Coastal Resilience, Interdisciplinary Skills, and Passion Driven Careers with Catherine McCandless

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 Catherine McCandless, Senior Climate Resilience Project Manager in the City of Boston's Office of Climate Resilience about coastal resilience, Interdisciplinary Skills, and Passion Driven Careers. Read her full bio below.

Thank you to RayEA for sponsoring today's episode - check them out at rayEAllc.com.

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Showtimes: 
1:33 - 200th Episode !
7:11 - Interview with Catherine McCandless begins 
16:37 - Managing Communications with many Stakeholders
25:01- Manhatten Woods Project
34:15 - Field Notes with Catherine!

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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.

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Guest Bio:
Catherine McCandless is a Senior Climate Resilience Project Manager in the City of Boston's Office of Climate Resilience. In this role, she leads the development of neighborhood coastal resilience plans, the implementation of coastal resilience projects and wetlands restoration projects, community engagement and education, coastal resilience grant applications, and the cross-departmental integration of climate resilience into the City's planning, capital projects, and permit review. Originally from Durham, N.C., Catherine holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and Biology from Wellesley College and a Master in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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

Transcript

Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I talk about our 200th episode. We interview Catherine McCandless about cultural resilience, interdisciplinary skills, and passion driven careers. And finally, here are some wild things you can do on Sims 4, if unlike me, you knew it was still going. You can romance their version of Santa Claus, clean toddlers with a vacuum, and find and breed axolotls. And if you're interested in purchasing all of these expansions, it'll only cost you a whopping $1,444. Oh That's wild. It's not the same Nintendo I knew. Yeah, right. 

Hit that music 

Today's episode is sponsored by Ray EA LLC. Ray EA offers the best of value and experience to optimize solutions for both client objectives and regulatory compliance. Check them out at https://www.rayeallc.com.

NAEP just completed a pop-up webinar titled Quick Hit Reactions to Supreme Court's rulings in Seven County Infrastructure, which was given by our very own Fred Wagner and Jeh Johnson on the Supreme Court ruling that just came out. If you missed it live, you can listen to it for free if you're an NAEP member. The court decision appears to shape the scope of NEPA compliance for years to come, so please check it out at www.NAEP.org. 

Let's get to our segment. 

Yeah, so 200 episodes. How do you feel about that? It's wild. I have no other words for it. I think that's a perfect one. I remember, so even at the conference, people were asking me, they still ask me, how did this get started, right? And I always love, and I, I gave, actually it was really funny, so you know, Ron Deverman, who's been on the show. Before gave him credit in front of his wife and she said, Oh great, another thing he can claim responsibility for. And it was, it was hilarious. It was a perfect, a perfect anecdote, but you had the idea to start a podcast. I had the idea to start a podcast. You talk to Ron, then I talked to Ron, and he was like, You two should talk and it's just. I love that as an origin story. I love that we had this separate idea and got together and we're like, well, let's just, let's just talk and see what happens. But I think this is the first time I'm knowing it was run. Yeah, that's connected us. Yeah, he's the one that got, he's the one that told me to talk to you. I, I don't know if I knew that. I just knew someone said that we should talk. I don't know if I knew it was wrong. That makes sense now. Yeah, doesn't it? But I don't know, from my perspective, I'm not shocked that we're at 200. I was like pleasantly surprised it went well, but when we first started talking, I think it was like the 3rd time that you and I had talked, you were wearing a shirt and I couldn't read all the letters. I just knew that it was an against me shirt and, you know, anyone that knows like follow the show from the beginning, like, you know, we're big music buffs and like that was. Like a band that I loved that you know, and I was like, OK, we're good like we're good. Like, yeah, they gave me this hoodie, so you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know I yeah, for real, like I had seen them like, I don't know, like 6 months before that and it was incredible. It was awesome. I saw them in Denver, uh, yeah, and I'm like, yeah, I've been on stage with them. Yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah, ridiculous. 

