Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)

Continuing Education, Geology, and Field Notes with Dr. Jason Shiflet

January 13, 2023 Dr. Jason Shiflet Episode 101
Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)
Continuing Education, Geology, and Field Notes with Dr. Jason Shiflet
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

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 Jason Shiflet, PhD, PG, Restoration Senior Program Manager for Dawson about Continuing Education, Geology, and Field Notes.  Read his full bio below.

Today's sponsor is Dawson! DAWSON is a Native Hawaiian global business enterprise serving Federal clients through construction, PTS and environmental services. Operating worldwide, DAWSON is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi with offices across the U.S. Rooted in the Hawaiian values of aloha (embodying humility, respect, and compassion for all) and ʻohana (family), DAWSON carries forward a kuleana (responsibility) to benefit the Native Hawaiian community. DAWSON's environmental branch brings science, solutions, and sustainability to planning, compliance, munitions and remediation. With a permanent 8(a) status, DAWSON is the perfect solution to all of your business needs.

Showtimes: 
1:56  Nic & Laura discuss personal growth
8:47  Interview with Dr. Jason Shiflet starts
9:01  Continuing Education
18:25  Geology
27:56  Field Notes

Please be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review.

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

Connect with Jason Shiflet at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiflet/

Guest Bio:

Dr. Jason Shiflet has over two decades of technical, managerial and research experience in a variety of academic, munitions response, environmental and engineering investigations, assessments, and remediations. Following graduation from Clemson University (Geology B.S.) and University of Georgia (Geology M.S.), Dr. Shiflet began his career in the environmental consulting industry in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1998.  Since then, he has performed numerous roles (e.g., Principal Investigator, Program Manager, Site Geologist) for restoration work, primarily for federal clients. He is a registered Professional Geologist and active in numerous industry organizations.  In 2016, Dr. Shiflet completed his doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte focusing on compound specific isotope analysis and fate-and-transport modeling of chlorinated solvents.  Dr. Shiflet is married to his high school sweetheart, Becca and has three children, Will, Evan, and Sarah Layton.

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

 

Support the show

Thanks for listening! A new episode drops every Friday. Like, share, subscribe, and/or sponsor to help support the continuation of the show. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and all your favorite podcast players.

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Hello and welcome DPR to your favorite environmental enthusiast Nick and Laura. On today's episode, we're gonna discuss personal growth. We talked to Dr. Jason shifflett about continuing education, geology and field notes. And finally, rubies and sapphires are actually the same mineral corundum but traces of iron staying the mineral red are really all traces of chromium or titanium stained the mineral blue for sapphires, it just kind of wild also, just FYI, rubies, sapphires and emeralds are all more rare than diamonds. How about that?

Laura
 
That's great. I don't know if any of those actually change the Caribbean.

Nic 
Yeah, I would. I would love some Korean corundum I said it wrong. So yeah, there we go.

Laura 
All right, coming up soon. NAEP and APU are hosting a webinar on the restoration of the Indian River Lagoon. At 11. Eastern on January 25. It will inform you on the restoration process. Please check it out at na p.org for more details. Our sponsor today is Dawson Dawson is a native Hawaiian Global Business Enterprise serving federal clients through construction pts and environmental services operating worldwide Dawson is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii with offices across the US, rooted in Hawaiian values of Aloha, embodying humility, respect and compassion for all and Ohana family. Dustin carries forward a kuleana responsibility to benefit the native Hawaiian community Dustin's environmental branch brings science solutions and sustainability to planning compliance munitions and remediation. With a permanent AAA status. Dustin is the perfect solution to all your business needs. Let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura discuss personal growth]

Nic 
So Laura, there's a topic that we haven't talked about at all, not even today, I would say about personal growth. We talked to Jason about it quite a bit. And it was really fun to hear him having a perspective that he did write, which was basically like, you're responsible for growth and you should want to find areas to grow. So I don't know let's talk about it, man, like, where do you see the value in doing this kind of thing? Where do you even start because that's a it's a really challenging thing and really different from when you start your career to where like, you know, as you progress, but I mean, I think it's pretty important to do all the way through. Yeah, absolutely.

