Indigenous Knowledge, Music, and the Family Farm with Ron Deverman

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 Ron Deverman, Vice-President and National Environmental Planning Leader for STV about Indigenous Knowledge, Music, and the Family Farm.  Read his full bio below.

Today's episode is sponsored by STV. STV is an award-winning professional firm consistently ranking among the country's top companies in education, justice, highways, bridges, rail and mass transit sectors. STV attributes its success as the direct result of their employees' commitment to innovation and quality. Throughout the United States and Canada, STV’s professional, technical and support personnel offer services to a broad and expanding client base. https://stvinc.com/

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form

Showtimes: 
2:15  Laura & Nic talk about getting work done in between meetings
10:23  Interview with Ron Deverman Starts
14:43  Indigenous Knowledge
35:19  Music
41:48  Family Farm

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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 Ron Deverman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-deverman-a521b411/

Guest Bio:

Ron is Vice-President and National Environmental Planning Leader for STV, a national planning, engineering, and architecture firm.  Ron has over 35-years-experience managing NEPA environmental impact assessment projects for transportation infrastructure improvements, such as transit, passenger and freight rail, highways, and bridges, with special expertise in community impact assessment, cumulative effects analysis, and other federal environmental regulations.  Ron is a Past President of NAEP and IAEP and he is the current Chair of NAEP’s Leadership Development Initiative.  Ron is a Certified Environmental Professional by Eminence and a NAEP Fellow for his exemplary service and over 30-year commitment to NAEP and the environmental professions.  Ron is also an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University teaching a Masters’ course in NEPA and Context Sensitive Solutions.  He is a published poet and has spoken nationally and internationally on many subjects, including key competencies for environmental professionals, environmental stewardship, and the public health impacts and benefits of our transportation choices.  Ron comes from generations of farmers in Illinois’ heartland and farmed for a living while attending college.  Ron’s education includes a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana, a MA in English from the University of Illinois in Springfield, and post-graduate studies in NEPA and related environmental studies.

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, Welcome to Epi ferret environmental enthusiast Nick and Laura. On today's show, Laura and I discuss how to get work done when your whole working life is going from one meeting to the next. We talked to Ron determine again about indigenous knowledge, music and the family farm. And finally, a chicken can lay around 225 eggs per year. The US produces approximately 65 billion eggs per year. That's like 25 million chickens putting in good work. China is the world's largest producer of eggs with over 160 billion eggs per year. That's like a zillion chickens. So there you go. Who wants breakfast?

Laura 
I do. I always want breakfast.

Nic 
Yeah, of champions. Of course. Only good things. I definitely didn't have pizza for breakfast today.

Laura 
But you did.

Nic 
No comment hit that music

[NAEP Event News]

Laura 
right we have two events for you this week. First up is the NCAA EP just North Carolina chapter wetland assessment method and training course on Tuesday, December 6 from 8am to 5pm. Eastern Time. And secondly, we have the NAEP advanced NEPA workshop running again for those of you in Hawaii time on Wednesday, December 7, from eight to 430 HSD didn't really know that was what that was called Hawaii. Check them out at any p.org and today's episode is sponsored by STV. STV is an award winning professional firm consistently ranking among the country's top companies in education justice highways, bridges, rail and mass transit sectors. They attribute their success as a direct result of their employees commitment to innovation and quality. Throughout the United States and Canada as TVs professionals technical and support personnel offer services to a broad and expanding client base. Check them out at STV inc.com. If you'd like to sponsor a future episode head on over to www dot environmental professionals radio.com and check out the sponsor forum for details. So the question was from Sam was how do we actually get work done and we have so many meetings and stuff going on throughout the week. Unless we're just gods and goddesses. of multitasking which I love that title. Totally take it I am a master at multitasking. That's for sure. I'm not one of those people that that believes that. Multitasking is I believe there's a time and place for multitasking. If I have work that doesn't require much use of my brain I can watch television and do some work at the same time. Required emails, comments and social media stuff like that. So you know, prioritization is probably one of my most important skills, I think aside from being organized. How about you Nick?

[Laura & Nic discuss getting work done in between meetings]

Nic  
Yeah, so like, Yeah, I think prioritization is very, very important. I think when you have your schedule, you know, your meetings, you have an understanding and you need to give your attention to certain things right. There are certain stuff that no matter what you have to do, if you are running the meeting, you can't have the TV on if you're coordinating the thing you can't reply to an email while you're running. The meeting. It does doesn't work. You have to be focused on that meeting. If that's all of your meetings, for the day that you're running everything, then you're going to be working off hours. That's just the truth. That is you know what you have to do to get things done. There are other times and you know, this is not an industry secret, but where you have a meeting on and you are able to get other work done during that meeting, because you know that your parts small and you're paying attention, you're listening for these certain things. So that doesn't mean you have to be able to multitask a little because you have to pay attention to what is relevant to you. But at least for me, I'm able to kind of, you know, do that balance and it's not it's not perfect, you know, you make mistakes, but that happens all the time. And you know, it's not, I would say necessarily a bad thing because you do need to get stuff done. People are relying on you to get information to that. You have to be able to do that in a timely manner.

