AI, Career Pathing, and Pets with Lauren Schramm

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 Lauren Schramm, NEPA Manager about AI, Career Pathing, and Pets.   Read her full bio below.

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Showtimes: 
2:12 - Can you get through your day without Coffee?
6:36 - Interview with Lauren Begins
12:12 - Whats new with NEPA
25:53 - AI collecting your info?
36:08- Field Notes with Lauren!

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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 Lauren Schramm at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-schramm/

Guest Bio: 
Originally from Northern Vermont, Lauren holds a Bachelor's degree from Alfred University (NY) and earned her MS from Clemson University. Lauren embarked on her career in a Texas freshwater mussel lab before relocating to Atlanta. As a project manager, she successfully led a team of scientists specializing in NEPA work for cell towers across 29 states. Lauren has since transitioned to working with additional lead agencies and Pond and Company, where she serves as the manager of a NEPA team. In her free time, Lauren manages a mini farm, indulges in painting, hand-building ceramic art, and dedicates time to volunteering.

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

Transcript

Hello and welcome to EPR, the favorite environmental enthusiasts, Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Laura and I talk about how she doesn't drink coffee, which is crazy. Uh, we interview Lauren Schramm about AI, career pathing, and pets. And finally, guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea. They are rodents native to the Andes. They also don't produce their own vitamin C, so they need to get it from their diet or risk scurvy. So they're pirate rodents in my humble opinion. And just for you, Laura, they perform cute little hops in the air, known as popcorning. So look that up, that's your cute thing of the day. How about that? I did not know I had a term. 

Yeah, there you go, hit that music. 

NAEP's 2025 annual conference and trading symposium will occur on April 28th through May 1st in Charleston, South Carolina. We're also hosting a free resume building workshop and speed networking session for students and emerging professionals. The resume building workshop will start at 2 p.m. and is designed to guide participants through the essential elements of an impactful resume, focusing on tailoring content to align with career goals and industry standards at 3:30, we will conduct a speed career event, which is designed to inspire and connect early professionals and students interested in environmental careers. This roundtable style event allows mentees to engage directly with career professionals in environmental fields, gaining valuable insights into these mentors, backgrounds, certifications, and what a typical day in the life looks like. For more information, please check out www.AP.org. 

Let's get to our segment. 

I had another question related to the ice cream question I'll asked you previously, a few episodes ago. You asked me, you seem very surprised that I don't drink coffee. Yeah, which is wild. Found that out in Tampa, haven't recovered from it, if I'm being honest. Uh, how, how do you exist working as long, I know how hard you work, I know how long you work, is a lot of hours. How do you do that without coffee? I mean it's a great question. Really, I, I did drink coffee for a couple of years, so I never really drank coffee or tea or anything. I moved to Ireland, you know, decades ago, and I started drinking tea with milk and sugar because in Ireland you drink tea and milk and sugar. And so I came back to the states and carried that with me. And then I didn't like black, I don't like black coffee. I still don't. I didn't drink it. And then the year that I took care of my nieces that were toddlers, I felt the need for something. I think I needed a, I see why moms and people are addicted to coffee in Starbucks because it kind of gives you this dopamine fill while the rest of your life is just at you. 

So I did start drinking coffee then, but I never really developed it as a daily habit. Uh, oh, that's good for you, good for you. But I will say I did, I did get to a point where I think it it came back during COVID to more of a daily thing, because it was the same thing, like COVID, it's boring. I need stimulation again, so. That's so funny. But then with COVID, sorry, not the end of the story. So then also with COVID, I felt this like brain fog. I was like, why? And I thought it was too much screen time and all that. And then I just happened to do this detox diet that a friend of mine was promoting, and I had to give up caffeine and sugar and all these things. And I discovered very quickly that caffeine was actually the thing that was making my brain foggy. So, so I quit. I had a mega headache for a day. Yeah. And then after that, the fog lifted. Wow. And then a year later I weighed 10 pounds less, so like there's other reasons for me to quit. That's funny. Does it? Well, I don't know if it does weight. That's funny. If it does, I'll stop it. I'm supposed to lose 10 pounds right now, um, which is still a wild thing.