Laura 
I think it's important for everyone, if we're not moving forward, you're pretty much moving backwards right? Also this very challenging world that we live in. So having tools and resources and being the kind of person who has reflection and self evaluates and does incorporate the ways to improve themselves in order to be a better neighbor or community member. Coworker is really important. So one of my favorite ways is books I like to read. Now I'm in the high impact book club. And we read a leadership or personal growth book every month, and then we're going on our fourth years I've read a lot of books. So read The Four Agreements, probably twice a year now. But

Nic 
you so I've read leadership books, and you can say, I've done Dale Carnegie class, I've done a bunch of different things on leadership. You know what, forget about personal growth is not just leadership, there is definitely some of that kind of applies across the board, right like learning how to be a better person will make you a better leader in general. How to get better at be at the best view is going to help you and when you are confident when you are, you know you understand who you are. It kind of it helps everybody understand, oh, this person knows what they're talking about. And I can trust them. And that's a lot of what leadership is is getting people to buy into what you're trying to do. But if you don't buy into yourself, it's not going to buy her it just isn't. And so that's something they say I am a product of the Internet age. I read everything I can about everything I can all at once, and it is times overwhelming and exhausting. And I think one of the biggest things that I had to learn my early 30s And I wish I had learned this earlier but it's hard to do like you just mentally. I wasn't really ready to examine who I was as a person before that. Right but I was not taking any time to reflect on what I was reading or how I was doing or anything like that. I wasn't going you know, just waiting for the review process for someone to tell me. Oh yeah, you're good at this, that the other or whatever. And then that's that's shifted to like, Okay, what do I actually want? What, what do I want to be better at? Where do I want to grow? So I kind of had to like readjust the way that I was even working. And that doesn't come without that period of self reflection, right? Like, oh, I'm really good at x, y and z. But I still need to get better at it. You know, there's always room to grow. There's always people that are, you know, role models where you look at them and say, Wow, that person is great at presenting or that wow, that person is great at seeing all the detail in a comment and being able to address it. So I don't know there's lots of different reasons to do it, for sure. But that kind of self reflection is very, very important.

Laura 
So you read a lot and you like you said you are reading articles and you're reading all the time. When do you stop out? Have you learned to implement some of the things that you are reading about or are you just reading about new things that help you on your job?

Nic 
It's a lot of different things right there. I think for me being creative, is really important. So trying to find outlets that maybe they don't relate to my job directly, but it helped me think in different ways is really important. Reading blog posts from people that I know and respect like Miss Laura Thorne don't tell her but like, you know, there's stuff like that that pops up that matters, but some people take every Saturday like I'm gonna sit down and think about what I learned this week and how I can be better and that's kind of exhausting for me. So you know, I definitely do it at the end of the year. Sure. And I try to do it periodically throughout because it's never great to hold on to something for a year. But every week is a bit much for me. So it's kind of more like every month or two. I kind of just have a day where I can sit and think and that's for me very important. I don't know but how do you do it?

Laura 
Well, if there's the reading books, the part of the the purpose for creating the book club so that was that we would stop and talk and have conversation about how we would implement things. So that's been going really well. I also have a accountability buddy. So I think I've mentioned him before but my friend, Brian we meet. We try to meet every week but we meet probably every other week. And we basically talk about our goals and what we're working on our personal development goals. So we talk a lot about philosophical things or just like goals we've set for ourselves and sometimes he calls me out on things I said I was going to do that I didn't do and vice versa. But then also does mentoring I think actively using the tools and things that you've picked up on the way and giving them back to a younger person or not even a younger person I mentioned lots of peers that are like my accountability buddy and I that's a great way to really kind of vocalize the things that you've you're trying to internalize and then also see if they still make sense when they come out of your mouth.

Nic  
Yeah, I mean, gosh. Just thinking about the things I just said. That makes sense. Yeah, that's really cool. So how did you how did you get involved in that though?

