is that hard part that I'm not doing because I'm not

Nic 
Alright, cool. Let's get to our interview.

[Interview with Ryan Hathaway Starts]

Nic
Hello, and welcome back to EPR. Today we have Ryan Hathaway, the environmental justice coordinator for the Office of the Secretary, the US Department of the Interior and member of an AP on the show. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Hathaway 
Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Nic and Laura. That's really exciting. I've been listening to your podcast for the past long time. Because

Laura  
I love that.

[The Department of the Interior]

Nic 
Yeah, that's great. We're really excited to have you here. You got a really fresh perspective and we're looking forward to getting into it, but you know, so you work for the Department of Interior and we talked about environmental career seekers thinking about government jobs, you know, Army Corps and EPA come up pretty regularly. But what is the Department of Interior? What do they do? What's their mission?

Ryan Hathaway  
So the easiest way to think about it is think about all of your big government agencies that you normally like see in movies like state and DOD, and then we do everything else like that the government does. So we've often been called the Department of everything else, but really, it's it's a massive mission. And it's really a cool place to work. So just a short plug even though I know I'm you know, representing myself, but we do all the national parks. All the public lands, one out of every five acres in the United States is managed by the Department of Interior. So that's a big portfolio. Conservation we do all the offshore renewable energy and wind all the onshore renewable energy and wind on public lands. We do trails and community partnerships. And we also have like some really interesting nuanced programs like our program of Insular Affairs, so we help fund and manage projects and all of Puerto Rico and Guam. And American Samoa and all of our insular communities. We have a huge tribal responsibility with Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian education. So there's really a lot of great stuff that DOI does and I can't imagine how hard it is for any Secretary of Interior to like, just come in on day one. And sea and you're like, wait, we do that to him. One of the things that I do recently with environmental justice is kind of look at our portfolio of each day and surprised to learn that we also manage the fund that gives out money to assist with the Bikini Atoll where they tested nuclear weapons in the 50s. So that is also Department of Interior. So it's a really diverse portfolio, but there's a lot of great stuff and there's a lot of jobs that are outdoors. I used to have when myself before working for too long. Right?

Nic 
Right. So So Is that Is that all you guys do this,

Ryan Hathaway 
you know, that's off the top of my head, but I will say doi.gov Feel free to go there and learn all the things I forgot about.

Nic 
So how did you get there? How did you start working on it?

Ryan Hathaway 
So I've answered this question before. I like to say it started off when my parents met because my parents believe it or not met in the basketball court in the basement of the building that I work in right now. The whole interior building, neither of them ever worked for interior but I felt like some Destiny to work here and honestly started pretty close to after college. For me. I was working for a nonprofit on the hill. As a wildlife conservationist, I went to school for wildlife biology and so it was it was something that I was like, if I want to go into the federal service, everyone has been telling me you need to start young and I'm already getting in feeling old age. I think I was 23 at the time 24. And so I started applying for federal jobs. And you know, one of the things that is really hard is figuring out what you're doing on USA Jobs. It's gotten better, but it's still it's a hard process. And so I applied for a bunch. I thought I was interviewing for a job as a biologist. And by the time I had accepted a position, I found out I was actually a management assistant. So I was like getting all of their mail and doing things but I was at the wildlife refuge center. I was like alright, well this is a place I want to work. I want to work in Fish and Wildlife Service. So I just went in every day for a year and did that job try to get it done in like the first three hours and then run around the halls and be like who needs help but like science like and I don't. But I'll say that was my start was working in administrative job and it's been one of the most important experiences in my career because it really makes me appreciate every aspect of what we do, including all the people that don't do the like biology and the park management but keep our programs afloat and keep us paid. It's important work.

Nic  
It genuinely is and it's a really great perspective. And kind of keeps you humble all the way through this. You will remember that experience. It doesn't go away, you know for sure.

Ryan Hathaway 
And I remember how bad I was at it too. So I really appreciate all the wonderful administrative people. We have an interior because I'm like, Man, I forgot about that part of the job. I'm not sure I ever did that part of the job.

Nic 
wasn't supposed to do that part of

Ryan Hathaway 
the route. Probably.