 But anyway, that's so funny though, cause like, I honestly did not start drinking coffee until I was like 30, so that even felt like crazy and then but you know, the corporate structure, it's just kind of nice to have something that wasn't water to drink. I'm not a sweet person, so like I had to really get used to the taste of coffee. Like, I don't put sugar or milk in there cause it's just like, to me that's not really, I just don't, I don't like it and uh it makes me feel like really gross. I don't know what the right word is, but like it just kind of like makes me like wears me out when there's like sugar and stuff in it, so it is kind of counterproductive, like the caffeine is supposed to jazz you up, but sugar makes you tired, so like yeah. Yeah, so I always drink it black. I still do, and, and believe me, I drink it every day now, and it used to be like, oh I'll just drink it during the week, and then I was like I would start my Saturday with a headache and I'm like, you know what, I don't, I'll just get it, and that's how they get you, uh. 

The sign of addiction is that headache when you haven't had it for 24 hours. I know, and it's like I said, why, why do I feel so bad today? It's like, oh, I haven't, I forgot coffee for whatever reason. And like, it's a comfort thing at some point, you know, like right now it's comfort, and I really enjoy it. I have 2 cups and I have my favorite mugs that I like and it's just part of the routine, and it's like, oh, I know I'm supposed to drink a quadrillion gallons of water, and this will count for like one of those gallons and the And I don't know, and then it just doesn't feel like I'm just so boring that I'm only having like water to drink, so I don't know, that's how it is. It's too expensive these days. I don't know why, but it keeps getting more and more expensive. Um, and I love it. I love like the expensive coffee. I hate to admit this, I look like I like expensive coffee and it's true. So yeah, it's just, it's nice. Like there's a place in Durham. I'm gonna shout out Bean Traders, great, great place if you ever need, uh, whole bean coffee, so good. Yeah, even saying it out loud, I feel embarrassed admitting that, but there you go. That's my coffee story. Well, that's awesome. And now that's not to say I still don't have like a comfort drink. I love a matcha latte, my latte. I just try not to do it every day because again too expensive, too many calories. Yeah, huh, funny. Well, that's cool, um. Well, on that note, uh, let's get to our interview. 

Hello and welcome back to EPR. Today we have Lauren Schram with us. Lauren is a NEPA manager and environmental planner and president of the Georgia chapter of NAAP with over 8 years of experience in environmental documentation and regulatory compliance. Hey, Lauren, how are you? Hey, good. How are you doing? Oh, you know, just another day. So, you have like a background in biology and environmental science, you've done a lot of different things, AmeriCorps, habitat modeling, etc. How did your journey through that end up at NEPA, of all things? Goodness, do you want the real answer? Yeah, yes. Um, so after I left the role I had at AmeriCorps, I really needed a job. And it was kind of a bit of a tough time in the consulting industry to get a job. It was like 2016-ish, so I'm told the industry hadn't totally recovered from 2008. So I ended up taking a job at a national but smaller firm. And once I had been there for a little bit, I looked around and I thought, who's getting promoted the most and who is moving up the career ladder the most? And it was really the people that focused on Nepa. And I, at the time did Cell Tower Nepah, and I really enjoyed it. And that's kind of how I found Nepah. So career advancement is that, I don't know if we've talked about that a whole lot, Laura, is that something that's like really important to you? Is that like kind of like your goal is like C-suite type thing, or is it like just kind of what felt right at the time? That's a great question. 

I've always been ambitious and maybe one day C-suite, but I always want to make sure that I'm growing and I understand the next step in my career, which is something I had a really good conversation today with. With somebody who is, I think he's the vice president of the New England Environmental Professionals something or other. And uh we had a good discussion about how that firms are really bad at providing people with pathing. Um, I mean that's one of the things the industry is wrestling with as a whole is figuring out how to provide people with pathing in their careers. Oh, so we talk about pathing, that's a good question, and it's a good place for us to kind of dive in a little bit, like, I just literally had a conversation about this right before here. I got here on time because I was doing, I was mentoring, um, but like Laura's whole thing is people are very different, people are very, they come from all different angles. Um, and they all want different things. Um, so like when you say like, you know, organizations are bad at passing, give us some advice on like things that you've seen and experienced that you like, and that organizations could do better. Yeah, one thing that I found helpful in my team, so I've been managing people for like 3 years now. So I had an opportunity early on in my career to start managing people. Is a spreadsheet of job titles and job duties, which sounds, you know, pretty basic, but just having something like that, yeah, so that people can look at that, figure out what's above them, what roles they or what responsibilities they want to learn and what skills they want to hone in on. 