Laura 
Oh, that was kind of a funny thing. A friend of mine. Started dating Brian a couple of years ago. And Brian was trying to start a business and he was struggling with spreadsheets and processes and really let you know the stuff that I really like I'm good at so his girlfriend, Mason who's an amazing artist. She was like, we should talk to Laura. And so Brian, I have been meeting and Brian's amazing, amazing artists as well. We've been meeting for three years now longer, maybe. But one of my best friends like super fantastic. So I really, I think everyone should try to find someone like that a peer mentor, someone that they really can, you can share and bench but you're mostly there to help lift each other up. And so really, there's there are times when one of us has had a bad week, and then we're able to say like well, you could also look at it this way, you know?

Nic  
Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. And that's invaluable is it's really hard once you start spiraling to keep the pull up, you know, that gives you a different perspective to again, being creative, right? You might think of a different way of doing something that you would never otherwise so right. All right accountabilibuddy I cannot say that that is very slowly okay.

Laura 
And have the Animaniacs do

Nic 
it. Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah.

Laura 
We're really goofy now. So maybe we should. So let's get to our interview. Sounds great.

[Interview with Dr. Jason Shiflet starts]

Nic 
Hello, and welcome back to EPR. Today we have Dr. Jason shifflett, the restoration Senior Program Manager with Austin. Pretty cool company. Welcome, Jason. Glad to have you.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

Thank you glad to be here.

[Continuing Education]

Nic 
So before we dive into what you do a Dawson one of my favorite things about you is you're interested in continuing education and personal growth. So how do you define that for yourself and why are you so passionate about it? Oh,

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

I suppose I've had a long academic career. I did my doctoral work while working full time. And so I've spent many many years in academia alongside my regular work role and I just through that experience have developed a passion for for learning, just continuing to evolve. And so I think from there, essentially, I wouldn't say there was a watermark moment in my academic career. I had a professor at the University of Georgia, Dr. Paul Schroeder, who had an interesting way challenging his students. And it's kind of hard to sort of put it into words that essentially his expectations of what we knew and how we learned and behave are extremely high. He just assumed that you knew and if you didn't know, you better know really quickly. And so I learned there, really, I mean, it kind of shifted the way I approach my academic studies. I learned there to really kind of embrace the idea of developing myself. Anyway, I've tried to carry that forward in situations where I'm more of the teacher and less of the student.

Nic 
And so like when you are, you know, looking to continue education, like where do you even start? There's so many different resources and areas to go especially nowadays it feels like it's kind of overwhelming even know like, where should I go looking for.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
It is overwhelming, but I learned along the way there are a few places. Okay, so now personal experience is I'm a graduate of Clemson and Clemson has a symposium each year, that hydrogeology symposium and so, just from my own personal experiences, I have discovered places like that, that offer continuing education, but they also become a much more virtual world. And there's a lot available online, either through the EPA or through ITRC or other organizations where folks can go in and participate in various webinars and basically, there's least a couple of weeks through some of those bigger venues and you can kind of pick and choose what you're really most interested in.

Nic 
And do you see that? Is that a really unique thing in the environmental space? Is that something that more people should be doing that aren't?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

Well, these web based opportunities have definitely gotten more popular in the last few years. They've been around for a long time, though. I encourage folks to use them because actually, not only have they become more common, they've gotten better. I mean, you can see the presentation. You can hear the author or the presenter, clearly, you can raise your hand and ask questions in writing or verbally sometimes. So it's kind of like if he did college online. It's kind of a similar experience. And so I really, I really am fond of them. The other nice thing is if you register for these events online, typically you get continuing education credit which some folks need but also you can after the fact download and read Listen, frankly read listen to the presentation if you want so I do like in person opportunities, as you know as well. I think that's vital for folks to find at least one annually, one opportunity where they can go and meet people face to face and have that experience that way. But for those who require continuing education credits, I get many of mine online.