Laura  
Yeah, the other thing is delegating if it is not something that I have to do, I will gladly give it to someone else.

Nic 
Yeah, and that's a real real challenge, especially when you start your career. It's really hard to delegate right? You know, you're basically being delegated to, but as you grow you'll start to see there's there's a big shift, and there's some folks in our group that are doing that shift now where you go from like I have to do everything to I have to get everything done. Those are definitely two different statements. And you know, how you get it done isn't really what matters. There's there's countless examples. There's anecdotes and allegories about that exact thing, right? You know, it's like, it doesn't matter if it takes you three weeks, so long as you get it done. If that's the timeline that we have, right, it's supposed to be done in three weeks doesn't matter how, just that it's done in three weeks. So there's lots of ways to get things to get SaaS done. There's lots of ways to delegate to it doesn't even have to be in your organization. It can be getting an outside vendor to print the documents for you. Whereas so that you don't have to do it is you ever think there's lots of different creative ways that you can do that?

Laura 
Yeah. And as Sam knows, from working behind the scenes on the show, we use software and tools and project management systems and these things also help you work a lot smarter. So you spend less time so maybe you can't delegate something to someone else to do, but you can definitely make a system a lot more efficient or effective. And if he's something that you're doing repeatedly, or scheduling meetings, like scheduling meetings might be as simple as getting a calendar link and letting your software handle the software for you. So you're not delegating to a person but you can kind of delegate to a software.

Nic 
Yeah, I can say that there's that sometimes we tend to do this thing where we're like, oh, well, there's only one way to do this task. There's only one way to get it done. They said I have to do it. So I have to do it. And you know sometimes that's not true. Sometimes it's it just needs to be done. You've been given the responsibility to make sure it does. And those are definitely not the same. So it just have a mentality shift. I think sometimes you have to think of it that way. If you don't have time to do something and it needs to get done even as a junior staff. There are usually other junior staff that you can pull in like, hey, I need help on this. Right. And if you have good coworkers, they'll help you out. You know, that's kind of how it works.

Laura 
Yeah. And if the question is how do you get your work work done? Sometimes you might have to decline a meeting. Maybe you don't, maybe not every meeting you have to be at you know, you can ask someone to Can I skip this one out or send me the notes or let me know if there's anything that I need to do after this meeting? If it's not one that you have to be at?

Nic 
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, because you know, you also have to balance that with your regular life too. Right? You have to go to doctor's appointments, you have to you know, do whatever and you personalize that you want to do too. You don't want to spend all your time working. That's no fun. Right, Laura? Yeah, totally. Did you work pretty hard, though. I will admit that.

Laura 
I think I fool everyone to thinking that I work pretty hard. I think I've gotten to a point where I enjoy the work that I do. So it doesn't feel hard. There's definitely sometimes there's things that I don't want to be doing, but I'm like, oh, gotta get it done. Those things. I will try to get done as fast as possible. Or, again, how do I make this easier or get someone else to do it? And sometimes those things take you know, the first time you delegate to somebody or like, hire someone to help you or learn a software it takes time. Yeah, but then once you've got that in place, like anytime I bring people in to learn how to use Trello like it takes time to get them used to that and to say, Okay, it's in Trello keep going to Trello but once everybody's got it, it's it's so helpful. So I think a lot of the barrier to while some people get stuck in this like I have never ending piles of to dues is because they don't really put in that little extra effort upfront to make an efficiency in the beginning.

Nic 
Yeah, I mean, honestly, organization goes a long way here. Just planning out your day. You know, we've talked a little bit about that, but like just starting the day going, Okay, what do I need to get done? What are what are my goals for the day? Like one of them easy, so you could do it? Just because I think there's definitely days where it's like, I have this huge list and get to anything and that's that's hard. I had a day this week. Where I was on the phone literally talking from 1230 to six, like that's not fun, that's hard to do. It's hard to get anything done when you're literally having conversations that long. So like you know, it's like eat a Snickers at the end of the day or something. I mean, whatever it is just have a tangible goal. You can you can finish no matter what, it's helpful because it will it will burn you out if you can't, if you're always chasing that, that list so, but that the organization goes a long, long way. I mean, I think about my career like I remember having, like five of these NEPA documents do almost the same exact time. And I just spent half a day like planning out how I can write them how I can get them reviewed how I can do all this. And it was one of the the easiest things to do even though it was super busy. My plan really genuinely helped me get it done. So yeah, that's really really important.