You've been best friends ever since. 100%. But I don't know what does it mean to you? I mean, to me it's just kind of like a, it's really incredible, but I'm not surprised. I'm really happy that we're here. It's really good. I love the progressions of like where we both were personally and professionally at that time. So despite your promotions and the growth of my companies and we're still here doing it, like. We both love these conversations. You know, I'm not a 9 to 5 environmental professional anymore, but I'm still an environmental professional in my heart. And this for me staying plugged in. And of course, it's beneficial to me as a career coach in the environmental space. And I had a coach, uh, someone I coached the other day who was like, oh yeah, I listened to your episode of blah blah blah, and you know, like. That's so awesome when that happens. And it's becoming more frequent. You know, someone else said, I joined NAAP because I listened to the podcast. And I think the momentum and growth is starting to happen. It always, it takes about 3 years, and that's, you know, we crossed the 3 year mark. And with the break, we're, you know, kind of are we at 3, are we at 4 now, but like we have crossed that and continuing to go and now that we have the expanded team. Um, and the entire team, you know, Sam being our veteran and Marley and Kacie being the new assistants, but like, it's so great, like, just not that we're just doing 200 episodes and it's been the same behind the scenes, it's changed and hopefully, you know, if you listen to the first episodes, and then listen to now, Gosh, we were better at this. Like I literally just checked the today's thing and so last this Friday. Somebody started at the very beginning and so like someone listened, it's like 2 or 3 people listened to like the very beginning of our shows and I'm like, no, listen to the new ones, the new ones, you know. I remember being nervous and shy, and I think, you know, like when, when we first started and, and I was like kind of like, how are we gonna do this? And, you know, like I think the biggest compliment we can get is when someone says they like the show, and that happened over and over again at the NAEP conference, talking about how, how much they enjoyed the show and our, our chemistry and how we get guests to talk about so many random things. And so that's truly humbling, that is a wonderful thing. And I'm really, really excited that we're coming up on 200. That's great.

 And listen, the friends, I have so many guests, a lot of our guests are not just guests. Like I still communicate with them outside of this, and you see them at the conference and you know, we're still staying in touch and talking about other things. Marylou Flores, she's the one who completely like Got out of the film industry and got into environmental and then bought a house in the Bahamas, like I still talk to her, Tiffany and JD Rinbo, like all the time still talking. I visit them in Florida, you know, so it's um kind of like a family now. It's fine I was just literally just saying like you're talking about people you met. I had lunch with the other day. I had dinner with Fred, met his wife, and it was just the shows, you got to meet Fred's wife. Yeah, yeah, she's a riot as well, of course she is. Yeah, it was really fun. It was a great dinner, uh, really happy. OK, well, I have a new life goal. I wanna meet. Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. So yeah, it's been in a weird way, it's, it's, it doesn't feel like 200. It feels like we're still doing like, you know, we're like, you know, 50 maybe. It doesn't feel like work. I think people say that that's the number one question I get. Like, it must take so much time. I'm like, but it's fun. It doesn't, but it's good work. Yeah, all right, that's, yeah, we're closing on that. I think that that's a great way to end it. So yeah, let's get to our interview. 

Welcome back to EPR. Today we have Catherine McCandless with us. Catherine is senior climate resilience project manager with the City of Boston's Office of Climate Resilience, where she leads coastal resilience and ecological restoration efforts across the city. Welcome, Catherine. It's great to have you here. It's so great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. So let's dive in. What does your role as a senior climate resilience project manager involve day to day? Yeah, so my office focuses on the city's efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change. So we work on a number of different climate hazards, including coastal flooding, with Boston being a coastal city, as well as stormwater flooding and rising temperatures. And so to back up a little bit in case anyone, I guess, listening, isn't as familiar with like climate work, I kind of think of climate change work as being Being like a double-sided coin, and there's like two sides in terms of how we're addressing and responding to the impacts of climate change. So, you know, like on the mitigation side really focused on energy and how we're reducing carbon emissions. But on the other side is the adaptation side. And so that's really the side that my work falls onto, which is thinking about, you know, we've already emitted so much carbon into the atmosphere and so we're kind of stuck with certain climate impacts. That we can't take back, even if we were able to like wave a magic wand and suddenly no longer have any carbon emissions, we are, you know, kind of locked into a certain amount of sea level rise and rising temperatures and, um, changes to our weather patterns. And so cities across the world are really focused on how are we addressing those impacts in cities that people are safe and that cities are, you know, more pleasant places to live as the climate is changing. 

And so in Boston, we are a coastal city with 47 miles of vulnerable low-lying coastline where we have already seen examples of how flooding is going to impact the city. So about a decade ago, the city started doing a citywide vulnerability assessments to understand what the impacts of climate change would look like under different greenhouse gas emissions. scenarios, and from there, we've done a number of coastal resilience plans. Boston is very much a city of neighborhoods, so we have done a coastal resilience plan for each of our five coastal communities to make sure that we understand where the risk is, how that risk is going to evolve over time and what our options are for addressing flooding as it becomes more and more pressing. So my work within all of that, I came to the city about 4 years ago and led the last of our coastal resilience planning efforts. And now we've sort of closed the book on our planning period and we're very much focused on how do we actually implement the priority projects that were identified in each of those plans so that we can change infrastructure and enhance open spaces and ensure that the city is resilient if we are experiencing. Sea level rise or having a major coastal storm. So as a project manager, I'm now like leading these infrastructure projects to address flooding across the city's waterfront. That is important work. And I think it also sounds like work a lot of environmental science persons would be interested in getting into. What was your, your background? Is this something that you wanted to do when you were in college or did you just like fall into it? That's a great question. I would say I didn't even, I don't think this was really like a field when I was in college. 