Nic 

Yeah, that's a great point. And you know, it's funny, you kind of touched on this a little bit but we talked about personal growth and leadership. So where you go from being a student to a teacher, do you see those things as as two different things have you has your approach to growth changed now that you're in more of a leadership role?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

Yeah, oh, yeah. For sure. Yes, I can see that. The type of business that we're in can be complicated. And in some ways, time is sort of the only thing that really matters. You have to work on projects for an extended period of time you have to be exposed to different kinds. of work over extended periods of time. And I think because I'm now you know where I am and looking back previously, I can still remember not knowing what various acronyms meant or what a specific kind of remediation system really meant. And so I accept that people will struggle with that to the position that I'm in today. I tried to take that knowledge and use it to help me explain and concepts or the light to my junior staff and folks that are just entering into

Laura 
give me X specific advice for those people just entering the industry or who are already on their first job. I get a lot of questions from career seekers and emerging professionals about adding those filling those gaps they have on their resume, and it's hard for them sometimes to figure out where they can learn about those policies or the field procedures and things like that. If they're not able to get an actual internship or, you know, it's hard to learn a wellness assessment protocols through zoom. Like so. Any thoughts on that for those people trying to build their resumes up?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
That's a really tough one. And what I want to do is I feel I want to put on my polo shirt or hat and say if you want to know then go learn it. Go do it. If you have a passion for a particular subject, whether it's it's wetlands or otherwise, spend time in that arena and talk to people who do that kind of work. I mean, take some personal responsibility in digging, if you have a job, have a work experience, and maybe you're not getting the kind of breadth of exposure that you want. That can be a little more complicated. And you might have to boy, I don't even know how you would do that. Let's say I guess what I'm thinking is if you're let's say you're a young employee, and your job is to perform a site assessment work, and that's all you ever do for that company to expand outside of that, you may have to look around and I guess and see if you can find an experience. It's gonna let you spread your wings a little bit in different areas. It's kind of hard to do if you're in the middle of working day to day that

Laura 
Yeah, I like what you said though. You have to take personal responsibility to go out there and do it. I think a lot of people sit back and say, Well, I can't or they won't let me or whatever the case might be. But if you really want to expand, you might have to do it on the weekends or you might have to volunteer to swap some time with a different division or department or something.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Yeah, I have to say as a person do, evaluates, folks that we hire, and folks that report to me, it's not always about exactly what you know, technically. In some cases, it really boils down to what kind of ambition Do you have? What kind of motivation Do you have? Are you internally driven and motivated and for a young person to say, You know what, this is not what I do. This particular interest I have is not what I do day to day, but I'm going to take it on myself to learn and get involved in any way I can. That says something about that person. And that's important. Yeah,

Laura 
totally agree. That's great. Well, Nick talks about you all the time and your leadership. And so we're always looking for people to write articles for the NA P blog. So you're welcome to volunteer with that spare time that you have any time. Yeah, happy to. But aside from that, let's jump backwards a little bit and talk about what you do a Dyson. Okay,

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
so the Austin has multiple business lines, one of those business lines we call the environmental business life. And we do lots of work in our environmental group. Everything from compliance and planning through restoration and restoration, I would explain sort of briefly is assessment and remediation if necessary, of kind of the traditional contaminants that people think about petroleum chlorinated solvents, you know, that sort of thing. That type of environmental work falls within the restoration world. And that's what my focus is at Dawson and I'm the restoration Lee.

[Geology]

Laura 
Alright, awesome. Thanks for explaining that because I was the restoration expert at the Environmental Protection commission, but I did habitats and coastal shorelines, so that's another that happens a lot of environmental, right, there's multiple meanings for different words. So I'm glad you explained that, but you're also a professional geologist. So maybe for our younger listeners, and maybe someone who is a early geology graduate. What kind of jobs did you do when you first started and it's very doing what you thought you would do?

Dr. Jason Shiflet  
Oh, gosh, no. Well, actually, I will confess that when I decided to change majors from my undergrad degree to geology, I really had very little understanding of what that meant. I probably, I think I remember thinking, Well, I'm going to work on an oil rig somewhere or I'm going to do something with the oil business. And I didn't really understand the world of environmental consulting very well. That changed a little bit in graduate school when I studied clay, mineralogy and did entertain working for an oil company for a brief moment. And any rate, I was hired after my graduate degree, I was hired as a project geologist basically a person that was going to be in the field, performing the work that we perform, soil sampling, water sampling, well installation, a lot of note taking field note taking and things like that. I did that for quite a while and just over time progressed from being a, you know, a site geologists to a site manager to being then the project manager and ultimately program manager enough. So you know, I've been doing this since August of 1998. So it's taken a long time to get where I am, but I've done a lot of those steps along the way. I've spent many, many days in the field doing field work.