Laura 
Yeah, and your company culture can play a part in that too. Because if the culture of the company is like everyone's at all meetings every time and they don't care about with him, when you find time to get the work done. That can be very difficult, but some companies will even say like, you know, we have no meetings Thursday. That's a policy that lets people set time aside for themselves to work on that work that needs to get done, which is nice. So if that's not something that your department or company has, and you see a need for it, maybe that's a suggestion that can be made, you know, can we have a free day or two, three days a week where we don't have meetings? And then so it's almost better to have one full long day of meetings and then the following day is the day you can do work? Because almost every meeting comes with work afterwards.

Nic 
Or gosh, I had a couple of weeks ago I literally I was having a meeting, getting off the meeting and had two tasks to do and I'm like, yeah, what is happening today? None of this was on my radar and I'm like okay, all right. I guess I'll be back. Working.

Laura  
Awesome. All right. Well, let's wrap this up and get to her interview. Sounds good.

[Interview with Ron Deverman Starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today we have Brian devilment back on the show. Ron is vice president and National Environmental Planning lead at STV as well as an esteemed NAEP fellow. He's currently spearheading the Leadership Committee, and we're really glad to have you back on.

Ron Deverman  
Well, thank you very much. Real excited to be back and with you both. So. Got to enjoy our conversation, I'm sure.

Laura 
Absolutely. That's a great time of year to have you back to around the holidays. You have been an awesome champion for EPR I know you're listening to every episode, even if it's not every week and always giving us your feedback, which is just really nice to hear that there are people listening and you're, you're liking it. So I have an unfair question to start us off with but do you have a favorite episode or favorite topic so far?

Ron Deverman 
I actually this week listen to Sonny's episode here recently and she's just so dynamic. Yeah, I love her and she was a great keynote speaker at DNAP conference this year. So it's almost like every time I listened to the episodes, then that's that's my favorite. Until Until next Friday.

Laura 
Awesome, great answer. Sunday is a lot of fun though. And what's new with you? How are things STV?

Ron Deverman 
They're going really well that I do have a national position with them and that's that's quite exciting. And it's great to be working with environmental professionals all across the country to help grow you know, grow environmental services at the company and so I love it. And we've been doing a lot of community involvement to on our projects and the topics of equity certainly come up very much in our clients mind and I've actually been meeting one on one with some of our clients on how to better sort of integrate equity and inclusion in outreach and then just within the decision making process, so

Laura  
that's great. What kind of questions are they asking you? Well,

Ron Deverman  
they want to make sure they're reaching all populations, you know, especially when we're doing if it's a NEPA project, and it's going into environmental justice, residential areas, you know, lower income and minority areas. They want to make sure they're doing the proper outreach. So really all voices can be heard, and actually get them involved in whether it's working groups or steering committee, that sort of thing just to be part of the decision making throughout that whole process. And making sure the whatever decision is made, it's an equitable one, as far as the benefits going to what sometimes is, you know, very underserved populations and residents, so it's very important topic and literally, I think all of the transportation agencies that I'm working with now have equity officers as part of their leadership or and our diversity, equity and inclusion officers. So that's just terrific to see. In fact, I presented this year at an international conference on transport and health on transit equity. I'm now putting together a manuscript related to that. And I'm actually now interviewing several of our clients in Florida, Houston, out in LA and even here in Chicago, about interviewing their VDI officers about equity and how they're incorporating that into their, you know, main policy now for their agencies.

[Indigenous Knowledge]

Nic 
So, that's really interesting. And I kinda want to take us down a little bit of a path here, too. So we know some legislation has come out. We know that we have the phase two revisions to the 2020 NEPA regulations coming out as well. And that language, you know, we're expecting emphasis on the importance of indigenous knowledge. So I know this is an important topic for you and if Laura would stop taking the questions away from me, I'm gonna keep asking, sorry. Can you tell us about the importance of, you know, indigenous knowledge and maybe share a story or two about it from your career?