Yeah, so just basically, like, you know, it's almost like companies don't even have the basic organization. Of where they could go, is what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, you know, conversations with my colleagues, like, pretty much because there's so much work to be done right now that it's hard sometimes to focus on those other efforts and take time and, you know, spend non billable time on those things. So why, why should companies then, why should they spend that time working on that? The talent war. Yeah, you know. Yeah, I think a lot of people entering the workforce who've been in the workforce for maybe a few years. Like that's something they want. And that's something that attracts them to companies and that's something that retains people. I like the idea of that. I think just, I think a lot of the, you know, what comes next is buried in job descriptions, so. Hm. If you're already working for a company, you're not gonna just know like what skills do I need to be at the next level of advancement. So if you clearly put that in front of people and say this is what a science 21 does, this is what a 2 does. This is what one does versus a 2, whatever, then you can clearly say, OK, well I need to fill these gaps. To move, I think what happens at least in government, I don't know if it's the same in consulting, is they don't want to give that information because they don't want to quote unquote promise people that if they meet the gates that they will promote them. 

Right. Yeah, it's definitely a contact balancing act between providing information and not. Yeah, yeah, you know, good companies can still do those thread that needle, but, you know, sometimes the best thing to do is to leave, and it's not to stay at the same place, and sometimes it's just because of that, and it doesn't even mean you don't like the old company. I still have a great relationship with my first company. So yeah, there's lots of different avenues and paths for people to go, and that's kind of the fun of it, really, you know what I mean? Right, yeah, like I think. I had no idea Neva was a career, you know, there's so many people that do things that I don't even know or options. Like, I know somebody who does, they do a lot of sea grass surveys and they hold a lot of permits for freshwater mussels and fish, and they also do all kinds of cool field work, so. Mhm, yeah, I mean, it's totally true when you get to do a little slice of everything, which is kind of the fun part about NEA, which kind of brings us, I guess, to our next topic here because let's see, is anything happening with NEA right now? No, definitely not. So there's nothing going on, uh, there's no issues. But if there were, like we talk, we talk about regulatory change and a lot of what's going on with the change in administration. How do you see, like, because we're kind of talking about, we need to be a little innovative because we have a new era kind of coming in. 

We had from the previous new era, from the previous new era. So we're kind of going back and forth between these things. How do you kind of approach NEPA, modernizing NEPA, keeping it up to date with the big shifts that we're seeing every 4 years? I think unfortunately Nepa has lagged behind in some regards, and there are ways in which the process could be, you know, greatly improved and how we get there, I think it's going to require a lot of champions focusing on that and process improvements. I think that technology is going to play a huge role in that, hopefully, but implementing technology. Especially at the agency level can be very difficult. So one of the key partners I've worked with is the Georgia Department of Transportation in implementing some technology initiatives, and we did one right before they came out with some rules and policies, and I like to say we kind of like slid under the door in an action movie as the door was closing to get some work done that ended up winning the USDOT modernizing NEPA challenge. But now we're going through the process to get some contracts in place related to AI and it's just, it's a lengthy process. It will be worth it, but it has been quite a journey. What do you mean? Like, what's the hold up was what are the challenges? So, there's just different levels of approval that you have to go through, and our current proposal, I think it's going to be one of the first, like, formal contracts for an initiative like that. 

So there's a lot of questions. So phase one was getting the state environmental administrator to buy in and getting some others on specifically the ecology team at GDT to buy in, and then after that, we actually met with their IT department today, so getting their IT department to buy in. to buy into what, just, just as I'm not quite clear, what are you? Oh, we're proposing to do a case study to create a custom AI chatbot that can answer questions about specifically ecology regulations. Um, and so we've gone through IT we have IT approval. Now we need to meet with the legal team. After we meet with the legal team, we have to go to the Georgia Technology Administration and get their approval, and we started this process in like November. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, you know, I guess it's new, so, OK, so the end goal being like, so you get the bot and that helps kind of frame the permitting process. What is it, what does it end up doing? Gives guidance, so because, you know, things are rapidly changing in our industry, having one source that's able to give people guidance based on documents that we know are, you know, up to date and good documents is really the key there. And I've done that on my own, like I made when the CQ phase two regulations came out.