Laura 
We got questions for you there. what point did you become a professional geologist or get your certification?

Dr. Jason Shiflet  
Right. So there are requirements you have to have the educational background to be able to take some tests. I got my PG in North Carolina, which is an asbach state. So there are some states that share reciprocity. If you get the license in North Carolina, then you also can essentially have the same license in Florida, for example. So I actually got my PG in 2000, a couple of years after I started in 98. So I got it pretty quickly in that is sort of normal. You don't want to wait too long because part of the test is academic based. What did you learn in school and the longer you wait, are difficult that becomes

Laura 
that's really great. But I learned in school. I can't tell you what I learned in

Dr. Jason Shiflet  
those details.

Laura 
Yeah. Last question on that. How does your professional geologist certification How does being a PG relate to the right remediation work?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Okay, good question. Many, our primary client which is the federal government, they will require contractually require either a professional engineer or professional geologists to oversee some activities. So you've got to have a person that has the license and the experience on the subject matter expertise to oversee the work so in some cases, it's a contract requirement. Generally though, I don't use my PG very often. I use it more in proposals to demonstrate experience and expertise. But on a day to day basis, I build stamp or seal documents very often. There are already occasions where it's required.

Laura 
Fantastic, and I would change gears on us just a little bit here. You mentioned in our little survey that we do for our guests before we chat, geologic travel. Is that term you made up or is that a real thing? Probably made it up. But I want to know more. What does that mean?

Dr. Jason Shiflet  
Yeah, so obviously what I'm getting at or maybe not, obviously, but what I'm getting at is, I have dragged my family all over the United States to see things geologically related. I tell this great story that we were near Yellowstone National Park and south of Yellowstone when you accident are one of the largest landslides that's ever occurred in the United States is sort of off the beaten path in that area. And nobody wants to see that sort of thing except for geology geeks like me, because I'm the driver my family gets to go to get to see that sort of stuff. And so it's kind of an internal joke. Within my family and my kids roll their eyes when they hear we're gonna go see some outcrop or some, you know, or earthquake lake or whatever, you know, they it's been all kinds of thing. So just a lot of love that now, in my graduate degree during my graduate work at Georgia, I was involved in a program that takes students literally all over the United States, and they learn anthropology and geology along the way. It's a class that they offer. And so I did that for two summers. So for two summers in a row, we drove something like five or 6000 miles and spent 60 days camping and visiting both anthropological sites in geological sites and actually Sitting on the rim of the Grand Canyon. And teaching the Grand Canyon is pretty amazing.

Nic 
Oh, wow. Yeah, college wrong. I did it so wrong. I just I know.

Laura 
That sounds really great. Yeah. It was cool. Yeah. All right. Last question, and I'll let Nick take over. P FOSS has been quite controversial lately in the environmental field. So what are some of the challenges in dealing with P Foss and how do you see the remediation field tackling those issues going forward?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Well, FIFA has is is difficult compound folks may already know this. But in case you don't know it's, it's a compound that edits you know, bass has carbon 14 bonds, which are just incredibly difficult to break in. So it's the term that I use is recalcitrant. It's a very recalcitrant compound. And that doesn't break down very easily. And it's just why frankly, why it's so useful in the ways that it's been used, you know, being resistant to heat another. I think, looking back at oil, looking at p Foss and thinking back in time, I feel like we are on the verge of a massive P FOSS expenditure bubble for lack of a better term. I mean, the federal government is putting a lot of resources behind evaluating these compounds and where we can remediating these compounds, no longer using them exchanging them and systems that exist or where they exist. And I really feel like we are just beginning to manage this P FOSS issue that's in front of us. I won't be surprised if it lasts 20 years. Easily is a big deal for 20 year.