Ron Deverman 
Yeah, I'd love to add just the one thing I would say about the phase two revisions I see there's really four pillars coming out from that. They're addressing climate change within the new NEPA regulations. They're addressing more engaged public involvement. Also, environmental justice and equity are what we were just talking about. And then the fourth pillar really is the importance of indigenous knowledge and federal decision making. I'm just so happy to see that. And I was very aware of that. CQ chair brand. Brenda Mallory actually conducted least a half a dozen meetings around the country with key tribal leaders and helped set UQ put that language together. But my interest actually in indigenous knowledge actually goes back, believe it or not, 30 plus years to 1990. And I was actually in the Pacific Northwest, I was the manager of planning and environmental services for a Pacific Northwest. Planning and engineering architecture. Firm and I managed three environmental assessments where I worked directly with the Native American tribes one on one and I'll give you three examples. The first one was with the Muckleshoot tribe, and this was related to a residential master plan development, just about maybe 20 miles south of Seattle. And I work directly with the senior planner of the Muckleshoot tribe and in fact, he was actually on our project team. Washington State is one of the states that has their own state NEPA state environmental policy act. So that's why we were doing the environmental assessment. The second example is working directly with the Coleville tribal nation. And that's an Eastern Washington on the east side of the Cascade. Mountains. There is again another residential development by a very, very low density more like large ranch type residential and it was near some of the Colville tribes land so we brought them in and hiked the whole area. They showed us places that they felt should not be developed, and then made sure you know, we understood exactly where their land was versus the land that the entity that was developing this residential low density residential area was located. And the third, this is the coolest example I can give you the third was actually I was doing an environmental assessment on Mount Bailey and now Bailey is in kind of South Central Oregon, the proponent this was an EA and the proponent was wanting to do snow cat skiing on Mount Bailey. In other words, no infrastructure, no ski lifts nothing. It's just the snow cat takes you up and then you just ski down. It's very, very environmentally sensitive. In fact, believe it or not, you can actually Google mount Bailey snow cat skiing and it will come up and it's a very successful ski area for people. But I knew the Clackamas tribe in Central Oregon had very close interest in Mount Bailey. So we reached out to them and I spent a lot of time sitting at the table just listening, you know, not talking not being a talking head just listening and to their concerns and then we decided actually to hike up the mountain together. So I hiked up with the tribal leaders all the way to the top. And then they showed me a couple areas on the top of the mountain where it was sacred to them, but they didn't want any anything disturbed. whatsoever. And I just thought that was really, really cool experience that's very alive and in my memory today. So I've had that I've had that sensibility, you know, for the last three decades now to see it actually come true. You know, within our federal regulations. That's terrific.

Nic 
Yeah. And, you know, you touched on something that I really I want to follow up on the importance of listening, right? You had the wherewithal to say, Okay, I'm not going to tell people what's going to happen. I want to hear what they have to say and then they open up to you. How do you kind of develop that need because a lot of times when we're doing projects, you're going to be like, well, this is what's going to happen, this is how it's going to happen. But taking a second to listen to the concerns of the community is super important. It makes your relationships so much stronger. How do you develop that sense of how important and valuable that listening skill is?

Ron Deverman  
Well, first of all, as a human being it has to come within you. And you have to develop that softer side of you that empathetic empathic side of you to be understanding of everyone despite you know who they are, you know, a few have differences or whatever I think, you know, each each person is unique. And that's what I look for. I look for the uniqueness in everyone. And to do that you really have to, to be mindful. And as I said, it's like empathic listening and just to reach a deeper level of understanding, okay, on what their thoughts and values are. And so from that, then you can bring this deeper understanding back, you know, to the process that we use, and I think also over time, we've just gotten a lot better to do community outreach in a very personal way. And I actually managed a project in the city of Detroit and, again, lower income and minority neighborhoods, and we didn't call our gatherings, public meetings, we call them community conversations. Yeah, we just got together around tables, and I, I just listened. So that's where it comes from. It's just once you gain that deeper understanding, then you bring a different demeanor, to the community involvement process. Yeah,

Nic 
it's a great point. And you know, when you talk about you know, even your industry
______
Nic 
That's a great point. And you know, when you talk about, you know, even your industry, I think it's important for the community. But you know, each industry has its own quirks and uniqueness. Right? So how each client approaches outreach has to be a little bit different. So what are the differences maybe then in the transportation industry, right, we have, you know, rail and roadways, and many other nuances in there. So how do you see do you see that they're typically following the same trends? Are there big differences between groups depending on you know, what client you're talking to or what industry that you're in?

Ron Deverman 
Yeah, that's a great question because I actually started my career in the central office of the Illinois Department of Transportation, the bureau design and environment. So the focus in my early career was highways and bridges, but really for the last 2020 25 years, it's been rail focused. And what I've found is on the highway side, the D O T's, they're moving in the direction I was just talking about. It comes from a more traditional base, whereas even projects I was managing in the mid 90s, and 2000s, like in Denver in Salt Lake City, there was much more community involvement and engagement with the residents one on one, I did the end end of the city of Denver, I managed the EIS for the West LRT Line, and that's the one that goes out to golden. And we had a very interdisciplinary team. It was not only planners and engineers and architects and landscape architects, but we actually had musicians and artists on our team as well, because at each, we decided and again, our transit client was very, very supportive of this. We decided that each transit stop, we were going to do placemaking you know, like develop plazas. Put up our work. There was actually a national program called Art in transit. And we were able to get some money for that. And even one of the artists it was did music and sound installations and he had already done several around the city of Detroit. And it's really cool. So I said, You got to be on our team. And so you can do one of your sound installations at one of the transit stop. And clearly now the transit agencies are in the forefront related to this type of more intimate outreach and dialogue with the actual residents who are going to be using their system. And it also gets back to what we were talking about earlier about equity as well. And the importance of mobility and access for everyone, including them, those with disabilities, and so on. So, that's awesome.

Laura 
I love that you keep bringing art and stuff into the science world, and even to this level of actual practical applications. You mentioned before that you and you've described quite a few different projects across the country. But you have a national position, but how many projects do you work on at one time?