Um, I, I went to college in 2010 and it's funny, like going back to speak at different colleges and meet with students. It's always surprising to me just how much of a focus there is on climate change now and different curriculums, because when I was in school, it was really not included very much. So when I went to college, I was really interested in studying biology. I just always really loved my science classes when I was in high school and for whatever reason, it just really resonated with me as a discipline. But when I got to college, I got spooked out of the biology major because everyone with like in the biology major was pre-med. And I was like, I have no desire to be a doctor. I've, I've, I've never wanted to do medicine. And so I knew that like I really loved ecology, I loved environmental sciences, but I was just kind of like, I don't want to be a doctor. I'm not sure I want to like work in a lab. I'm not sure if I would be interested in doing field work long term. But I went to a liberal arts school, so we had a lot of different requirements as part of our majors and whatnot. So I took an art history class that had a lot of focus on kind of how cities evolved and how different political and social shifts shaped the way cities were. Designed and built. And so I kind of pivoted my focus into an architecture major because I just found that really fascinating. But over time kind of went back and forth, debating, which I should study, um, and ultimately ended up double majoring in architecture and biology. It was a really strange combination. I had a lot of raised eyebrows. I think someone asked me, like, are you gonna design zoos or like build vet hospitals and things. Like that. And I was like, no, I think there's a link here. I remember doing a project that was focused on biodiversity loss and how urbanization was driving biodiversity loss and climate change. 

And I started to be like, there's a link here. I'm really interested in how urbanization shapes the natural environment and how the natural environment shapes the way we build and design our cities. And so it was my senior year in college that I Took some urban planning classes, and I was like, there it is, like, that's the link that I was looking for. But with the urban planning, planning is a really broad field, you can focus on so many different parts of city design and development. But climate resilience planning wasn't really an area at that point in time. And it wasn't until I'd been working for a few years that I started to see this, like burgeoning field as different cities were starting to be like, we need to think about these impacts of climate change. In how we plan and design our cities. So I went back to school for urban planning after being out of college for a few years and really focused my studies and environmental planning and climate resilience planning. So I would say, no, I did not go into this field kind of knowing that it was something that I would do, but I think, um, like looking back on my pathway to getting where I am now, it makes a lot of sense. It just didn't necessarily make sense to me along the way. I think that is a key message is that a lot of this stuff doesn't make any sense until you look back and then you then you only then can you see the dots connecting. So that's really awesome, thanks for sharing that. And now so you have the skills, how did you land the job? Did you have to do a lot of searching, networking? What was the key? 

What happened? Yeah, really good question. Um, yeah, so one of my, I had a couple of jobs before I went back to grad school, and so one of them was actually working with the city of Boston in a different department that I'm currently in. It was a pretty entry level job and it was actually watching the vulnerability assessment called Climate Ready Boston that I mentioned earlier unfold with the city that really was like, I, I want to go back to school for this in particular. So I kind of had a full circle. Moment of, of seeing that be developed, leaving to go and be like, I want to be equipped to do this kind of work. And then coming back a few years later. After graduate school, I worked in, in the private sector for a little bit, doing some consulting work. And I think I learned early from being in the public sector pretty soon after college, that that was an area that really resonated with me in terms of being able to serve the community that I live and work in. But after grad school, I finished grad school in 2019, so I entered the private sector, quickly kind of realized that it wasn't necessarily the space I wanted to land in long term, and then the pandemic hit. And so I ended up staying in consulting for a little over a year, and then once things started to settle a little bit and jobs started to become available again, I started job hunting and this position was open and Yeah, I I applied and um they, I think, were pleased that I had done a lot of work within the city of Boston in my previous roles and was familiar with kind of how the city of Boston operated from being there in the past. So accepted this role and yeah, now it's been 4 years. That's amazing. 