Nic  
Well, so tell us a little bit about what you work on. Now. What are your current projects are at Brandywine.

Ryan Hathaway 
We have a lot of things in the work right now. So right now I'm privileged. I listened to your podcast about the got to verse have to and I thought that I have that conversation with myself every day. I get to be the environmental justice coordinator for Department of Interior and there is a it's as broader mission as DOI is mission really because I think the one thing we have consistently done a lot of EJ work we haven't consistently told that story. And I think there's a lot more attention on it right now. And so really, a lot of what I am doing day to day is trying to encourage people around interior to think just a little bit more about environmental justice about how you connect with communities. And some of that is the historical pathway of NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act and like how do you do stakeholder engagement? But then I think a lot of it is the like, going beyond NEPA and building the relationships that you can then lean on when you do need to engage communities and I parts harder in the government because that doesn't pay off immediately. At least there's no great story that comes out of it. There's no discernible project. You're really engaging the community near where you do work, so that you have that relationship in the future. So I will say probably one of the 25% of my job right now is going around and talking to different offices and places and interior and just don't I'm like That's good. That's okay. Right if you're doing it with no other intent than just getting a relationship with that community because it's something government hasn't done well. The other work that I'm working on justice 40 So the justice 40 initiative came out about a year and a half ago on executive order 1408. It basically turned a lot of programs on their head of how are we reporting and tracking and thinking about the mission of our program came out with seven sectors, climate change, clean energy, affordable transportation, affordable and sustainable housing, workforce development, Legacy pollution and water and waste infrastructure. And I'm impressed that I've obviously done this way too much, because I remember that so without cheating. I was impressed. I did towards the end, I was like, Oh my gosh, don't forget the last one. But so it said any investment you make in those categories, we are asking you to start working so that 40% of the benefits of those investments go to disadvantaged communities. And that's a I mean, that is a challenge on so many fronts, because one we're so used to just doing what the program mission is and just sticking within like this is always how we've done it. This is always how we've gone out and if you couple that with a lot of the work that we have fantastic people in interior, her work work on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility and the DIA team that I sit on, nor am happy to have been invited to be a part of a lot of their work about getting in and being inclusive of communities overlaps with Justice 40 In our EJ work in the justice 40 it's billions of dollars. We have over 60 programs and it is really trying to help each one of those individual programs think about how do we change how we look at our our work, the benefit of our work, how it benefits communities, and then go and talk to the communities and say are we right? Like is this really what the benefit of that project was? And so it covers we interior having our broad mission, we have programs in literally every one of those sectors, and several of them and so a lot of my work is is herding cats in some way. But they're all cats that like you know, you want them to be their individual cats like they're great programs, so you don't want to like force them to all fit in the same mold but you want them to be successful.

Nic 
Right. So how do you measure success things? It's a really challenging there's a lot of really big things that you do is that you're hurting a lot of different cats. It's not one, it's like hundreds and so how do you measure success and is it on that individual basis or even as a whole?

Ryan Hathaway 
I think you have to do both. I think it's very much the yes and approach. So you have to help programs and some of them have never thought about this and some of them justice 40 Didn't give sideboards that said we'll only your programs that aren't very legislatively restricted and have a way that they have to give out grants. You know, it's that all of them, we want the baseline and so some of them are just freaked out because they're like, well, we couldn't change how we do this. I was like, that's okay. Right now we're just establishing a baseline. So I think first off, like you have to define success for each program and let them know that like, hey, just because your baseline is something that you don't feel like you have control over. That's okay. Even establishing it for transparency sake is a very big win for the government. And then looking collectively and say, you know, hey, if we're trying to move this ship, this is not a nimble rowboat or you can just kind of like pivot. We're moving an aircraft carrier. And so you've got to get like everyone into the right place. You've got to get all the ships, all the planes back and you've got to make sure your fleet is so it's trying to encourage people to go slow to go fast, and really develop those community relationships with these programs if they don't have them. Or if they have them to talk to them and say, Well, what do you think success for this program would look and then there's a lot of work we're working on with the White House. They have a new climate and economic justice screening tool. That is it's still I mean, I think we expect it to be never finalized, but more finalized in the near future. And so a lot of it is like we do a little bit and then you check in with the rest of the federal government say well, what have you all been doing? Where can we steal DoD or EPA? Where can we steal what you're doing and share what we're doing? And so it's trying not to scare people really right now and say like this is all good. And you don't have to do it tomorrow. We just have to start working on it and all move there together.