Ron Deverman 
Well, very good question. Right now. I helped win, general planning general engineering contract with Houston Metro Transit. did that a couple of years ago, and so still involved with that? here locally in Chicago, we have a program management contract with our Metra commuter rail system here and I'm overseeing the NEPA projects on their behalf and then I'm actually managing an EA through the surface transportation board and this is a freight rail, EA for Canadian national and that's actually here in Illinois and Missouri. They're acquiring some rail line from another class one freight railroad, so those are the real active projects, but I'm also actively pursuing three other projects. So I'm meeting with those clients. And then I try to support we have bi monthly and sometimes monthly calls in different regions of the country. Whether it's the southeast, northeast or Pacific Northwest, I help support their efforts.

Laura 
That's great. That sounds like you stay very busy, and we appreciate you listening up.

Ron Deverman 
I multitask sometimes. But that

Laura 
leads me to my next question. This is perfect. That's a lot of projects. And a lot of distant places that are very important. So there's a lot of calls and meetings and community outreach and things mixed in there. But Sam asked us recently how Nick and I get so much work done or how we get any work done when we have some calls and so many meetings to attend. So just curious about what you might say about that.

Ron Deverman 
Oh, well, of course it's setting the priorities and knowing what the big rocks are that you have to get done that day. So I identify that I was really fortunate when I we had lived in married I actually lived in the Pacific Northwest and the firm I was with sent me to the Steven Covey Leadership Center. And so I got trained by Stephen Covey himself in the seven habits and and so it really helped me focus and every week and I still do this every week. I know there's the big rocks I have to do and when I have to do them and I write them down actually, and that's not only in work, but also you know, personal life and my creative life as well and just making sure it's a very well rounded experience I'm having each day and each week so

Nic 
yeah, that's great answer and you know those big rocks out and my favorite too is when we have you know your big rocks and then you get you get another one so how do you manage the surprises that come during the day? You have your plan and how you have to alter?

Ron Deverman 
I think that comes with experience. You know, I've got 35 years and now there's no way what I'm doing now I could have done in the first five to 10 years of my career. And so it's just being able to absorb it understand understanding the project delivery deadline, and how that that new big rock that just came, came in. You know how that fits. How that fits with everything else I'm doing so

Nic 
and, you know, it speaks to, you know, like a lot of what we talked about today speaks to you being a really strong leader. And like I say we're really happy to have you here as a result of that. But you also had up DNAP leadership committee so what's going on with that?

Ron Deverman 
Yeah, that's a great, great opportunity. I got a great leadership team. Back. Laura was one of the members and we do the leadership blog for any AP we interface with any AP and American public universities student chapter on a regular basis. We're now in the process of developing a potential mentor mentee program for NAEP. basing it I want to base it on what the Academy of board certified environmental professionals has been doing for
_________
Ron Deverman 
We're now in the process of developing a potential mentor mentee program for NAEP. Basing and I want to base it on what the Academy of board certified environmental professionals has been doing for the last year and a half. I've been on the Board of Trustees of APSET. And I've not only been chairing their awards committee, but I've also been on the mentor mentee Working Group and I actually am mentoring someone who's certified environmental professional. It you know, in training, he's in the process of getting his full CVP Sean DeSantis and he is a project manager down in South Florida Water Management District. And we interface every three or four weeks, and he's just doing fantastic and I've learned so much from him. You know, it's just amazing. It's just been a great, rewarding relationship for both of us. So

Nic 
I love that and I'm glad you brought up mentor programs and I'm really glad you brought up and you're both learning. So what in your mind makes a good mentorship program? And how do you learn from your mentee?

Ron Deverman 
Well, I think a good program is again, they apps app has great handbooks. That's a good start in fact, they've just been updated and that helps you but it's what I found is just getting to know your mentee barn not only a professional level, but a personal level as well. And understanding every aspect of you know what they're dealing with at work, what their personal life may be like, and then just giving you know of your wisdom. I think that just just comes as you grow in your career and I've been real excited because Sean's has gotten in the last few six months here. He's gotten a promotion already and he's about ready to submit his CTP application. So I was very excited for him. Nice, awesome. Yeah, I want it and somebody else who I admire tremendously in fact, I was just on a phone call with Emily pillock cuz she's a CDP it and we were having our CVP CVP i t quarterly meetings just a couple of days ago. And I had the honor after 2022 and a p conference to award her. She actually won a absatz emerging environmental Professional Achievement Award in 2021. But we weren't able to actually it was virtual meeting so I was able to I had the honor to actually award it to her at the 2022 conference in Fort Lauderdale because I'm very, very inspired by her and I think she really shows what leadership is you know, she is leading and APS environmental justice committee and doing a fantastic fantastic job. And I've been certainly very, very inspired by what she's said and I I got to read. She sent me an email after that meeting, and it was just really cool and I printed it out and I'm gonna keep it in some kind of one of my I have different notebooks where I'm writing down new ideas and innovative I have thoughts and stuff and but she said, Hi Ron, I wanted to reach out directly and generally say thank you for being an excellent role model in our industry. You're so intelligent, kind and consistent, and it doesn't go unnoticed. And happy birthday as well. So and so I just really appreciated that acknowledgement just because I think she's just so dynamic and every time I talk to her, I'm learning from her and she embodies what I feel is leadership. And I've written a couple articles where I've talked about leadership. One of those was called shifting our horizon and there's a statement in there I made leadership has to do with how we create and shape our future and the future of those we lead. There was another article that I had written here more recently, just shortly before the pandemic about team learning and leadership, talking about palatable outcomes, team learning and leadership and transportation. And I'd say creating livable communities with integrated transportation infrastructures that preserve and in fact enhance our quality. of place is a collective collaborative process. And it will take all of us to realize its far reaching benefits, and we only need to be leaders and step forward, set high standards and then exceed them.