 My team had a custom AI chatbot that had information based on those regulations and could answer questions and you could upload PDFs and it would tell you, you know, oh, this is no longer valid, etc. So the goal is really to give people another resource because sometimes it's really hard to find that one thing. I'm sure you all have had that experience of like, I know it's in some document. I just can't find it every like every 5 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, Laura and I have been talking a little bit about AI and how we use it. So, it's funny cause like for me, like, I'm working some of the agencies I work with, it's gone from like absolutely not to absolutely not, but we'll at least look into it. That's kind of where we are, I think. So it's funny because like I'm behind, like Laura's ahead of me on using this, and I have started to use it like kind of a little bit more recently, literally like last week and the week before. So, I don't even know, maybe we need to kind of pull back a little bit even from that. What do you see AI doing for NEA, when you say it's lagged behind, like, is it just that we're not using technology the way we should be for it, or is there something kind of like universal that AI is gonna do for NEPA? Definitely. I think most of the conversations I've heard and where the biggest case studies are going to be in the near future is related to public involvement. So the work that I did with or I'm sorry, with GDOT that we submitted to the USDOT modernizing NA challenge was creating a custom chatbot that the public could interact with based on a real life NEA document. Because there is this, um, a little bit of mistrust between the public and DOTs when it takes so long to get an answer. 

Uh, and also, I guess this is not in line with the new administration, but there were also some increased equity related to having something like that because it could translate documents and it could provide information to people with visual impairments or might not be able to read, etc. Mhm, yeah, so, OK, so what are some of those like drawbacks and I promise I'll let Laura ask a question in here somewhere, but like some of like the, the, the pushback that you've, because it sounds like you've had some from even the DOT. So what are the big concerns with AI, um, and like how have you navigated those? Yeah, I think the biggest concern is around something where the technical term is called a hallucination because most AI is what they call large language models. And what a large language model does is it takes a huge amount of data and it trains the model to string together words that would naturally go next to each other in everyday speech. But sometimes it will make up something that is It is correct in the English language, but it is actually very wrong. Yeah. So, for example, Google Gemini for a while was recommending that people add glue when they asked Gemini, how do I help cheese stick better to pizzas. So like, yes, it makes sense in the English language, but it's not correct. And so that's where the biggest, you know, risk and hesitation comes through when we're talking about specifically like Gen AI and how you can mitigate that is creating these more customized versions that are working off of a particular data set or set of documents that you know are high quality. Yeah. I think it's happening and so it's better in my mind to be on the forefront of it than to be on the lagging end of it and trying to catch up with everybody else. 

So I think it's cool that you guys are working on that. Yeah. Yeah, and you do have to deal with hallucinations, but those are the for the people who are worried about AI taking their jobs, those are the security points that are gonna require that humans have evolved. Yeah, and I would argue, at least for the NEA side of things, like there's not enough practitioners. And, um, there may never be enough practitioners and AI can help us, and it can help us get those projects online that might be key projects or might be, you know, critical importance and do that in a faster way. So one thing I didn't touch on was I know that a lot of firms are working on. Taking public comments and using AI to look at the public comments, analyze the public comments, and even create a, you know, a form of a draft of a response so that their analysts can work from something to kind of shrink that window in which you get all the comments and the response is put out. Yeah, and that kind of stuff is like, you know, it's almost administrative. So leave that kind of stuff to a bot and use your science brain for other things, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you a story. I remember like taking a, getting 10,000 comments for a project, right? And 722 of them are about a bike lane, and they're all almost identical, at most, but every like 100th has an extra little nugget in it. So it's a form letter that people adjusted. And so what I wouldn't have given. To not have to read 700 letters to make sure they're all the same. Right, yeah, so I think that's going to be one of the things we see AI integrated to the Neva process first. Yeah. Speaking of integrating, so you're gonna be planning an AI workshop for the NAP conference? Yeah. 