Nic 
Yeah, and this seems to be a lot of what we've heard in the industry as well. But do you see that as the V remediation topic going forward, or there's going to be other things that pop up as well? On the horizon?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
It's kind of the elephant in the room. And, frankly, so yes, it's going to take a lot of the oxygen. However, I think of a close second that really doesn't get enough attention yet is climate change impacts that we're going to experience over the next couple of decades. I think that's going to be kind of more of a slow burn because it's in the climate is just confusing and complicated and complex. And, you know, it's hard for our government and others to really dedicate resources, money towards climate related things right now. But that's not going to stop the change that's occurring. And so we're going to be particularly along shorelines, in my opinion, we're going to be looking at a climate related impact, too. You know, just a little, like an example. Some folks might know, for example, there are metals like arsenic that it turns out are abundant, relatively abundant in permafrost. So as permafrost melts, because of our warming planet, there's metals like arsenic are going to become more prevalent in the higher latitudes. And, you know, that's an example of the kind of thing we're going to be dealing with in the years and decades to come that maybe we just aren't totally focused on right now. Because we have other things in front of us like P FOSS.

[Field Notes]

Nic 
Really interesting so yeah, it's gonna be pretty wild year, or I guess like a few years in the future is going to be pretty interesting. Yeah. That's for sure. But now it's time for field notes. Like you mentioned having field stories before and this is the part of the show where we ask our guests about memorable moments doing the work that they do in the field. And so we're encouraging our listeners to share stories using hashtag field notes. So we can read them out on future episodes, but, you know, go through a couple of give everybody a few examples of what we're looking for when we talk about, you know, field notes like what is a story, you know, about being in the field and we're gonna keep them kind of simple, you know, like, do you have you have a good funny story of being in the field?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Man, funny, I think when I think of yield work and funny, honestly, the first thing that comes to mind for me is when you're in the field for an extended period of time, usually with a small group of people you really start to develop, obviously, friendships. And you know, there's a lot of camaraderie there. And when I think of buddy in the field, I have a specific event as much as I would characterize it as saying, you know, they're just those kind of squirrely moments where folks you know, somebody may get stuck in the mud or a, you know, they filled up a sample jar and then they promptly drop it on the concrete pad, well pad and it shatters. I mean, it's kind of all the little things. In, you know, tied together with this relationship that you have with these people to feel that, you know, if you've ever walked through a cornfield, where the corn is above your head and you know, take a funny picture of that and send it home to people. Those are the kind of moments that I think, versus maybe a distinct event. Yeah,
_______________
Nic 
You guys are just funny though, because it reminds me doing a survey in a spin saltmarsh and just watching the person in front of me. All the way down there exactly right. It's not really that yeah, it's just, it's funny because of who it was and how it has. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 
yeah, for sure. So,

Nic 
okay, let's see. What about that? What about scary moments? You know, we all have those to where it's, uh, you know, I remember almost not Oh, no, I did knock myself out one time myself foolishly by myself in the field. So yeah, there's always stories like that. Do you? Have anything along those lines?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Well, there's always the typical, you know, work in a sketchy place where you don't really feel comfortable. And even though you're, you've got the buddy system going. You and your co worker are a little worried about the locale. So there's always that I can remember I do remember this event. I was doing fieldwork in Miami once. And you know if you've ever done work in South Florida, thunderstorms well in and out all day long and they were very quick to happen. And so we were drilling and the thunderstorm you know, rolled in quickly and we all kind of huddled into the trailer there on site. And as soon as we close the door, a lightning strike happened. It hit a lightning bolt hit the tree right outside of the trailer where we were standing. It was less than 20 feet away and that's terrifying. If you've ever been close to a lightning strike, it's quite scary. So definitely have had that experience. And then, you know, kind of different. If you're in the field a lot for an extended period of time. Sometimes things go wrong back home and I can remember kind of scary and sad getting a phone call that my mom had had a medical emergency and, you know, I had to sort of drop what I was doing and leave and fly home immediately. And that's pretty scary and challenging. But yeah, it happens. It definitely can happen when you least expect it.