Nic 
That's awesome. Yeah.

Laura 
Love it always. Love your words of wisdom. And we're big fans of Emily too. She's been on the show, and she's great.

Ron Deverman 
Oh, they haven't. So that was one of my favorite episodes, too. I love that one. Yeah.

[Music]

Laura  
So I want to encourage our listeners to go ahead and head over to na p.org and check out the leadership blog because there are some really great words of wisdom there from Ron and others who've contributed. Before you jump off into a new topic, which is music. I love music and we know you're a music and art person. So I always enjoy talking to you about that stuff. So wanted to give you a chance to talk a little bit more about how music has played a role in your life. And because I know you've had some real cool experiences.

Ron Deverman  
Yeah, thanks, Laura. Yeah, it goes way back to my college days. And and so that was pretty cool. I think, you know, I just just loved music. I said well you know, when I first became a teenager, when I got to you ally Urbana and was studying for my civil and environmental engineering degree. I actually took a part time job at a clothing store called in stitches. And stitches was this very, very hip clothing store. They imported most of their clothing from London. So it had all the latest styles, you know, velvet clothes, tops, crushed velvet jackets, I even bought a crushed velvet jacket myself. Amazing. They sold high heeled shoes for both women and men. And if you remember the traffic song, the low sparks of high heeled boys. I don't know if you remember that. But that's where it lands.

Laura 
Definitely no

Ron Deverman 
this was in the framers. This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So this is kind of what was going on at the time. And what was really cool is the owners of the store in stitches. Gary Oh, steak was actually the lead guitarist for a group called differentially boys and the French live boys actually got their name from gang, a youth gang in London. That's where they picked up the name. And then his partner was Mary, but because they were they were playing actually not only just in Illinois and around Champaign, but in the Midwest, other groups, other musicians would actually come to the store and right next to the in stitches was the leather shop. Another really cool store. And so people will just come and hang out. And so that's where I met actually, Gary rich Rath, which was the lead guitarist for REO Speedwagon. He would he literally would show up every week and he'd sit on the bench outside or he'd be talking to Gary the owner and interfacing and then at the time, their REO Speedwagon Strummer, Alan Craftster, and their lead vocalist was Terry Luttrell at the time. And then, ultimately in fact, they were actually formed in 1969 and then started becoming really really famous in the 1970s and their their most significant album was came out in 1980. That was called high end fidelity. What a name for an album high fidelity. And that also features not only that very distinctive lead guitar by Gary rich Rath, but also their current singer Kevin grown and he's a very distinctive voice and they really, so it was really cool to hang out with them and the lead singer of a band called head east would come around also the lead singer of one eyed jack. So there were, that was a big sort of music revolution at the time. And so it's so fun to be be a part of that and so different than my engineering classes. Just want one other story as I think it was the summer of 69. I had just started to work at the store. Both Gary and Mary actually invited me and they say hey, you know, there's gonna be this incredible Woodstock Music Festival is going to happen. And late summer of this year out in New York, you want to come with us and you know, I was tempted, but I also knew I said, you know, I really have to go back to the farm and I've got to work very hard because I got to earn money because I'm paying my way through college and this is how I'm doing it by working on the farm. And so I didn't go with them. But you know, the rest is history, of course. And if you've seen the Woodstock movie itself, right towards the end, there was a big thunderstorm that comes through towards the end of I think it was on day three. And then after the rain they're filming before the fans are coming back into the seats. right close to the stage. They found this young woman with long, dark hair and she's got a towel and she's wiping off the rain of the seats, you know, to dry them so people wouldn't get wet. And so they interview her a little bit. Well, that was my friend. That's my friend Mary. And so she's in the actual Woodstock film towards the end of the movie. That's really cool. I also I also met Peter Frampton, when he was humble pie and they were just starting to make their name known what their first hit. And because the financially wise actually opened for them and the constantly were not was that utilize Student Union auditorium. So it's a very intimate auditorium venue. And so I got to meet Peter Frampton very, very early in his career before he became famous.

Laura 
That's awesome. I haven't even heard any mobile pie since I live with my parents. There's a different picture a parallel universe out there where Ron went to Woodstock and life turned out different.