So I, at the last NAEP conference, I spoke on using out of the box AI tools and how people could use AI in their NEPA process that day. And I will caveat at the time, there was not a lot of policies or restrictions on that. Um, and that led to me having all these relationships with different agencies and individuals working in that space. Including, um, with Department of Energy, with some people from CUQ and some of the national labs. And so one of them, I don't even know how it evolved, actually, but we landed on having a full day workshop at the conference focused on, um, the use of AI and the DA process. So right now, it's being led by Pacific Northwest National Lab, and DOE and CEQ have Been invited, but they are waiting for their official approval to participate in the workshop. So that's really cool. I think, again, even for the conference, it's good to be talking about these things upfront and giving people information instead of having to search it or find it somewhere else. And so you're the president of the Georgia Board of NAP. So it's like, so people who don't know if you're listening, like NAP is a national organization. And it has its own board and then there are regional chapters that are statewide and then some of the states have even further local chapters that are either regional or countywide or something like that. 

And so they're great networking opportunities and they're great to join boards and get leadership experience and just make connections. And if you're lucky, your board might have funding to get you to the national conference or your company. And so I'm looking forward to seeing you there, Lauren. But I want to ask you before we jump off of that, just a couple of questions along those lines for people listening like maybe not even an NAEP type of board, but what are the benefits and pros and cons of joining any type of board while you're working full time? Yeah, absolutely. It's been a great opportunity for me and it gives me an excuse to talk to absolutely everyone at an environmental event, um, which is, you know, the key benefits and You know, it gives me a way to build my relationship with people in addition to my role. So for example, we asked some people from Chita to host a lunch and learn and give a lunch and learn. That's one way to strengthen different relationships with key players that outside of having that, like, wouldn't be really an option. I will be blonde, it's a lot of work, particularly me stepping into the role on the Georgia chapter because we're kind of in a rebuilding phase. And there was a lot of cleaning up to do, including a lot of paperwork with the IRS and a lot of yeah, there was this like, yeah, there was this really fun saga of the bylaws. Um, so the, the chapter, I will not be talking about. No, no, no, this is fun, Nick, I swear. Oh no, I know, I know that's joke right there. Yeah, so basically our chapter was started, I think about 20 years ago. So pre-digital records and we needed a copy of our bylaws to get our 50126 status back with the IRS and I tried everything. I asked NAP. I looked on the drive. I looked absolutely everywhere. I talked to so many people who had leadership positions at GAEP before and went down this rabbit hole that ended on somebody saying, who had helped start the chapter.

 I might have it, Lauren, but it's on a floppy disk. Um, and it's not one of the hard floppy disks. It's floppy disk floppy. Yeah, yeah, the one, the big one that takes two hands to push in. OK, OK, yeah, that's wild. Yeah, so we rewrote them and yeah, yeah. Uh, did you use AI to write it? Yeah. Of course I use AI to help run the chapter. But isn't that fascinating? Like 20 years ago it was saved on a floppy disk and now you're using it like I'm sorry, this is craziness. Yeah, that is true. That's when you look at it in that kind of a time scale. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I just wish it was here when I was going through 700, you know, but that's really fun. That's kind of wild. Yeah, it's character building, Nick, to. Yes, yes, exactly, right? Yeah, yeah. That's actually probably why AI was invented. It had to be, right? It was because somebody's like, you know what, there's got to be a better way to do this. I am not doing this anymore. Right, yeah. So that's fun. But like, I don't know why. I'm curious, like, cause you know, like I say, like, some of my clients in particular are really, really cautious about AI and then one of the things that you hear, or at least that I hear is they don't want their information in a database, like in a repository. I'm sure you've heard of that before, um, so what's the response to when someone says something like that? Yeah, so I like to say there are, you know, thousands of AI platforms. And when you want to work on a key initiative with someone, you need to find the platform that makes sense to them. So you can find platforms that won't share data, you might have to pay for them or pay more for them, but there are platforms out there to mitigate those risks and mitigate a lot of the risks that people might have in utilizing AI. Very cool. 