Nic 
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a really good point, too. We actually haven't even talked about that really, you know, because you're away from your family. You're out there sometimes for you know, weeks on end, maybe longer on your own and it can be quite a scary place to be to flee. So okay, well now we need our favorite stories of embarrassing ones. You've got to have I know you've got an embarrassing story in there somewhere. Yes. So you gotta get this one.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
All right. I'm gonna, you know, to protect the identity of others. I'm going to tell the story down just a little bit. But I'll say it this way. It's just been quite a while back in. At the time, eBay was kind of becoming a thing. And I had a neighbor, who was elderly and didn't understand what eBay was. And so I offered to help them sell something on eBay. And without saying what the something was. Just trust me when I say it was a little on the crude side. A little on the inappropriate maybe side it was not, you know, it wasn't I was something I would love to have kept on the download. So anyway, fast forward to my meeting with I had a meeting with a client on site and we're going to be presenting to the public some information the following day in this client. There were several of them. Who were there with me, we basically what they wanted to do is practice the presentation the night before. No problem. Happy to do that. Everything's ready. We're just going to be going over it. So I'm, I'm using my my laptop computer and I'm broadcasting this presentation on the wall and it's a small group of people. And the folks that are old enough to remember are going to remember what happens when you get a pop up. So I'm in the middle of presenting, you know, with my client in this thing, eBay message pops up and it's there and it's very obvious. So, to make matters worse, I had worse I had my supervisor is older senior engineer who was there with me just to come along and participate. So he witnessed this happening and now one thing I could do was basically say to my female client, listen, I'm really sorry that you had to see that. I've tried to explain it in as few words as possible. But it was what it was. That was a lesson I learned on the spot. Turn off those thinking pop up messages. Now I'm very cautious about using my own computer for presentations. Yeah. Ever. No,

Nic 

you absolutely.

Laura 
never learned now. Okay, full circle. Now we see why personal growth and development is so important to you yeah,

Nic 
okay, so what was the aftermath of that right so what happens? Your

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

what happened? Yeah, the good news is that I had a good relationship with the client. She totally understood she kind of laughed it off. She was actually from European descent. So she kind of blew it off anyway, you know, no big deal. And

Laura 

I got somebody to sell to.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
My supervisor never said a word about it. That was probably the strangest or ignored it. No, we didn't see that. Yeah. Oh, man. So yeah, it's a great story and yeah, we've we've all been there.

Laura  
Well, I mean, I haven't been there. Exactly there but

Nic 
we've all had embarrassing moments. That's all. That's what I get

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
for trying to help a neighbor. Right. But yeah,

Nic 
yeah, yeah. No, no, it's not it's not for me. No, good. Yeah. So Okay. All right. Is there any other stories that come to mind anything else from your like the personal favorite story of you being out in the field that you can think of?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

I'll tell one quick story, this one that stuck with me for a long time. So we were doing some sampling work. And it was a major event. And we were going to have lots of folks support the effort and one of the folks that was going to join us late, a little bit late to the rest of the group decided that he was going to drive to the site and drive a trailer and bring a lot of extra equipment with him to the site. So very kind of him to do that. And it was a little bit of a heavy lift for him to do that. But he offered and so we accepted. So he arrives on site after essentially a day a full day of driving. And we roll up the trailer door where all the equipment is supposed to be all the extra sample in coolers, and it's supposed to be and sitting right at the edge of the trailer is two cans of gasoline. And I said, What is this? And he said, Well, I didn't know if I was gonna run out of gas. So I brought some extra gasoline with me for the trip. So I didn't have to stop to get gas if I needed it. And I said to him, you realize you just contaminated all of the coolers that you carry down here so faithfully, carrying gasoline in the same trailer. That's right. You kind of scratched his head and said, Oh, yeah. Oh, no.

Unknown Speaker 
Oh my gosh. learning moments for him and others.

Nic 
Yeah. Oh, man. See, so what did he do? You have to go back all the way back? Yeah,

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
it was all it was all wasted. We had the labs have to ship us all new color is all new is basically a wasted effort because he had brought all that stuff with him and he was trying to think ahead and just didn't put together in his mind that that gasoline was going to contaminate everything he carried with it.