So over the 4 years, what are some of the big projects you're working on now? Yeah. Something that I really like about the work that I'm doing is that all of my projects are very different, but all focused very much on how are we like improving the built and natural environment. So I have two large infrastructure projects that I'm managing. One is along a roadway that abuts a, uh, one of the last remaining salt marshes in the city of Boston. It also then spans another municipality so that we have a, we're basically designing infrastructure that spans 2. Cities, because the flood risk that we have already experienced and project to see being a lot worse, doesn't really care that we have a municipal boundary, you know, drawn on the map. So I'm leading this project in partnership with another municipality to basically figure out how do we prevent this flooding from being an issue. And then I have another project that's unique because it is entirely on privately owned land on a different part of the city's waterfront. I think something that's really important about this kind of work is understanding that like So much of what we're able to do in terms of shaping infrastructure and, and improving open spaces and things like that is so heavily driven by who owns and controls the land. So part of my job is working with different landowners, whether that's, um, you know, different city departments, different state agencies, or the private sector to figure out how do we come together and address this shared problem, you know, despite, despite differences and who actually is assigned as the owner of this land. So this project that I'm Working on spans 7 different property owners and we're working with each one to basically figure out how do we stitch together a coastal resilience solution across their properties. And then I have one other project that I'm working on that I'm really excited about, that is a restoration project that actually isn't on the coast, and that's really focusing on taking this very degraded open space and transforming it into like a passive recreation opportunity for a community that has kind of a lack of open space overall. 

Oh, very cool. I mean, you know, it's interesting, like, we talk a lot about communication, right, on the show and how important it is, but when you're talking about what, 7 municipalities that all have to, they don't necessarily have to agree, but there has to be some consensus on what to do. So how on earth do you manage that? Cause I'm, I'm assuming, I mean, tell me I'm wrong, but they come from different aspects, they have different wants and needs, and desires. So how do you get them all to work together? Yeah, so the project is working across several different property owners rather than municipalities, but it's very, yeah, but what you're saying um. Yeah, it is still very difficult to get these different property owners together and to have them agree because some of them are more of like commercial property owners, some are residential, some build affordable housing, some have more industrial uses. So the visions for what their different properties could be in the future definitely vary, but I think through just trust building and working together and talking to each owner about what their needs are and how we can step in and kind of help assist. With developing the infrastructure that's needed to protect not just these waterfront properties, but the entire community behind them that's at risk of flooding if we don't address this at the water's edge. You know, I think they understand that it's in their best interest to work with the city of Boston, and they want to be a good neighbor to the residents that live and work in this neighborhood of Boston. 

So they've been, you know, very open to just engaging with us and collaborating as we're working through the design and engineering of, of this type of strategy. Yeah, so it's been definitely very interesting, but I feel like we're kind of pioneering this kind of work. We hear public private partnerships a lot in the field like we definitely need to, you know, have more of those because we can't do this in silos. And so I think for the city, this is kind of our uh one of our first forays so like what is developing a private public partnership to advance coastal resilience really look like? Yeah, and when you're not working on the coast, is it easier or harder, just different. Yeah, I would say both, you know, so anyone who has done coastal resilience work probably has had to deal with permitting and permitting makes projects really, really complicated. So I've found that my project that's more inland has fewer permits that get triggered when you're doing this kind of work. All of the projects on the waterfront in Massachusetts, there's just a very long list of Different city, state, and federal laws that apply when you're trying to develop along the waterfront. And some of those are there with very good reason, you know, to make sure that we're not degrading coastal habitats and we're not potentially doing anything that would disrupt wetlands in the long term or causing more harm or polluting waterways or things like that. But at the same time, when we're thinking about the risk of flooding as an increasing hazard for cities like Boston. 

We have an urgency that we need to move and get these projects in the ground, and some of the strategies that we may find are the most successful, thinking about like nature-based solutions, um, you know, vegetated berms, things like that, um, sometimes they're really difficult to permit because they're new and It's kind of not clear pathways for them. So yeah, I would say working on the waterfront is probably a little harder after all. It's so funny because I was literally about to ask you, so what are these things that you do? And I mean, you were starting to say it, and it's like such a really cool thing to say because like Nature Based Solutions are, are really, really new. And that's what I was hoping you were going to say and then you said it. So I'm got a little bit. But what does that mean? What do you mean? Because I don't think people even know what that is. Yeah, I probably should have said this earlier. So thank you for pulling us back to that point. Um, so when we're talking about coastal resilience infrastructure, what we really mean is, you know, water is coming in from the coast and has the potential to overtop the coastline. And sometimes that takes place just in on the immediate waterfront where we'd expect it to be a risk. But where we're really concerned is where there are kind of low lying gaps on the waterfront where water can just kind of permeate through from the waterfront and enter into communities and disrupt things that aren't, you know, designed to Withstand the impacts of flooding, so like transit infrastructure and housing, critical facilities, things like that. So what we are really focusing on is identifying those low lying parts of the waterfront and figuring out ways to creatively and strategically elevate the waterfront through different forms of infrastructure. So depending on the conditions or the typologies that we're working with along the water, that can be a range of different, like green and gray or hybrid strategies. 