I think those people too also need to turn their phones off because I know. Everything you say and that's going right into a database. Yeah. But it's their personal data. Right, yeah, who cares about that? Yeah, yeah, it's so funny. What is it, where we draw the line, it's like, it's like a, oh well, I can't give an AI bot information about myself, but I can't. I can just have my phone on while I'm at my therapy appointment or whatever it is, you know, just like it's very funny how those all kind of play out, but I mean, what can you do? I actually, funny story the other day I had this like, if you have an iPhone on the corner of the top left, there'll be a little bubble that turns on when you have an app running in the background. And I was like, What is this? And I kept clicking on it and Chat GBT kept opening and I was like, What is this? And then I looked at my settings and it had turned on its own listening. Oh, I didn't turn it on, but it was like it automatically started listening to my conversations and I was like, oh, interesting. Oh my God, no, that was, so if you see uh that popping up or maybe just go ahead and check your settings if you didn't know that you that Chat GBT app on your phone is capable of having a sidebar listening element, go in your settings and make sure it's turned off. Yeah, you guys. Yeah, um, so, OK, first of all, I didn't know there was an app specifically was doing it on the Chrome just on my web browser on my phone, so that's, that's good to know. There's an app for it. I'm definitely not checking the Chrome app right now or where it is on Chrome to doing that. I'm definitely not doing that at this moment. And there are hundreds of listeners right now. Well, let me open my phone, right. Oh, no, you know one of the cruelest things, do you remember when is it Alexa or whatever, when someone says that somebody did like order XYZ, whatever it was, it was like a Furby or something, and then like it actually people who listened to the nightly news and had an Alexa, it actually did order the thing that that's, yeah. 

Oh man. Anyway, uh, that's not important. Do you have an example process that you've seen kind of finish out like where AI has helped a project get to the finish line or has helped develop a certain part of a project that's worked pretty well, like an example you could give us of how it's worked pretty well for you? Yeah, sometimes you get those comments from the public and I won't use it in the actual response letter, but I'm like, gosh, I just don't even know where to start with this. And so getting a good baseline for that or pulling information or I made a GPT for myself called Can This Just Be a CATX? And it's based on the CEQ spreadsheet of like all the different Axes cause I was working in that one day and I just got, it's great. Dorsey, they're wonderful, but the number of tabs in it was just like overwhelming and I was like, uh, I need a better way to find this information instead of tabbing through Excel. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And now it's every CADX, right? You can use them all. Yeah. So that's kind of funny. Gosh, there's, I don't even know if there is a CADX database somewhere. There probably should be, but, uh, what's a CADX database for the people who don't know what that is. Lauren, Lauren, go ahead. Yeah, so in NEA, there's kind of 3 levels of documentation, each with increasing complexity. So for um proposed actions that don't have that much of a significant impact to environmental resources, they'll be documented in a categorical exclusion or CATX document. Um, then moving up in complexity, there's environmental assessments. And then there's finally EIS's and now we're at a point in the industry where, I think I've heard that it's like 1% of documents are EISs at this point. That's right. 

So those are hefty, large projects and of course, they'll need to be advances there, but also the volume of work is more so on a categorical exclusion side. And those aren't technically often public documents, they can just be documented at the agency level. So there's not really like one place for all of them. Right, yeah, and I would say like there's lots of different examples of them, but like one of them is like there's like a utility one for DOTs where they can just replace telephone poles and instead of having to go do Nepa for like pulling out an old pole and putting in a new one, they can just say this is a CAX. We know this is already disturbed, we're not redisturbing anything new, so we already did all the checks and balances for it, just replace the poles, please. But that's kind of like how it works in general. And it would be really cool. It would honestly be really cool to have like something tell you where a project description would fit in a Kay, cause a lot of times what we'll do is like, well, we've got this project, does it fit in C1 or E1 E5, you know, just the naming structure for the agency that you're in as to which Cax you should use, and even that can be really complicated. So, yeah, that would be pretty cool. I should also mention there's a lot related to siding that's being done right now related to AI. So there are various companies out there, and if you give them like spatial data, they promise to tell you all the permits you could possibly need to complete a project. Um, I'm a little skeptical personally because I'm pretty risky first and I Met with some and I asked, like, what happens if you're wrong? And I don't feel like they gave the best answer, but it's at least a good screening tool. And I think the Ray, which is an organization here in Georgia that does a lot of really interesting innovative work related in the environmental space, particularly related to this one stretch of highway, has developed this AI tool that allows people to put projects in pre-existing right of way. So having that information. 