Nic 
Yeah, you got to start thinking about it now.

[Reinventing Yourself]

Laura 
But on a more serious note, I did want to see if you would be interested in talking about you had a traumatic experience in your life that caused you to reinvent yourself Is that something you feel comfortable talking about?

Ryan Hathaway 
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was it was a long time ago. And I actually uh, you know, I think I'm very thankful because for a number of reasons that led me to meet my wife who has helped me in more ways than I can describe. But when I was in between high school and college, I was overseas and supporting a friend who was on a roller hockey championship team and it was you know, I had done school all my senior summer so I had no real summer break. And so I was like, let me take these two weeks and go have fun and we didn't really know the area of England that we were in very well and we didn't know that you couldn't wear jeans to nightclubs, or like nice bars where we were and so I guess we ended up going to like a place to dance that wasn't in a great area and didn't you know, know it well at the time and ended up getting assaulted by a large group of people and I got hit in the head with a cement block attached to a traffic cone and lost vision in my right eye and had skull fractures and I had a bunch of like difficult medical problems that I just probably ignored in the not so smart way for five years after returning. But yeah, so I immediately realized that like my future goals of playing soccer and being a goalkeeper were gone. And then I also learned as I was going through my first semester that I was having trouble reading because my dominant eye was my right eye. And so I would anytime I started to like read and I was having like difficulty with speech. So as I got home, and I spent two weeks with my parents in my house, I was like, I'm going like, I'm going crazy. Like this is too much so I was like, let me just go to school and see how, how well I can do. That was also a mistake. But it was one I enjoyed very much. I couldn't keep up with mechanical engineering. You know, it was a lot of computer coding. And I remember getting to the end of the week and looking at my chapters to read in my computer coding. I was like I have a migraine, my head swelling like I can't keep up with this. And so I was like I've got to switch to something that I can do without having to read the textbooks and I don't know thermodynamics off the top of my head, but I really love biology and natural sciences. And so maybe there's something that I can take where I can still take the one on one courses and like just kind of like fake it till you make it till I like get some of my ability to read back and so that's you know, I jumped around a little bit and landed with wildlife conservation. And I also if he is still at University of Delaware, my advisor Chris Williams, just one of the most amazing people I've ever spent time when he was super welcoming and helpful and patient because I was a hot mess of a college student in almost every way. But it let me get to where I am now. And we're working for environmental policy and I, I think about it and I'm like, honestly, if I look at what I would have done, the types of jobs that were more likely to happen would have been in defense, manufacturing and things that I wouldn't have really wanted to be a part of, you know, the idea of like developing the one cool robot it's like there's only two people probably they get to do that. And the rest of them mechanical engineering is like, how do I injection mold the chapstick lid so it closes tight. So like I'm pretty happy as it was and I don't make that up because I remember my high school tour of a factory in Vermont and this guy, like he's like, I'm gonna candle engineer and I designed the new lid for chapstick. And they're like, oh, did they have a new lead? And he's like, wow, yeah, I was like a year and a half long project. And I still remember that face that he made after he said that was like Ah man, I don't want to do this.

Nic  
That's wild.

Laura 
Shout out to chapstick. Yeah, it's everywhere. You know, pay I put them in the washing machine all the time. If they have a solid lead on there. That's a bonus.

Ryan Hathaway 
I just this kid I saw he was 22 years old and that was his first job out of college and yeah, those lids are fantastic that you can you can get them off easy and they stay on through the wash. You can't I he did his job better than I could have. So I think it all worked out for the best.