So for example, for like greener strategies, we might be building a vegetation. berm, which is basically just like a mound of earth that might have like a buried seawall in it to make sure the water isn't kind of flushing through that berm. There's also things like constructing dunes on beaches or restoring wetlands. Basically anything that allows for the coastal habitat to exist, but at a higher elevation. On the gray infrastructure side, this can be things like raising roadways or building sea walls or building vertical flood walls that extend beyond the immediate elevation of the Around, things like that, barriers, stuff like that. So it can really range and those things can be paired together depending on the parts of the waterfront. But really the crux of this work is figuring out how do we elevate the waterfront, but also do it in such a way that we're not creating like a 6 ft wall that keeps people from accessing and seeing and, and, you know, experiencing the waterfront because even though flooding is very frightening and it is a huge risk for a lot of cities, people still love being by the water and they don't want to lose that defining. Feature of the place that they live. So I think something that's also very exciting within this work is the ability to not just address flooding through that elevation, but then to like regrade the area, think about ways to integrate more open space and public walkways along the waterfront. One of my projects that I mentioned is on a roadway, so we're also integrating multimodal transportation along this very like car centric roadway, and including a road diet to try to add more open space alongside the road. So it's, yeah, the projects can be very varied from, you know, different types of infrastructure and different types of environments. Yeah, and it's really neat. It's, like you say, you start with like, OK, where do we need this? And then it's like, what do we need there and how well does it work? 

And so after you've done something like that, you, so you put in a veggie berm, which by the way, total nerd moment again, I think it's cool, they're like, hey, you know, if you put vegetation on sand, it slows down energy, you know, of course it does, it makes sense. But I never would have thought of that and brilliant, whoever did come up with it. But after you've done a project, right, you maybe you've, this is where we identified things. How do you, I don't know, see if it's working, you know, do you like just wait for the next flood and you go, yeah, it's doing great, it's going great, OK, we need to do more work X Y Z, like what happens after? Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, I would say yes, it's basically like, is it flooding or is it not? Um, we kind of, the way that we do this work, there's kind of like time horizons that have become more or less industry standard, so we kind of think it's in as like near term as being the year 2030, mid-term as being 2050, and long term as being 2070, just to kind of get our head around, you know, what are our different targets. So some projects might be designed to be built towards a longer term flood protection because it's like a heavier lift to try to get those things developed and you're, you know, you're like, we're going to do this once and we're not going to come back to it for a long time, versus um some areas where it may not make sense to potentially build to a projected sea level rise 50 years from now because that area may be very likely to have another improvement or something in the interim. 

So for projects we have a handful of projects in the city of Boston that are constructed and so it is kind of like what you said, it's like if we if we have a coastal storm, um, we can monitor them and monitor these projects and see like is water overtopping, is water passing through areas of the project and reaching beyond, um, you know, the levee system or the barrier or whatever it might be. And that's kind of like our measure of success is this keeping water out? Is this effectively also managing stormwater? Is this protecting people, but are people also enjoying the space that we've created for them? Yeah, and are, are your friends, do they have to tell you like, please stop telling us you're excited for it to flood again, like, you know, like. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny when we have um like a projected storm, like we just had a nor'easter here in in Boston last week and it's this mixed feeling of like, oh no, like I don't want it to be flooding because we don't want the city to be experiencing potentially really bad impacts. But at the same time, that is our moment to go out and be like, are the projects that we've built working and are the areas that are projected to flood flooding? Yeah, so yeah. The floods hitting and you're staring out the window like, I think we're doing OK. I think we're doing good. Yeah, that's very cool. But I guess to kind of shift it to, uh, an actual project, so was Manhattan Woods, that project is wrapping up now. So what's that been like to do, start to finish? And like you say, it's like different. So we just talked to Coastal, now that it's done, I mean, like you said, we said that, and we know they're different, but what did you enjoy about doing that? Yeah, so it's a, yeah, Mata Hunt Woods, it's a, we have, um, no, you're OK. So Matahnt Woods is a little bit outside of my usual kind of purview of work that I do very much being focused on coastal resilience. It's a bit of a remnant of when I started with the city. I kind of spanned a couple of teams and so I've been able to manage this project for the last a little over 2 years now. And this is, uh, the first project that at least for me, I will be seeing from start through construction because a lot of the. Projects that I'm working on have sometimes 5 year long timelines. 