And one place that would allow for projects to move along. Yeah, and gosh, it's like permitting is one of those things where it's a wildcard no matter what, AI or not, it's, it's you never know what your regulator is gonna be like and what they'll want. Yeah, so I'm gonna tell Laura a story later about that it's. Yeah, I mean, I, I've really got one. I remember like having two projects, right? One was a 3 mile telephone replacement and one was 30 miles. And so the 30 mile was issued a nationwide permit because again we're just replacing telephone poles. There's no point in doing. Why would you need. The 3 mile one was like, no, you need an individual permit for each pole. And we're like, we just got approval from your agency that's finalized for 30 miles, and he's like, don't care for my project, you need individual permits for each pole. And for pool, for each pole, yeah, I, I'm, I'm like, is this like your first day? I don't know what to do with this. Like, you know, it's like, but there's nothing to do other than do what they wanted you to do. So that's what happened. 00 yeah, yeah, we had to. We did not have a choice. We argued about it, but it's like I'm gonna copy and paste this, you know, 12 times or whatever it was, I can't remember. So thank you for that and uh yeah, so yeah, that's always every agency has that person. I know. I know. Or like my other favorites like we'll get somebody who's like, uh, so yeah, I want you to give me as much information as possible, and I'm not gonna tell you what any of the problems are until after I see everything and then I'll tell you how you're on and you're like, or you could just tell me what you want. Or you could do that.

 So I don't know if AI can fix that problem, but I'm, yeah, OK. All right, well, you know, for some of our listeners may not be interested in AI and so they're probably like, gosh, when are they getting about, you know. But I, I hope that other people are as rivet as I am, like, this is cutting edge stuff, like, where will it be in 20 years? I'm seriously curious because how can you go from floppy disk to where we are right now? I know there's a lot more to go, but like the difference between the two is so crazy, but Anyway, I think if anyone's going to the conference, make sure you stop by for event. And what advice do you have though for career seekers who are, you know, and, and actually a lot of graduates and people I talked to, they don't, like you said, you didn't know NEPA was a thing that you could do then within NEAP 100. Microscopic things that you can do related to it. So what kind of advice do you have to someone who is just learning the needless thing and how they start to get their feet wet and figure out like where, what direction to go. Right. Well, NAEP has a great working group for emerging professionals, so that might be a good place to get plugged into, and also the state and local chapters of NAEP as well, and just, you know. Always be curious. One of my favorite questions to ask people at an event is, you know, what are your big goals for the year? And just hear what their goals are, here, and from that you learn like what the pain points are, what the trends in the industry are. You learn about their jobs and what matters to them. 

All right, awesome. I do like to get curious aspect of that. So many people want to know like what job should I get? I don't know, go out there and try stuff. Yeah, yeah, literally just said that to somebody. I was like, keep trying, try everything. Exactly. The hard part is trying stuff that you get paid for. We also have this segment called Field Notes, where we like to talk to our guests about memorable moment in the field that was either scary or fun or just magical, whatever that might be, that's something that pops in your mind about a time you were in the field. And I think you mentioned one to us, but I'll see what, what it may have changed what popped into your mind. Goodness. I have just spent a lot of time in the state of Alabama. Um. I feel like when, when I first started my career, that's always where I got sent. Uh, that's a good setup. Yeah. I was in Alabama. Yeah, exactly. You know, and it was really character building, but I did work for a time at a firm that only sent people in the field alone, which I now know is not the best idea. So definitely were a lot of like scary, hairy situations, but I got through it. Nice. And then one time you received an unusual public comment packet. Yes. Uh, this is my favorite. So I was working on a proposed telecommunications tower and we had a request out for public comments and we received a mailed packet to our office. The packet was a letter saying, I can't believe you're building this. Cell towers of all these health concerns, and it had a bunch of news articles attached to it, labeled exhibits like 1 through 12. About the dangers of cell towers and their health impacts from very unreliable sources, not scientifically accurate. And I just personally thought it was really funny because the entire packet reeked heavily of cigarette smoke, um, which is known to have very significant health impacts. 