Ron Deverman  
Yeah, I think it would have probably would have plummeted.

[Family Farm]

Laura 
I also get a very foot Lucy vibe. So I picked her around the farm boy out there rocking and rolling the farm. The farm still in the family, right?

Ron Deverman 
Oh, yes. Yeah, the farm is returned to the new year in January will be 145 years old. And I've been since my father passed in February of 2020. We actually two weeks before he passed, we celebrated his 95th birthday. So a very long life and one of our great World War Two veterans in the US Navy and actually was in the submarine Blackfish you can imagine being in a world war submarine, but he farmed until age 75. And then my cousin's farm the ground and now my cousin's nephew, is actually farming the ground for us. But I was the executor of the estate because when I was getting my masters at Springfield Campus, I was commuting back and forth from the farm in central Illinois to Springfield where that campus is. dad named me the executor of the state. We wrapped all of that up earlier this year and then I created now a farm LLC for my self and my older brother, younger sister. So I'm the business manager of that so it's gone terrific. And just couldn't be any better.

Nic 
Right? Yeah.

Laura 
What's on the farm Ron, you got catalysts or you have oil? Yeah.

Ron Deverman 
Now, now we have of course corn and soybeans that we're we're harvesting but when I was growing up, yes, we had cattle and we had a few hogs but mostly cattle. We had two different pastures. So we had think we had about 30 head of cattle and one of the pastures that was bigger and then not for most of 20 and the other one and yeah, I can you know, if you don't mind, I'd like to tell a couple of cows stories. Okay, all right. Well, yeah, this first one, but one of the things with taking care of animals, you have to be with them every day. You have to make sure you're out they have plenty of water and you know food and feed them bales of hay and stuff like that for the whole whole herd. And so that was part of everyday is ritual to go out and see how they're doing. And so one one day and this was actually I think, late February, so it's winter time I was checking on the cattle herd and I believe or not, certainly during the winter, I count them all to make sure they're all there and this particular day, one of the cows was messy. And so sometimes they go off by themselves if they're normally they would have their calves in the springtime. And you know, like April May, maybe late March but April May and that sort of thing. And they usually go into pasture all by themselves and then they come back to the barn but this time, I didn't see any cows in the pasture but we had opened up a gate to corn stock field we had harvested the corn and we let them go out there and we fence them in and but they can graze out there to pick up the corn that you know maybe was missed by the combine. And so anyway, so I started walking out there and then in the distance I saw this one cow laying down and so I walked over there and sure enough she had unfortunately given birth to stillborn calf. Yeah, so the weather was you know, kind of cold and that sort of thing. But to make a long story short, I picked the calf up in my arms and okay, and then started walking and then I turned around and showed the calf to the mother cow. And then she started coming and following me because she knew I had her calf. And believe it or not, we walked a mile and a half together back to the to the barn and then I put the mother cow and the stillborn calf in a nice straw about a star in the barn. And then when I laid the calf down, the mother actually sort of sniffed it and then realize that it was not alive and she looked up at me and literally had tears streaming down her face. And I have never ever seen a cow cry since then. That's the only time in my entire life. I've seen that so it's amazing. So I have a very intimate story. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. So I'll end with a Happy Cow story. And this one is actually this occurred when I was farming in partnership with my dad and attending classes utilize Springfield, but I was living in the north farmhouse by myself at the time and I had just finished the corn soybean harvest. And if you know anything about a farmer's life, it's 24/7 job and you're usually got the Combine out fueling it up at 5am Especially when you're harvesting corn and then you're harvesting until 10pm and then the next day you repeat the process so it's just quite exhausting but I had on this particular weekend, it was actually Sunday morning and I had just finished the soybean and corn harvesting for the season just the day before. And so I thought Ah, now I can you know I'll just sleep in you know, I'll just I don't have to get up until like 10 or you know, that sort of thing. But interestingly in my bedroom it faces east and when the sun was starting to rise, I think maybe it was around eight o'clock or a little before I look out the window and so I see this cow looking into my bedroom window, you know, this big, broad face and nose and this huge, huge budgie eyes they have and a large forehead and the ears you know just looking at me and she's like giving me this look as if she wants to say, Dude, you know, what, what are you what do you think you're doing? What Why aren't you checking on us? You know, looking after us. You're you're supposed to do that. And you come around early every day. And so here she is. Well first of all, the cow is supposed to be in the pasture at my bedroom window in the front yard. And so I get dressed real quickly and I go outside and the entire 30 head of cattle are in the rural road in front of my farmhouse. And somehow this cow that was looking in the window had pushed the gate open. And then they all came out. And it was just mayhem for a while but fortunately my cousin Larry lives in the farmhouse just a half a mile away and I called him and he helped me rein him back into the pasture. So

Nic 
I love the idea that cows are like, Where the heck is this guy? Let's go check on that. We'll just push this fence. Oh, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. I'm totally fine. We'll just go see what he's doing. He can't even get a moment. That's too funny. Hi, Laura. How are we doing? Fine. Your story got her

Laura 
vegetarian, by the way. So you've also you mentioned to us before that you have sown wheat by hand. I am not a farmer. So I don't know what that means. How does that compare with like how wheat is actually normally so commercially?