And so this is we basically across the city of Boston, we have 31 urban wilds they think of parks, but not manicured parks. So they're intentionally more natural spaces that are permanently protected conservation lands that are intended for more passive recreation, like walking and bird watching, hiking, things like that. So Mata Hunt Woods is an almost 9 acre urban wild in one of our inland. Communities that has some wetlands on site that is mostly woodlands and the property had fallen into a pretty bad state just from a lack of maintenance, a lot of like illegal dumping of construction debris and trash and things like that, and also an excessive overgrowth of, of invasive plants that made it so that even though this was technically public space, nobody in the community surrounding the space knew that they could go in there and use it. Yeah. So it was a lot of people were just like, Oh, it's just like vacant forest. Um, so, so, so this project, um, really sought to fix that, to really clean up the site, remove that, all the, the trash and the debris to clear out and treat those invasive plants and to create a trail system through the property so that residents in the surrounding community could use it to, you know, just go on a walk, but also to commute to and from different parts of the neighborhood. And so we really got going with this project in 2020. 3, we did all of our, you know, site analysis. We led a community engagement process to hear what residents of this particular neighborhood, um, which is called Mattapan, what they might want to see from this project. 

We went through a whole design process and then permitted the project in 2024 and started construction last June. We had a brief pause with the construction over the winter because it's pretty cold and wet this year, um, so I kind of stopped construction for a few months, but we picked up in March and we're anticipating opening the project. to the public in a few months. And so in addition to all these like new trails through the woods, we've created new entrances to connect people to the property from an elementary school that's nearby and um like a major public transportation route. We've developed multilingual signage to be installed at the entrances so that there's kind of more of an indicator to people that this is a space that they're invited to go into. A lot we've planted over like 2000 new native. Plants in place of all the invasive plants that were removed. And it's just like a really wholesome project because so many community members are just really excited about it and have had really positive things to say about the process and what they've seen so far in this space, as it's been in construction. Oh, that's really cool. That's lovely. And it's great that the community is excited about it too. There's got to be a moment where you're working on the project, like, we, we can use this space. Really? That's got to be fun for you. That's got to be really cool.

 It is. I kind of joke that, um, for any Parks and rec fans, like this is my pit. This is my pit. I'm having my Leslie Note moment. Um, and so, yeah, it's been really, really heartwarming, like even just talking to neighbors who were like, I've lived here for 20 years and I didn't know that I could go into this space and I'm so excited to be able to walk through here and see parts of this area that I just have never known in this way. That's awesome. While you're speaking my language, I was habitat restoration project manager in Hillsborough County for several years, but I want to bring the work forward because when I'm career coaching, a lot of young people want to know, should I get a project management certification or just learn those skills and like, what is it? And it is very valuable, I think in just about any field you could get into knowing how to successfully do something, start and finish within budget and on time. That's what I tell them. That's all you learn how to do stuff within budget and all time. That is the. The buzzwords. But from what you're saying and from my own experience, it's a lot more than sitting at a desk and looking at Gantt charts talking about this starts here and this ends here, there's communication, there is field work, there is research and all the things, public-private partnerships, huge and uh building those relationships. So speak more to as a project manager in your role, what are those skills? What are those things that if someone says I like this work, Education aside, what skills do you need to make this happen? Yeah, being very organized, I think is absolutely critical for project management, but I feel like I get to use a lot of different skills in my job. There's, you know, kind of the general suite of project management skills from like project budgeting, procurement, managing teams of consultants, things like that, like keeping the timeline on track, but the majority of my work with the City of Boston for my projects is a lot of community. Stakeholder engagements are really making sure that I'm pulling together all of the people that need to be involved. And in doing that, it's not so much just like, you need to be good at speaking to people. It's like you actually need to be able to speak to people that are from a lot of different disciplines. 

So, as an urban planner, I think that's kind of what sets me up to be able to manage projects like this because it's such a broad field and you have to be able to engage with different disciplines. But a lot of the time, you know, I'm working with coastal scientists and modelers, I'm working with Different types of engineers, landscape architects and architects, and then like community members and community nonprofits and advocates who are trying to get these things done as well. So there's a lot of like, you need to be able to do public speaking, but you also need to be able to negotiate, and you need to be able to bring people together and kind of understand the right moments to collect feedback on different milestones of a project as it's moving from planning through design into construction. I think in terms of Harder skills I get to use like InDesign, the Adobe Suite more broadly, GIS tools like that. But yeah, it's kind of like a very wide range. And then it's also important in this line of work to understand things like zoning and land use law and how all of these things come together. So again, like a bit of the land use law, the engineering, the design, the stakeholder engagement and the general project management and then just tie it up with a bow and call it a day. It's that simple. It's simple, easy. Absolutely. And, OK, so we have a segment on our show called Field Notes where we like to talk to our guests about their memorable moments doing the work, because this is one of the things that ties us all together. We all have to go in the field, probably at some point. We all think we're introverts, so putting ourselves out there in the public space is sometimes like comfortable, but we all have to do it. And sometimes it's actual field and sometimes it's a conference. Sometimes it's a public speaking or stakeholder meeting. 