Laura  
Yeah, it's all good. Looking back, you know that you've landed in a new place. And you can see, you know, how it's shaped up and turned out? What's that process of reinventing yourself like and is there any specific advice you can give to somebody else who may be going through something whether it's triggered by a traumatic event or they're just feeling like I need to erase what I've been doing and start over

Ryan Hathaway 
Yeah, you know, I guess the first advice, you see it all the time on things, TV shows, etc. But you got to just start right and it's not as hard as the hardest part is deciding to do it. And then I think if you are doing the thing that you want to do it still feels hard, right? Like it's still I get my job still hard every day, but I do like what I am doing, and I imagine how much harder it would be if I had to work this hard for something I didn't like doing. So spend some time figuring out what you like and if you're doing something and you don't like it, don't be afraid to say I think I need to start doing something else. And that's something I say a lot to we have a lot of youth and I've been really trying to bring like kids into the federal government space that are just graduating because I think we are hemorrhaging talent at a pretty historic rate to flexible workplaces and other things. And I think bringing in that talent and part is like giving people a chance to kind of experiment trial and error like maybe I do this maybe I don't like that project. Maybe I do this. But just start and be patient with yourself and recognize that most people's like, you know, there's probably a few narcissists, where this doesn't apply but like your image of yourself is probably the lowest existing image that's out there. And so like if you feel like you're not good at something, just know that that's not what everyone else is thinking and there's plenty of people at the top of every field who have absolutely no clue what they're doing, and they are still faking it. And they're very much successful. So just know that like, if you don't feel like you're on it, or it's gonna take a lot of work. It's okay to do it incrementally, and just try to be happy like there's too much going on in this world these days for people to do stuff they don't like doing and there's enough people like I have it on the back of my personal business card which I you know, I printed a bunch from some free website, but like be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. I think I think just live by that a little bit. And it really will get you a lot further even if it's not more money or a better job. Like you'll always be happy at what you're doing.

Nic 
And you know, it's really hard when you're young because you always think, Oh, well, you know, this is why I said I would do this what I'm supposed to do so I have to do it and yes, that's true to a degree, right. But sometimes people need his permission to try something, you know, permission to be themselves. And it's great that you get to do that. So I'm giving you a little kudos, you'd have to do it. So thank you.

Ryan Hathaway 
It is fun to be able to do that. So

[Workplace Culture]

Nic 
and you know, we're talking about workplace and you're working rebuilding and refreshing workplace cultures, bringing those new people in, like you say, and I think just to having talking talking with you, you and I have very similar sensibilities, but this stuff, you know, it's we can't take everything seriously, even when it's serious, and there's a good reason for that. But it's a really big challenge. So why is it so hard and why should we be taking even serious things less seriously?

Ryan Hathaway 
Well, so that is a huge challenge, I think and you know, I think it's twice fold in the federal government because there are good reasons why we want to do everything ethically and have zero errors we're entrusted with with money from everyone in the country, and that includes the poorest people in the country who are paying taxes and so you want to get it right. And it builds into these models of like zero risk, zero acceptable risk and like you're always going to have risk and so I think it's like a misnomer, that we have to take everything seriously because we have to have zero risk, zero outward errors so that we are safe in our program execution. And it makes everyone very serious but it doesn't make everyone productive. And you still make mistakes, you still make mistakes, you're still going to have risk you're still going to have litigation but I think it is something that I you know, as a millennial, if I can if I can use that not four letter word to describe myself it's something in workplace culture that is shifting to. There are some things that we do in interior that I don't do, but that are very serious they are life or death situations wildland fire management. When I am talking about in an environmental impact statement. There are serious aspects to it, right? But if we have every single meeting the very constricted conversation, you're never going to really have much change management in your workforce. And I also think it means that our workplace is less inviting to the new talent of this day and age and so I see our workforce, you know, we're shedding talent. I've seen that since I've been in the federal government, but especially since COVID, and maybe the few years prior to COVID. A lot of really talented people have left to go be consultants or contractors because they can get paid more they can have a little more flexibility. When I think we're starting to see that shift. I think there's a little bit this idea of, well, let's just let it be a remote job and that will make them happy. And I think we're still kind of missing the point because people don't care. I mean, they do care if a job is remote or virtual, but it's more so that they don't want you to arbitrarily put restrictions on how they do their job that are based on nothing except your old understanding of how to manage people. Right. So it's not that they care that it's a virtual job. They care that are you making me come into the office for no reason. You know if there's a reason I don't mind coming into the office a year if you have a good justification. So it's not like every place has to be Google and have a cafeteria and a waterslide. But just, you know, don't be jerks about it and try to if you can have flexibility you're gonna get more talented people if you lean on that.
____________________
Ryan Hathaway 
In our workforce, you know, we're shedding talent. I've seen that since I've been in the federal government, but especially since COVID. And maybe the few years prior to COVID. A lot of really talented people have left to go be consultants or contractors because they can get paid more, they can have a little more flexibility. When I think we're starting to see that shift. I think there's a little bit this idea of, well, let's just let it be a remote job and that will make them happy. And I think we're still kind of missing the point because they don't care. I mean, they do care if a job is remote or virtual, but it's more so that they don't want you to arbitrarily put restrictions on how they do their job that are based on nothing except your old understanding of how to manage people. Right. So it's not that they care that that it's a virtual job, they care that are you making me come into the office for no reason you know, if there's a reason I don't mind coming into the office, so you're if you have a good justification, so it's not like every place has to be Google and have a cafeteria and a waterslide. But just, you know, don't be jerks about it and try to if you can have flexibility, you're gonna get more talented people if you lean on that.