And so I just, uh, was touched by that. Yeah. I gotta know though, like you said you were in like situations like hairy situations. I want to know one. I wanna know one, you know, you gotta give me one. We buried the lead, um, you know, my first guild visit by myself was to a site in rural Tennessee, middle of nowhere. What I was doing was a bird survey for a cell tower. And in order to see into the top of the Tower where the birds nest, you have to be at least a quarter of a mile away with a spotting scope. And you have to be on the right of way or in like a public area. And, um, I think you can imagine that people in rural areas don't necessarily appreciate somebody having a spotting scope near their homes. Yeah, it's so strange. I can't imagine. Yeah. Yeah, I had not lived in the south that long at the time, and this guy pulled up next to me and was like, Excuse me, little mesh. Are you fixing for trouble? And then I think he like, I don't even think I realized it at the time, but he like threatened me, like mentioned something about it being like hunting season. Yeah, because he responded, he asked if you were fixing for trouble and you're like, yes, obviously, um, no, no, no, sir, I'm doing a bird survey. They are like, what? Yeah, I think we've all, I think everybody in the environmental field has a story like that. We've got guns, yeah, I can see them. I can see them, yes, thank you for reminding me that you're shovel and I am not, yeah, yeah, shovels or sticks or other things.

Yeah. Well, I mean, but OK, so yeah, so that's a great thank you for that. um, but I know we're running out of time here, but we always love asking personal questions too, um. About everybody and so one of the things we want to ask you about is you and your husband have joined a curling league. So how did you get into that? Yes, OK, um, it's, yeah, it's a little funny cause I'm from Vermont, but that's not where I learned to curl. So Atlanta has this pretty renowned science festival every year in which there's about like a whole month of all these different science festivals around the city. And in the past, they had had a learn to curl, because there's a lot of physics involved in curling. And for whatever reason, they didn't have it. And my husband's getting his PhD and he kind of needs a hobby. He needs something that's not science, because he is. The hardest working person I know, and he's so incredibly smart, but he's burning himself out a little bit. And so I found that we live like 20 minutes from Georgia's only dedicated curling facility. That sounds right. That sounds exactly right. Yeah, and so we took some lessons and ended up in a Sunday league and yeah, it's only during the winter because it's too expensive for the nonprofit curling league to run ice in Georgia in the summer. Yeah, that's funny. So wait, they have different names for everybody's roles, right? Um. Yeah, but they rotate usually. OK, so you get to do different things, you know, yeah. 

A sweeper, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it. And then there's a skip, they're like the head honcho. I hate being a skips. They have to like tell you where to place your stone when you throw it. And they have to like think through like all the different infinite number of possibilities, yeah, yeah. It's like bocce ball with people kind of, I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, it's kind of like that, it's like you're, you're gliding it and then someone else is trying to knock you away and. All right, so, uh, you also have a few pets at home. Can you wanna tell us about them? Yeah, um, I start to sound crazy. Yeah, we have 11 pets, um. Yeah, so we have 2 dogs. That's normal, right? Um, and then we have 3 rabbits, we have 4 chickens and 2 guinea pigs, and that might not be 11, but no, I'm not doing the math. We assume it is. We don't even need to all of these animals interact with each other, kind of, yeah, to a certain extent. So yeah, it's funny like when we first got the first dog, we already had rabbits. And we were worried because he's a little scruffy mutt terrier thing. We were worried that he would eat the rabbits. So when we introduced him, we put a muzzle on him. And at the time we had this very aggressive rabbit, and Cinnabon bit the dog. Yeah, that sounds about right, yeah, that sounds about right. So, so that was my question like which animal owns the house, who runs it? Probably the dog tater tot. He's got a personality, the guinea pig. You know what, the guinea pigs, I love them, but they're, they're so morbidly obese, and they're supposed to be, right? Right, yeah, yeah. That like one of them, he doesn't even stand to eat anymore, he just like sits in the hay feeder and eats. I mean, I get it. If I could do that, you know, I would. Yeah, yeah, goals, goals. Just sit in my food. Oh, that is awesome. Uh, we are running out of time though. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about that we didn't cover yet? I don't think so. 

Just, you know, a plug for, you know, NAEP conference. I also lead a working group for NAP focused on technology and environmental planning, so if this conversation was interesting, join that working group. If you want to present or um you know, want to see a topic at that working group, let me know. Awesome, sounds great. Thank you. And where can people get in touch with you? LinkedIn will be the best place. OK, awesome. Well, thanks, this has been fun. Yeah, thank you all. And that's our show. Thank you, Lauren, 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. Bye.