So do you have any stories to share relatable to the rest of us that are like something that was funny or just stands out or anything like that? Yeah, there isn't something that's like readily coming to mind, but on that note I would say like when I came into this job, I had a crippling fear of public speaking like I like I was like I wanna be the person behind the scenes getting things done and you know, and working through the details and the chaos and behind the scenes, and I didn't really know that I was gonna have to be front and center as often as I ultimately have had to be. So, you know, like when I came in, it used to be like I would write a script for myself, I would read it, I would basically black out during a presentation and come back and be like, OK, I made it. Um, but over time, over time, I've had to do a lot of public speaking events, and I've actually really grown to love that, mainly through teaching classes to college students, high school students, and even graduate students. I think I've taught like over 30 classes at this point at different types of classes, whether that's architecture and engineering or planning or even in the sciences and others. And so engaging with students and teaching them about this work, which is a relatively new area within the field. It's like helping to educate them on what is happening in the city that they live in, because most of the time it's, you know, Boston area schools that are inviting us to come and guest lecture at a class, and kind of trying to inspire them to both go into this field or a related field and also to get involved in the work that we're doing as residents of the Boston community. 

So I would say like getting over my fear of public speaking has been great through this job and yeah, just for anyone who's like terrified of public speaking like I used to be, just takes practice. Yeah, you know, that is a fire hose version of getting used to it. Surprise. You're gonna be doing this for your whole job. Yeah. Right. That makes sense. So anybody listening, please shoot us your field stories. We would love to read them on the air. You can send them to us. I think there may be a form now at www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com, and we would love to hear them. Yeah, Nick, take it away. Oh, I am? OK, great. Um. No, I'm actually noticing in the background, right, we'd love to also ask questions about like our hobbies, the people that we interview, we love hearing about you as a person. I see guitars back there and I'm reading here that you used to be a DJ. And then, um, so first of all, what? And then second, how did you get into that? And how did that lead to you meeting your husband? Yeah, thanks for asking about that. Yeah, so I mean, I've always really loved music. I remember, oh, the days of like Limewire, like downloading when I was in like maybe I should dating. I know there are probably so many people listening. They're like, What is Limewire before the days of Spotify when we had no way to find music easily. I always loved like searching for music and finding artists that maybe weren't the most mainstream and I just, yeah, like I love. Like curating playlists for myself and for friends. But, you know, like when I was in college, I was very much heads down, focused on my studies. And when I finished school, it was like this breath of fresh air to be like, Oh my gosh, I have free time. I don't have homework and tests. 

I go to work and then I'm done and then I can have a hobby. So, so I became really interested in electronic music production and DJing around the time that I finished college and I started going to this. School in the Boston area that unfortunately no longer exists, but at the time was very popular, like kind of having different workshops on Friday nights, inviting people to come and like learn from people who are in the music industry, learn skills, like, how do you actually make music? How do you DJ? How do you do these different things? And so I essentially just picked it up as a hobby is like, I really want to have a way to like share music with people and stitch music together and kind of curate this experience. And I ended up meeting my Now husbands through, through that hobby. He was actually finishing up his senior year of college at that point in time. I mean, he was interning at this school and he was teaching one of the Friday workshops that I that I went to before the workshop started, I overheard him saying to someone that he was from North Carolina. And as you know, we were talking about the beginning of this recording, I also grew up in North Carolina. So of course, I'm like, what? You, you grew up in North Carolina? What do you mean? We're in Massachusetts. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we, you know, started talking, but we didn't really pursue anything until a few months later when we both volunteered at a weeklong music festival that the school put on every single year that brought together different, you know, DJs and music producers to play at venues across the city for a whole week. And then during the day, they would have events like panels and record fairs and roller discos and, you know, really cool things like that. And so we volunteered as part of that festival together and got to know each other. and went on our first date, like 2 weeks after, and we're actually celebrating our 10 year anniversary next week. Um, we got married last fall. Um, but anyway, that's how I met my husband. But I, um, I DJed a good amount before the pandemic. 