Nic 
It's very well said and I think it's, it's a really important point. And even when they say you know, you know, be less serious doesn't mean don't care doesn't mean don't be serious or take something seriously. But you know, it's like, it's almost like just giving that that little bit of levity is a trust is the thing it says it's almost like you're giving them trust, right? I trust that we have a relationship where we can still get to know each other as people as who we are.

Ryan Hathaway 
I really like that. Yeah. I'll say I make a point when I run meetings to try to build in a moment of levity at the front. I've even called it a moment of levity. Back when I was a supervisor, and I was like, someone new to the meeting, bring whatever GIF or meme you saw online that made this work appropriate and made you chuckle and share it with people and let's laugh and then start off that way because for taking ourselves way too seriously, sometimes. I think another important piece of why it's good to not always take yourself so seriously at work is in from a team building and teamwork standpoint, there is a high amount of pressure on us to perform and some of the areas that are really critical now in environmental policy, we're dealing with really, really heavy subjects, climate change, environmental justice, drought, water quality, and all of the things that kind of cascade from those large pictures, those large environmental issues and if everything is done, so seriously, I think it doesn't give freedom for folks to play. And there's a lot of intellectual aspects and a lot of kind of thought requirements of folks that do this work. And so, if you're actually not serious, I think you invite a sense of play and curiosity amongst staff and that really does sometimes change your perspective in the issues that you're working from. It also teaches a few important things one, I think when you're you're goofing around with your colleagues, you do gain a sense of trust because I think you you have a different footing that you get on with them and allows you to build a little bit more three dimensional have a relationship with the folks you're working with. Another thing it does is it shows that it's okay to make mistakes and that it's okay to come up or throw out ideas that aren't great ideas that aren't fully formed, especially in brainstorming meetings or certain meetings. It allows for more ideas to flow and look, we haven't solved all these issues. We haven't solved them from a policy standpoint or other standpoint. And so I think there's certainly a lot of work that we have left that we have to conceptualize and we have to come up with new approaches. And so if everyone is so afraid of the seriousness of every moment, I don't think we're accessing their best, most creative energies. And it's a shame because then then we're not setting ourselves up for success in the long run. So the idea of not being serious at work is to invite play and I think that allows people to be more comfortable to throw out ideas that they're not 100% confident and to not be afraid of making mistakes, especially when you're trying to solve a new issue or or conduct some sort of change management and your approach that builds camaraderie or builds teams together. And I think it also, like, reduces the impact on the people who are doing that work. If you're working 40 hours a week, that's a lot of time. If you're dumping cortisol into your system, because you're stressed and serious that entire time. You're not going to be at your healthiest mentally, emotionally, or just like physically taking yourself seriously all the time can have physical consequences. So I think it's an approach that's important for leaders everywhere to find times to let folks not be so serious and enjoy each other's company. And it actually moves the work forward, especially when you're in the policy space and then the environmental space. And just, you know, if you're not going to enjoy the people, you're working with these people 40 hours a week, that's more than I see my wife sometimes I can enjoy myself with you then. You know, what's the point

Nic 
it's not fun. I mean, it's stressful. It's difficult. It is.