Ron Deverman 
Yeah. Normal? Yes. Certainly. Now it's done. There's a an element called a drill where the seed is drilled into the soil. It's pulled by a tractor and that sort of thing and that and that process continues. We did do that when I was still very young man. I might might even have been still in high school or just an early college or whatever. But sometimes spring rains would come you know on the wheat so the wheat and hay would drowned out a section, you know, little area of the wheat and so my dad and I would actually literally take a grain sack and fill it full of wheat and then throw it out and replant it by hand. And I just actually very recently within the last year I came upon one of Van Gogh's paintings called the sower. And it's just an incredible, incredible painting of this young man in denim clothes with a hat on and he's out in the spare field. You know, just planting by hand, this new wheat field and it's just beautiful. The horizon is golden with the sun and it's just amazing. And I identified with it immediately because I have actually done that, you know, and so I, I gotta write a poem, you know, on this painting, and I'd like to share it with you now. Yeah, please. Okay. All right. So we're from a painting by van Gogh. blackbirds soar as you walk the open field, feet, tramping the blue, lower loamy soil, right hand releasing bright seeds waking. It is enough to be alive. On this clear morning. The sun a radiant flower unfolding. Goldenrod flooding the horizon. No Moon Silvermoon silence. This field is your garden. You could be anyone hold any job under the provincial sun but rebirth begins here. First the green shoots, then stems and poppy centers, then grain forming fall in the shaft. Patients. There is time to know everything we've learned to believe that a seed grows into something larger. A life greater than one to believe and love and immerse ourselves in the blue flames of its promise to feel as close to heaven as we are to this earth. Shall we touch each other as deeply it is enough to find your footsteps in the Blue Earth, connecting your work to this deep fertile land, spreading its spirit through us. deepening our roots, our bodies feeling lighter and more at peace with the days in the grain sack empty. The mind and heart full

Nic 
as great, so great. Your bones are so vivid. Yes. I can feel it. You know I mean imagine the feeling

Ron Deverman 
there was there was a lot of inspiration just from looking at that painting. And I've done a lot of other poems based on paintings or work of art or sculpture or photographs and that sort of thing. It does really inspire me. So

Nic 
I mean I love that you take it from, you know, two different experiences in your experience with art and your experience with work and together into new art. I think that's fantastic.

Ron Deverman 
Yeah, I think it also helps me you know, on this journey of self actualization, that kind of goes back to what I was talking about earlier, just reaching a deeper understanding of who you are as a person. And then just working with that and going on that journey your entire life. So

Laura 
yeah, that's awesome perspective. And did you have one more you wanted to leave us with before we

Ron Deverman  
left Yeah. So I'd love to share my absolute favorite poem by Mary Oliver. She's probably the the favorite poet of mine. She did pass in January of 2019. But I literally every week I get out one of her books. And read a few of her poems, and this is my favorite. It's called the place I want to get back to. And it talks about her encounter in the pine woods, encountering some deer and she wrote a trilogy of poems. And this is the third one of the trilogy, where the deer there's this intimate contact with the deer. The place I want to get back to is where in the pine woods in the moments between the darkness and first slide, two deer came walking down the hill. And when they saw me, they said to each other, okay, this one is okay. Let's see who she is and why she is sitting on the ground like that. So quiet, as if asleep or in a dream. But anyway, harmless. And so they came on their slender legs and gazed upon me not unlike the way I go out to the dunes and look and look and look into the faces of the flowers and then one of them leaned forward, and no so hold my hand and what can my life bring me bring to me that could exceed that brief moment. For 20 years I have gone every day to the same woods, not waiting Exactly. Just lingering. such gifts bestowed can't be repeated. If you want to talk about this come to visit. I live in the house near the corner, which I have named gratitude. Oh, that's nice. Isn't that powerful? Oh, yeah. And that that intimate moment a bit dear, nuzzling her hand. Just since chills, chills up my spine. Every time I read it.

Nic 
Yeah, absolutely. And you have the perfect voice to read to and yeah, it's, it all comes together. Thank you very much for sharing.

Ron Deverman 
You're welcome. I really enjoyed our time together.

Laura  
For sure. So as always, before we let you go, where can people get in touch with you?

Ron Deverman 
Yeah, actually. Most people know by email is very simple. It's Rondout Deborah monad STV i nc.com. It's a good way to get in, get in touch with me. So reach out I might I might even send you a poem or two that I've read.

Nic 
Thank you, Ron. Thank you so much.

Ron Deverman 
Yeah. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Derek. great talking with you today.

[Outro]

Nic 
That's our show. Thank you, Ron, 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