I DJed some parties and when I was in graduate school when my classmates got wind that I knew how to DJ, they were like, well, for all the parties and the school events for conference mixers, they would kind of call me to come and be the DJ. And so that was just, you know, a really fun period. I don't really DJ anymore, not really since the pandemic, to be honest, but music is definitely a big part of my day to day life. Like, I listen to music all the time. I still love to just find new music, um, and the guitar you're seeing behind me is not mine. I sadly do not play guitar, it is my husband's. But hey, you know, there. Well that's cool though. I, I love it too. Like, I always love like, I get in like rhythms, right? So it's like I'm we're listening to music. Laura and I are big music people too, and it's like, oh, I need to find new things. Like every 6 months, I have to, I have to find something new. And so I will just be like on Spotify hunting it down. So I don't know how, how do you find new music? Great question. Um, probably, probably honestly on Spotify now, we have it a little easier. Is this unfair. You're like hoping that you're downloading the right thing first of all, and then second of all, you don't even know, jeez, it really takes you back, Limewire, um. But yeah, all right, all right, back to you, Laura, back to you. All right. Another interesting thing, the Sims, this is, we have dated ourselves so much in the show. I know. Yeah, it's OK, all good. The Sims, yeah, exactly. It was a little game where you watch a little guy in a house and, you know, just basically watch a little guy in a house. And so how, how has playing The Sims so much influenced how you approach planning and designing your work today? Yeah, I really love that you're asking me about these two things because people who know me are in my professional capacity are always like head exploding when they're like, wait, you DJ and you play video games in your spare time. It's like it's just very much outside of what I do on a professional level. I know, and I like this question because and kudos for putting it together for us.

He probably has no idea what this game is, um. Um, but I love that sometimes I'll be doing something on repeat and I will think of The Sims, and I'm like, I'm just following the pattern, right? So I'm curious to know your answer. Yeah, yeah. I mean, The Sims, I think I first started playing The Sims when I was like 11 years old, and I still play every now and then. Like, I kind of go through waves, like every year or so I'll go through like a 4 month stint where I'm just like, I'm just playing Sims, then I kind of like go dark. On it for a while. But I mean, that game has evolved so much over time. I think they're on like Sims 4, like soon to release Sims 5. And so it's just like, this game is so deep and it's, you can play it at so many different scales, you know, whether you're just really interested in creating the characters that you then play with or building and designing houses, or, you know, really thinking about it at a, at like a neighborhood or city scale and how you're programming it. So when I first started playing the game as a kid, I remember my mom used to work at a Home Depot for a bit. And so I spent a lot of time kind of meandering around Home Depot stores after school. And I remember I was flipping through a book of floor plans and I was like, I want this book so that I can go home and I can build these houses on the Sims. And my mom is, of course, like, what is my like 12 year old child doing with this like book of floor plans that she wants to use for her game? But I kind of credit the game. as without me really realizing it, getting me into the field of urban planning and really architecture and design more broadly, I so often just think that the things that we enjoy doing as children really have ways of appearing later in life and are really good indicators for what we might excel at and enjoy in our professional, um, lives. So I kind of joke like, Sims got me into architecture. If you remember the game Zoo Tycoon, that got me into biology. I'm like learning about all the animals. So, you know, it's like, you know, like, and again, I already mentioned like the interest in music from being a kid. So it's kind of like the different areas of my personality, whether that's my, you know, hobbies, personal life, um, professional life kind of really started in my younger years. So yeah, I still play The Sims every now and then, um, I still play the Sims. I thought that was like ancient history. Oh no, I learn a large community around that game for sure. It's like it's own soap opera in a way. 

I don't even know how to describe it. It's its own thing, it's own entity, so to speak. It really is. And there are lots of different ways to play it too, you know, different, um, like I said, different scales, but also different approaches to the game. And so when I play, I feel like I'm very much like, how do I make these neighborhoods really well rounded with different like places to eat and parks and like it's very nice building an ideal city, yes, and then going to work the next day and being like, oh, it's not that easy. I can't just a lot. Yeah, oh, that's, that's fantastic. That's great. I love that. Running out of time, Nick. We are, we are running out of time, which is a really a bummer. It's amazing how fast these things go. So, before we let you go, is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to bring up? I think we've covered a lot of ground. I think just for folks who are, you know, pursuing environmental fields, I always try to talk to the, you know, young people that reach out to me for career advice about, you know, what direction they could take, and so I feel like my last sendoff is just that. Like, there are so many ways to apply different skills in the environmental field and so many different interests within that. So I just, you know, if anyone is interested in learning more about the work that I do, feel free to reach out to me. But yeah, just like think about what your passion is, think about what skills you enjoy and How you might be able to merge those together, whether that's working on sustainability issues or decarbonization and mitigation or coastal resilience or climate resilience more broadly, there are just so many different avenues and different approaches that you can take, like if you're into like comms or art or things like that. Yeah, I think there's just so many creative ways that you can apply it to the environmental field in ways you might not expect. That's a great answer. And last but not least, where can people get in touch with you if they'd like to reach out? Yeah, feel free to email me at Catherine.McCandless2@boston.gov. Yeah, I'm also number one, but when I left the, yeah, I'm also #1, but when I came back to the city a few years after leaving, they had to give me a new email address. So don't forget that so typical government. That's crazy, yeah. 

Thank you so much, Catherine, for being here. We had a great time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. That's our show. Thank you, Catherine, for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye. Yeah, everybody