[Field Notes]

Laura 
I get that. And we talked about how you know, your LinkedIn person. I have a LinkedIn person and how and we also talked about how like, a lot of people on LinkedIn, just try to look so professional and they lose a lot of like their personality. I'm not one for using it. Like a Facebook or something like that. But I still try to encourage people are looking for jobs like I look at your resume, show me on your LinkedIn who you are right? And you do that so so well. And I've been super excited because your banner is you with a picture of little pig and I'm like I can see something about who you are. I love it. And that just means you look fun and interesting so that you're also not afraid like just communicating with you through there. Your your personality also shines through which I think is really great. So anyway, thank you for being you and I'm excited to finally be having this conversation. But I'm also super excited to talk to you about your field work because I know you've done a lot of it and you have some pretty good stories. So now it's time for field notes. And I know that you listen to the show, so you know what that's all about. So go ahead and give us some good stories.

Ryan Hathaway 
Yeah, well, so first is to make sure that I give the cameo as appropriate and I will include another pig that didn't make that picture. But that is that is that is Mia Hamm, who is named after my favorite soccer player. Growing up and her and her compatriots are I'm watching them out my window enjoying eating some of the grass I have yet to mow. Well, Peter porker is out there. And it's as much of a strategy of showing my personality as it is trying not to be the only living thing in a picture and have all the attention on myself. So there's there was some attempt to avoid attention even though it's social media so you know, it's a hollow hollow and hypocritical effort there. Alright, so field notes. I you know, I started off in that administrative job and very quickly, within a year was like, I don't think this is what I am good at or what I want to do, and had an opportunity to move out to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and work for the Bureau of Land Management. And what was you know, I didn't know it at the time but a really unique office. So the eastern states of Bureau of Land Management which has some fantastic people, and just a crazy complicated mission because most of where BLM is is out west. And most of it is they own the land that they're managing, and out east most of it is subsurface and minerals and so the job I had found myself in was basically the four M's from Minnesota, download Missouri over to Maine and down to Maryland anywhere where there was some federal interest in oil and gas. I got to go and do environmental inspections. A lot of the times that was like taking a federal work rig and driving in people's driveways that were rural and long. And did not expect to see someone from the federal government. So I've had a lot of interesting field experience. I think one of the more interesting ones is we had some wells that were in the area of the Hatfield and McCoy. Oh, wow, in West Virginia, and I still remember I had been down there and was meeting with a company and so we were going around and I was looking at the wells where they were showing me where they are because a lot of them we didn't have lat long. These were really old deeds. So when you'd look it up, you know the location on the paperwork we had was like it was 100 yards from the oak tree and rurals you know, front field and you're like, oh, like that's not helpful to find 250 years later. So I'm out there with a company and we had gone and done like three or four wells that morning and I had you know, helped them figure out how to avoid spilling oil and do some various maintenance that they needed with the state DEP and we pulled up to this road and they pulled over and they're like the walls are up there. I remember like being in my work rig and be like, you know,

this does feel weird. But I'm just gonna assume that they don't, you know, they're