Nic 

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Unfortunately efficient. Yeah.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Oh, and I'll tell you one more. Yes. So we want the worst experience I've ever had bar none was I was drilling at a military installations in North Carolina. And for the 10 days I was there. I feel like the temperature never moved above 35 and never fell below 30. So it was basically almost freezing for 10 days. And raining. And I had the flu. It was the worst field experience ever in my life. Not even close. But somehow I made my way through it. But that can happen too. Yeah.

Nic 
Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's brutal. is not fun. All right, well, ending on a lighter note here. We love we love asking our guests about their hobbies too, because I think it's the one of the joys of the profession is that everybody has different things that they like to do outside of work and one of your favorites is soccer and playing soccer, not just not just watching it. So what got you into soccer, and we'll get into the World Cup in a second. But like, why is that?

Dr. Jason Shiflet
 
Well, I don't know. My parents maybe signed me up when I was about six years old. I guess that was the beginning. I just started early I played my whole life but really never developed a passion for it until I was in my 20s and then it was like a passion on steroids kind of played coach. Kind of the full gamut cuz younger boys and girls older boys. And not really older girls, I guess. But anyway, I did that for a long, long time too. So I don't know how to say it. I'm a total soccer addict. I believe this morning. I've tried to play four mornings a week before work that I would play every day if I weren't so old and slow. I used to be able to play more often. But

Laura 
anyway, yeah. How are you playing with who else is playing four days a week before work?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
So when I moved back to the Charlotte area after school, I found a group of guys there was maybe a list of 50 or so on a libo list and they would basically just by way of email coordinate to me. At that point, it was maybe a couple days a week and in the late 90s. And that's just grown over the years to now we have you know, close to 400 people on this list. We use this app to organize it in and now they're games every day except for Sunday. So we had like 30 people show up this morning and we had to have two games because it was such a busy morning. So

Nic 

oh my gosh, we we play year round. So okay, what's your position? Where do you like to play?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

I typically end up in the middle as a quote unquote midfielder. I kinda like to attack a little bit. As I get tired. I kind of defend a little bit more. So you know, I play in the middle.

Nic 
Yeah, perfect. Perfect. That's a good spot to be you get to do a little bit of everything, which is fun. So yeah, yeah. Cool. And so how do you think the men's national team did in the World Cup this year? Were you happy with the results? Do you think they could have done better?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
What do you think it was about what I expected? Frankly, they're a fairly young team with a whole lot of talent. Yeah, I think four years from now. They could really make some waves. But it kind of went about like I expected. I had both France and Argentina and my final four. I remember correctly thinking back into my bracket or whatever. So I wasn't too surprised to see that. So Oh, no.

Nic 
Yeah, pretty good. One of the greatest soccer games ever.

Dr. Jason Shiflet 

It was exceptional. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how else you can say it other than a phenom like embody a who's just doing the ridiculous Oh yeah. Things that he does and can do against a legend like Messi who a lot of people deserve, you know, would argue he deserves to win or you know, he's earned that right win. And he does I mean, it was amazing. It absolutely was

Nic 
amazing. And he really had to earn it. So all right.

Laura  
All right. I hate to cut you off. But we are running out of time. So Jason, is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we let you go?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Oh, just really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you guys. And I think if I could leave you on one note, it would be this idea of personal growth and responsibility. I'm a lifetime learner. And I really encourage folks to take that passion on themselves and you know, strive to improve yourself. That's a big deal for all of us. So yeah, I think I would say that

Laura 
it's a great message. And lastly, where can people get in touch with you?

Dr. Jason Shiflet 
Well, I'm on LinkedIn. That's probably the simplest way DHD PG, you kind of can't miss it. It's there. It might be locked down. So you might have to actually connect with me. To be able to see anything on my profile, but I'm happy to make relationships and meet people and if anybody wants to chat about anything here or just meet me, I'm certainly open to that and willing to chat.

Laura 
Awesome, thank you so much. This has been great thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you.

[Outro]

Nic 
And that's our show. Thank you, Jason shifflett for joining the show today. I got it right this time. Please be sure. Yeah, Dr. Jason shifflett tank and I've missed it up again. There we go. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe rate and review. So yeah, everybody. Bye

Laura 
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai


Nic & Laura discuss personal growth
Interview with Dr. Jason Shiflet starts
Continuing Education
Geology
Field Notes