like, just go it's a hard road we'll get and so as I'm driving I remember seeing like these shacks with like families and I'm like, oh, okay, so I don't know like a lot of blinds were getting shut and like doors were shutting and like, you know, the like, I'm like, This feels very much like a horror movie a little bit. And so I you know, I go and there's a sign further well, and so I parked my car and I'm like, Okay, I take some pictures of the well there was this one was actually in fairly good shape which was a rarity. Here a gunshot and see the tree like right behind my head maybe four feet up just kind of like Splinter. I was like I just like immediately hit the ground. And I was like, Oh my gosh, okay, what do I do? I was like, Well, I stupidly left my cell phone in the car. You know I have my digital camera which you know do I take a selfie and be like Bye World and and then like another one hits the tree higher up and I'm starting to think like okay, I feel like this is them just telling me to get out. So I just get up, run to my rig and there. There is a dead possum that has been gutted with and then the innards of the possum spell out get outta bed on the side of my work truck and there's a bunch of empty shotgun shells kind of left sprinkled over the hood. So I just get in it. Back to my rig up as fast as I can down the driveway and get back and I get all the oil and gas guys are just dying laughing when I get back there they're like yeah, you know they're they don't take too like they don't love people coming on their property. I this family doesn't actually come into town they've been there for you know 100 Something years and they're they're all homesteaders. And they're like, oh, all of that would have been great information prior to go there. And they're like, yeah, let's get you to a car wash and buy, like get you some lunch and

Laura 
I'm like backwoods hazing. Yeah.

Ryan Hathaway 
Very, very much though. And it wasn't, is the only time I've had a warning shot fired at me. But I've had weapons pulled on me in that in that job a few times and got out of them. I remember one guy pulled the gun on me. And his dog was there and my wife was in veterinary school at the time. And so I just was like, Oh, I love your dog. And like your broccoli is like growing really well and just like trying to deflect and eventually it's like, oh yeah, the broccoli trick is coffee grounds. A trick I still you know, use to this day. So that guy in rural Michigan. Thank you for that. And for not tuning me. Right, right.

Laura 
All right, so sweet. talk your way out of it. I like it. So what else? What else do you got? What other advice do you have for getting out of these sticky situations that you've learned firsthand?

Ryan Hathaway 
I think I realized early on in life I was fortunate to get a lot of traumatic brain injuries when I was younger, I'd say fortunate because I guess together you know, be happy about your lot in life, but the like everyone's come into it with the best they can at the time. You know they're there and some people are just in a place where they can either be good or can't be themselves. Or are nervous. And so I try to be the most one be authentic to yourself. And then also just understand that as hypocritical as other people seem you also probably seem and are just as hypocritical because it's human nature. So look for common ground with people and you know, in that case, I saw the guy had a dog and had really nice broccoli. I didn't stick around to form bonds with the folks that left a dead possum you know if I could have that one back I very much room. I relate though there's this scene. I don't know if I can make it I mentioned TV shows is that like, there's a scene in the office where Pam Beasley is like, you know, I feel like everyone should like me and I just want people to like me and I feel like even if they're terrible if they just got to know me, they'd like me. I feel like having a little bit of that attitude when you're out there and just be like, Look, this person just doesn't know me what's like, talk to them about things that I noticed about them that I like and see if we can de escalate a little bit.

Laura 
That's great. There's one other thing I need to ask you along these lines because this is always Nick's favorite is learning about other people's animal encounters. Yeah. So we need to know your best animal encounter so that Nick can wallow in it a little bit. Yeah.

Nic 
Yeah, like me jealous. Here we go.

Ryan Hathaway 
Okay, so and I have a picture of this somewhere. It actually used to be my LinkedIn picture early, early on. When I was an intern, my first job out of college in DC. We had done a grant for the main black bear research group. And I you know, thing and my boss at the time, Matt Eckert, I don't know where he is, but he was he was one of the best bosses you could ask for really great. And he was like, You should go up and like help them with their winter den surveys. That would be a really cool experience. They'd really like they like to, like show off a little bit and plus, like it's a good opportunity. You're an intern, you need to experience so we went up and basically in Maine, we're in the lower portion. So it was like negative 20 at the time were snowmobiling into these like super remote areas. And never forget, like the first time seeing it. They literally like you throw a blanket over the bear then, and then someone crawls in there with a plunger pole and tries to jab the bear and back out before it wakes up. So they were like do you wanna do you want to try this? I like Okay, and so they like grab your heels and you like shuffle in and they like there's another guy and they have like little infrared light right there. Like just get them in the muscle. And so you'd like use the plunger pole and do and they pull you out. And so we did this one it was a it was a female black bear. She had five cubs that were you know, just not recently born but we're new cubs. And so when she is out you keep them in your jacket to keep them warm. And so I you know, I was the new guy and they're like, You should take all of them. So I had five cubs in my jacket just like stuffed around me. And they had just weighed her and we were doing Salman said, they're like let's get a photo op, and so they put a bandana over her eyes. So just to try to not to wake her up and had her in my lap. And so I have I pull out one of her cubs and hold it up and have her and I just remember, like feeling some movement and looking down and just seeing the bear just like nudge off the bandana and look up at me as I'm holding her cup. I just remember be like, I'm gonna die. Like I remember the feeling of like, I'm going to be eaten alive. And I look up and two of the people who are with them that were newer who were running, running and it turns out they're going to make sure they could get more ketamine because they didn't know if they had a syringe there, but you like immediate response. I was like, oh my god, like I'm really going to be eaten alive by this bear. And thankfully the experience biologist comes like puts the handkerchief holder down gives her a shot of ketamine but I remember I'm like I'm holding off for like I am the target right? At the height of her entire future in my jacket. This bear is gonna devour me. So that was probably my most interesting animal encounter in the field. And I can still I feel my heart racing thinking about it 15 years ago and it still scares me to this day. Yeah,

Nic 
no, yeah, I can feel that. That's a good thing. Gosh,

Laura 
it must have felt so good to have a little bear cubs in your hands.

Ryan Hathaway  
They were incredibly strong, like incredibly like stronger grip than mine. And so like there were points in times where they're like, well, let's put them back in the den and it's like it's on their schedule. Soon as you're sitting there until they let go of you and they're like, Okay, now you go back. Like you sit there for 20 minutes because they like when they grab onto you. You're like yeah, we're not when you ain't getting them off.

Nic 
That's cool. So how did you meet your wife again?

Ryan Hathaway 
Yeah, yeah, me and my wife met on study abroad in Antarctica. It was, you know, the more accurate and less cool statement is that we met in JFK Airport. Probably Probably would have met at University of Delaware had her husband been someone that attended the pre meetings like a good student. But thankfully, like I still remember our first walk. We were actually in Tierra del Fuego. And what drew us to each other I think still to this day is we're looking at 1000 people standing in line to take the chairlift down, I'm looking at a very reasonable hill that you can walk down. It was like 300 yards and we're like, Man, I feel like it's gonna be way quicker to just walk downhill and so we did the whole class there and I bought her hot chocolate, you know, at the bottom of the hill. And that started, you know, a long and probably frustrating for her courtship or I tried to convince her I was just as mature as she needed me to be. But yeah, we met in Antarctica and we have a goal we're actually planning on going to South Africa this January. We want to see every species of penguin together in the wild. We did our honeymoon in the Galapagos. So yeah, we did penguins, probably another harrowing animal encounter. I got faced bumped by blacktip reef shark. I was the last person and a trail of cloudy water and didn't know what was coming at me. Yeah, no, we've seen penguins all over I honestly Antarctica is just such a beautiful place. And I know I've listened to you. I'll talk about Antarctica as well.

Nic  
I want to go so badly.

Laura  
That was hard. The other animal encounter that haunts Nick was

Nic 
such a fun time, Laura.

Laura 
Oh, this has been such a fun conversation but we're running out of time. Ryan, is there anything else you want to talk about? Any more animals running into your face or?

Ryan Hathaway 
No know I'll you know, I'll save the other animals running into my face stories for maybe another time in the future. We all get to talk.

Nic 
For sure. Well, before we let you go on to let the people know where they can get in touch with you. Yeah,

Ryan Hathaway 
absolutely. So we talked about LinkedIn. So you can go to LinkedIn and look for Ryan Hathaway. I will be the one with a picture with his face with a bright pink pig. So LinkedIn whatever.com/ryan Hathaway or you can email me at our data start hathaway@gmail.com There were a lot of Art and Writing Hathaways. So I had I had to add in the middle initial there.

Laura 
This has been awesome. Thank you.

[Outro]

Nic 
Thank you all. That's our show. Thank you so much, Ryan for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. See you everybody.

Laura
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai