BuildingWell Episode 2 Transcript

0:00 Music plays

0:02 Lisa Reed (LR)
We’re not greenwashing anything because it’s just is what we are. We’re not doing other stuff and then making it seem kind of green just so that people will buy it. It’s real, true green building because we were born out of green building and nothing else.

0:16 Music plays

0:18 Michelle Moran (MM)
Welcome to BuildingWell: Sustainable Homes, Equitable Communities, your new podcast from New Ecology. Join us as we explore real life stories from key players in green building and community development. We’ll examine exciting new innovations, highlighting practical solutions for creating more affordable, healthier, more resilient equitable communities. We’re building well together.


0:44 Alina Michelewicz (AM)
Welcome to the BuildingWell Podcast by New Ecology. I’m Alina Michelewicz. I’ll be your host for the podcast today. I’m the Principal Director of Finance here at New Ecology, and I’ll be interviewing Lisa Reed, who’s a project manager in our green building department in the Baltimore office. She’s an expert in building certifications and green building processes and construction.


1:10
And we’ll also have Michelle Moran, who’s my wonderful Co-host and Senior Associate of Marketing here at New Ecology talking about her trajectory into the field of green building and decarbonization as well.


1:23
So we’ll be interviewing both of them today to talk about their career, trajectories into green building and different ways you could get into the field if you’re looking to get into it, or to expand your career if you’re already in the green building field.


1:38
We’ll also get into what it’s like to be a woman in the field, advice on how to advance your career and how to get into the field in the 1st place, as well as some fun tidbits. Well, let’s get into it.


1:51
Lisa, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your background, educational and work background and how you ended up at new ecology.


1:59 LR
Yeah, great. Thanks for having me!


2:02
I began my architecture career, which was the first step towards kind of a green building career in undergraduate. I did a series of sort of stepping in and then stepping back out of architecture. So I stepped in, beginning with a Bachelor of Architecture degree and decided that I wanted to study a lot more things other than the architecture.


2:28
So I stuck back out and I studied French and I studied Western Civil and I studied general subjects and got a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Kansas. So I lived in the world for a while I after I graduated from undergraduate, I moved and I I’d actually got a job.


2:50
I used the willing markers for appropriate technology for them, which is like directly linked to the WWOFie like the organic farming listserv or whatever you call those things.


3:02
And I got a job as a helper for a really small scale photovoltaics installer and wrap in Lake Tahoe.


3:11
So it’s super fun.


3:12
I lived in a tent for months and like installed solar panels on cool little mountain buildings and that was really, really fun.


3:21
So I could have just kind of taken off with that.


3:24
But instead I decided to go back and get a master’s degree in architecture.


3:29
So I like, went big again.


3:31
And I didn’t focus just on sustainable design and I did a design build program.


3:35
It was like a 3 1/2-year long master’s degree back at the University of Kansas.


3:41
I graduated. Obviously I was getting more experience in the realm of design and kind of community design.  I started being involved in preservation projects and I moved to the Mid-Atlantic where there was tons of denser cities and and more opportunities to travel and to get deep into communities.

4:06
I got my first job as an architect in Baltimore City, where I had a huge breadth of an amazing amount of building types.


4:16
So project types like schools and housing, regular kind of commercial office spaces, but also civic buildings and theatres.


4:26
And it was really a great experience always with kind of a foot into like the green sector.


4:33
I felt like for me it was more important to work on all the projects rather than kind of zeroing in on the green building sector.


4:40
Because at that point there was, you know, I started in as an architect in 2006 and so it was a little less comprehensive, Lead was taking off.


4:50
There was a lot of like recycled materials conversations and like those kind of choices and it wasn’t so systemic.


4:57
And so if you weren’t looking at like energy conservation on a really kind of like cool broad scale and community scale so far as that’s happening today.


5:09
So I just went full bore in all different types of architecture and I moved to another firm.


5:16
I had experience in healthcare and I basically just like really wanted to hone in into the green building industries, technical advancements.


5:29
Like I felt like I was missing a deep understanding of sort of building science, which we do at New Ecology and how that can kind of tie into communities.


5:39
And I saw this posting for this job.


5:43
I knew already a couple people who worked in this Mid-Atlantic office and I just like, dove right in.


5:49
It also pulled me out of it, pulled me away from huge projects where I was in charge of every single piece and I just, I had to like be relying on consultants and engineers for all the pieces.


6:02
Instead, I’m like on the consultant side now and it’s really interesting and I feel like I’m just only becoming a better architect.


6:09
I don’t feel like I’ve moved careers.


6:11
I’m still an architect.


6:12
I just am even getting better every day because that’s what it’s about.


6:17
And I feel like I’m able to quantify my green building contributions, I guess you could say, because I can see energy benefits and I can see certifications and why they matter and how they help clients and how they help residents.


6:33
I feel like I got back to my roots and all I did was just amass like an huge amount of experience on the way.


6:40 AM
That’s awesome. I really want to hear more about this tent living in Tahoe situation, but we’ll maybe leave that for another time. But that’s, that’s really interesting that it really feels like an extension of the work you were already doing as an architect and really diving and that’s, that’s very cool to hear.


7:01
Michelle, could you tell us a little bit about your career trajectory into your role here at New Ecology as a senior associate of Marketing?


7:09 MM
Sure. Thank you, Alina. And thanks, Lisa, for your background. That was really interesting.


7:14
So I went to college for arts. I got a Bachelor of Arts specifically in history and English at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. And back at that time, it was kind of, as Lisa mentioned earlier, the beginning stages of the sustainable development, green building idea.


7:31
It was the first time I even saw single stream recycling, just to give you some context.


7:36
So it wasn’t really a thing yet.


7:37
So I went through, I did my Bachelor of Arts, and when I graduated it was 2010, which was right in the middle of our last recession.


7:46
So there were slim pickings for jobs.


7:49
I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to go into a master’s program yet.


7:52
What I did know is that I wanted to work at a small place and preferably A nonprofit, just because I knew that’s, that’s my people. That’s where I’m most comfortable.


8:00
I went through a few temp jobs right out of college because, like I said, it was the middle of the last recession. But I eventually landed at a place called Conservation Services Group. It was a small nonprofit. They don’t exist anymore, and they facilitated many aspects of the Mass Save program, the Mass Save program is in Massachusetts.


8:15
It’s a program that provides incentives and loans and other things for energy efficiency improvements. Air sealing and insulation are the main things, but they also provide 0% interest loans for HVAC improvements, which is the group that I worked in.


8:30
It was called the Heat loan and it still exists today. So that’s where I really got a taste of this industry. It was all HVAC related. We would make sure that these improvements were within the realm of the program.


8:41
They had to have a certain efficiency rating, but something that kept coming up year after year was Massachusetts was always in the number one, two or three spot for the most energy efficient states in the country.


8:51
And that was really great and it made us feel at Mass Save like what we were doing had a huge impact and we were actually helping real people and we would hear the stories from these real people that would call in through the programs and it was great and I loved that, absolutely loved that.


9:05
So I held on to that a little bit. I eventually left CSG and Mass Save, you know did a few other things. I ended up landing at a small business where I was selling basically these, the energy efficiency products, the insulation etcetera.


9:19
It wasn’t really a great fit for me, but I learned how to talk about how cool some of this stuff is, so I was getting another taste of this field.


9:26

Then eventually I saw this great job posting that looks like it was right up my alley at New Ecology at the time. It was for what is now called the ReMO program, Remote Monitoring and Optimization.


9:36
Basically we would monitor the gas use at large multifamily buildings and try to make small improvements that are sustainable for these people to save energy without having to invest in new equipment.


9:48
So I did that for a few years here and then I slowly started working on marketing, case studies, social media, other things, which ties back into that, bragging about how great of a job we’re doing to talk about all these wonderful things we’re doing, all these savings we’re achieving both energy savings and money savings and how it impacts the people.


10:07
So eventually that’s how I transitioned into the marketing side of things. I love talking about all these projects that we’re doing and building relationships with our clients and partners and communities.


10:16
So that’s my story.


10:17AM
It’s interesting how you made the transition from an undergrad and arts and history and then found yourself in this field, which I think people think of as very technical.


10:28
And we talk about the engineers or the architects or like people who have like a lot of this really specific skills.


10:34
But there’s a lot of ways to get into the industry or an organization like New Ecology, even without technical expertise in green building, myself included.


10:43
I went to undergrad for International Development and social change.


10:47
I was doing some work in Haiti at the time, a project for teacher training for elementary school teachers, and that’s one of the things I was working on. But then I realized throughout my undergrad that I wanted to not work internationally.


11:01
I wanted to work domestically, and so I went to a master’s degree programs, also at Clark for Community Development and Planning, which was a variety of courses about nonprofit management, community organizing, and community development, Some urban planning classes as well.


11:17
After school I ended up working at a for profit organization called Koya Leadership Partners which was an executive search firm where the clients were profits, but it was a for profit organization. I worked there for a number of years and eventually realized I wanted to get back in the nonprofit sector, which was what I had originally thought I would be doing.


11:36
So I ended up applying to New Ecology so I could get back into nonprofit finance.


11:41
At that point, I had gained a lot of accounting background and financial management.


11:46
So it was great to get back into community development or development adjacent field and be able to contribute with my financial management expertise.


11:55
So I think it’s, it’s interesting how you can do a lot in green building that’s not technical or on a job site or those kinds of things, awesome.


12:04
So that’s that’s us three. Thanks for sharing guys!


12:08
Lisa, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about how your work at New Ecology fits in with your personal mission. And I know you mentioned that you enjoy the practical applications of the work you do here. So I wondered if you could talk a little bit about like the practical versus conceptual applications and how you determined where you would personally best fit in to the work.


12:30 LR
So I think the step right before New Ecology was the biggest part of my career as an architect. It was not community oriented.


12:42
I was doing some healthcare and I I was detailing an MRI room and I was like real obsessed with laying out the receptacles and coordinating the all the weird cool stuff that you have to detail when it comes to an MRI room.


12:57
And then I was just like, I have a lot of energy and I’m fairly intense. So what is this directed energy for? Like it’s exciting. Hospitals and Healthcare is super necessary and exciting, yes. But I was just like I need to touch the humans a little bit more and I think I need to get into something that first of all, I feel like I could make a difference.


13:22
So I I just I saw this job opening and like I said I can get really intense and I can get jobs done.


13:30
And I now I use that intensity and all the experience and knowledge about like construction, big projects, small projects, messy renovation projects.


13:41
And I can just immediately use that experience working for people who not only are working for sometimes.


13:48
A lot of the times it’s, it’s a conscientious developer or it’s for an agency that’s providing assistance to buildings that are going to be directed for low income housing.


14:00
It’s actually measuring all different kinds of pieces of the building construction industry that is touching global warming and everything is really worthwhile to me.


14:12
It was basically I need to devote this energy that I have to something that is worthwhile to me. And green building industry has always mattered to me. And so I feel like it’s involved so much.


14:24
And so I’m like looking forward to being a part of it and to like helping it develop further group at New Ecology.


14:32 AM
That’s really interesting. You mentioned wanting to be closer to the human beings, right? And can you talk about some of the ways that you interact with that element in this role, like you mentioned, conscientious developers or contributing to the community?


14:47 LR
That’s a really interesting question because as an architect you actually typically do a lots of interacting with the community, with your owners, with your people. You help develop programs. If you are for a building, you help layout spaces.


15:01
And I’m not doing that.


15:02
So what I feel like I’m doing is instead of doing all the things like I said before, I am really specifically making sure that this is going to sound cheesy, that a person sitting in the room after a hard day at work isn’t getting error info filtration.


15:18
They’re not cold, they’re more comfortable, they could maybe save on electricity or gas bills.


15:25
And I I just feel like it’s really deep into the details of the building rather than on the larger scale. And so I am actually not dealing exactly with the people in the building anymore. I’m not deciding how their kitchen is laid out, but I’m maybe helping a developer who needs funding by reaching certain green goals get that building done.


15:52
Because, because we can help them hit certain certifications that they need to do and make sure that their design team is following all the courses of action they need to do to be able to reach those goals.


16:01
So it’s, it’s really different. It’s not so much touching the people, it’s touching them in different ways.


16:06 AM
Yeah. It’s like ensuring that the buildings happen.


16:11 LR

16:15 AM
Yeah. And then also the quality of life of existing in those buildings, rather than how you interact with the space, but how you feel, feel in the space almost.


16:20 LR
Thank you for clearing that for me. It’s hard to describe, but it does feel. It feels very necessary and it feels like a good connection for me.


16:26 AM
Yeah, nice. I love that.


16:29
Michelle, what about you? How do you feel that your role connects with your personal mission?


16:34 MM
Great question, Alina. Thank you. I guess I’ll just go back into a little bit of my history to answer that question.


16:40
When I first started in the HEAT Loan program, I understood what a great program it is and how much impact it had. And I spoke to customers all day every day, but it was I didn’t make a lot of connections with people. People would call in and ask a question and then that was it.


16:53
So I loved the idea and the impact, but it was a little bit lonely filling out paperwork all day and it was actual paperwork back then, not digital paperwork.


17:00
So then in other roles that I had at Mass Save, I connected a lot more with especially contractors that participated in these programs.


17:07
And it was great because not only did I get to see the impact that program was having, but I got to see the impact on all of our clients.


17:13
You know, these are all small businesses and they all have families and they’re all personally invested in this stuff and it also financially invested in this stuff.


17:20
So the success of the program means success for everybody. It’s great.


17:23
When I came to New Ecology, I was in a program support kind of role, although as you know at a nonprofit you’re kind of a Jack of all trades. So I was involved in a lot of stuff.


17:31
The program specific stuff was great. I got to connect again with our clients and see the savings and then it was also we are also starting to hear from tenants in some of these multifamily buildings that had a great experience because some small change that our team made.


17:45
I realized that although I’m consider myself an introvert, I love making one-on-one connections. I love making personal connections and I feel like my marketing role is just an expansion of that.


17:54
Although when I write a case study or make something for social media, it’s not necessarily sharing it directly to you Lisa or to you Alina.


18:00
You see people’s reactions. You see how cool everybody thinks it is. And you see how proud, proud both our, you know, teams, our project managers, etcetera, how proud they are of the project, but also the clients who own the buildings, who always interact with their tenants day-to-day.


18:13
They’re so proud of the impact we’ve had. So I guess that’s how this ties into my personal mission. I love, again, as I said before, I love bragging about all the great work that we do. I love talking about how cool some of the innovative stuff that we have done is.


18:25
And I also even like talking about the lessons learned, the things that didn’t quite work out, because I think it’s important for us to talk about that freely so that other people can learn, you know, failures and always failures. Sometimes it’s a learning experience, which is great.


18:37 LR
Can I jump in here, Alina?


18:38 AM
Absolutely.


18:39 LR
So Michelle, you’re reminding me of something that I didn’t bring up when we talked about this before. This is reminding me of greenwashing.


18:47
So big architecture firms may have, you know, like the green division and it might be, you know, greenwashing. It’s, it’s always marketing, your marketing, your green, your sustainable work because it’s a buzzword.


19:00
And Michelle, I feel like you have the actual opportunity to be the marketing real work.


19:07
We’re not greenwashing anything because it’s just is what we are. It’s just what New Ecology does. We’re not doing other stuff and then making it seem kind of green just so that people will buy it.


19:17
It’s real true green building because we were born out of green building and nothing else that has actually really hits home for me so far as why I kind of wanted to focus in on this or work at New Ecology, it’s, it’s really specific. You’re not just making a green component, some other piece.

19:35 AM

Yeah, yeah,

19:40 MM

We call it marketing, but it’s not really marketing in the traditional sense. I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m just trying to show some cool stuff.


19:43 AM
Yeah, so true and, and push the industry forward. Like I feel a lot of our marketing is helping the green building industry get to the next step, get to the next place where we need to go to further the impact, which just as you guys said like single stream recycling was like barely a thing or it’s come a really long way in the last 15, however many years.


20:07
And that’s partly because of the work that folks like New Ecology are doing or more specifically like you’re doing, Michelle, getting the case studies out there for people to access or pushing forward the workforce development initiatives.


20:20
And I know you do that too, Lisa. Like on the sites, you’re talking to people and helping them understand like if we do this in this scenario, this will help with the energy efficient down the line.


20:31
And so there’s a lot that we’re doing I think to push the industry forward and that’s, that’s the marketing.


20:37 LR
Yeah. And when I first came out in the field and even just in the field of architecture, it was starting to do sort of like a little bit of green washing.


20:46
But the, the tools of green building were so much have been so much more refined and broadened and and they encompassed so much more of a community like sustainable design encompasses like city master plans now and resiliency studies that are regional.


21:03
So when I first came, I just didn’t want to stay like only green building because I needed to learn about like construction industry and our design industry. And now I’m back into this little tiny pocket of it.


21:16
But the tools are extremely diverse, and you can come at sustainable design from so many different angles.


21:23 AM
Yeah, there’s a lot of opportunity now, and there’s a lot of types of roles. I think in the field we’re just talking like about operations and then the architecture and project planning. But we also have a lot of engineers. We even have people who code and do software development on staff. And so there’s like a lot of variety in how you can plug into this work.


21:44
On that note, what advice would you have for someone who’s looking to get into the field as a young professional or recent college graduate, for example?


21:54 LR
So there’s new programs at most schools. Schools are developing programs that will help you test out some of your ideas. I feel like the opportunities for coursework is way more diverse. But I think what we’re saying in this between the three of us, I think you can come about your, you can study, you can still study a lot of different things and come and just find a company.


22:20
Because a company, a business is, includes all the different kinds of it. It needs business people, it needs marketing people, it needs accountants, it needs it all. So you can, you know come into the green building field from everywhere.


22:34
I don’t really have any really great advice. I just know that it’s much larger than when I first started and you can get really specific education in it as well.


22:43 MM
And as Lisa said, there’s a lot of specific educational tracks and things you can do. And then there’s also kind of these a la carte items like the way that Alina and I entered the field and even you Lisa. But I was struck with some of our newer early stage career, people that we haven’t New Ecology.


22:59
I heard a few people say, like I was 12 years old and I saw a presentation by a lady who was in the sustainable building field and that’s when I knew that’s what I wanted to do. And I was just, that was so inspiring because I still don’t know what I want to do now. But back then, I can’t imagine like deciding right away that that’s what I want to do forever. And that’s amazing to see.


23:15
I spoke to some of these early career professionals that we have here at New Ecology just to get a sense of what’s around. Now, one of them actually mentioned that some high schools now have environmental science classes, which is amazing. So environmental science class is a great start as early as high school, but it might be earlier in some districts, we never know.


23:31
And then obviously the secondary education undergrad, there’s a lot of courses now, as Lisa mentioned, I got a few examples from one of our local schools. UMass Amherst is one of the biggest schools here in Massachusetts. Some, some degree programs that they have include: building and construction technology, which has a strong focus on sustainability and building sustainable community development, environmental science, and natural resource conservation.


23:54
So those are some degree tracks, undergrad degree tracks. And then beyond that, there’s lots of internships and fellowships, which you could have majored in environmental science or maybe like me, you majored in history or something totally random, but you’re still interested in the field.


24:09
The Mass Clean Energy Center is a great one. They do internships. I believe it’s quarterly or biannually.


24:14
NESEA, which is a big conference and nonprofit around here, They do an emerging professionals track for early career professionals.


24:22 LR
That’s a great idea.


24:23 MM

They, it has scholarships, mentorships, opportunities, everything. And that’s just educational.


24:28
What I, my biggest piece of advice for everybody in this field or pretty much everywhere but in this field, is to just take as many classes as you can, even if you don’t understand the topic, even if you think it’s too technical. It sinks in eventually, and I’m sure that you both can attest to this. Like, I didn’t know what LEED was or WELL or Passive House and I just learn as much as I can and it’s great.


24:49 AM
Yeah, thanks for that information. That’s great. It reminded me we actually do have internships here at New Ecology sometimes, usually summer fall. So if anyone’s listening and interested in that, you could check out our careers page or even e-mail us at careers@newecology.org.


25:07
We’re always looking for interns, but that’s a really good way to get some experience in the field, as well as the educational ways that Michelle mentioned. I also want to emphasize that you don’t necessarily need a degree, an undergraduate degree to get into green building. And I think that’s important to note since not everybody can access higher education.


25:28
We do have some roles at New Ecology, but I’m sure across the field there’s other opportunities as well. One of the ways folks can get into this field is actually through operational positions.


25:40
For example, like an entry level accounting position. You might just need an Associates or even just some classes in accounting or HR is another way, or office management. Those kinds of positions are a great way to enter the field and especially if you find an organization that’s willing to invest in your professional development, you can pursue further education and passive house or lead or any other kind of more technical green building side.


26:09 LR
That’s a really good thing to to plug. Like you know you just maybe you find at least that it’s on the fringe of something that you’re really interested in and you find a company that supports professional development like that’s key, it’s important and it it it shows that people believe in you. And that is actually something that I should mentioned from the very beginning. As you find a, you find a company and try try your best to find a company that believes in you and then you can hopefully take it from there.


26:37 AM
Definitely. And I think that’s a great thing about New Ecology too is that we we invest a lot in professional development and I think that’s in alignment with our mission as a nonprofit that we can invest in people advancing their careers, advancing the field.


26:51
So I would definitely to emphasize what you said, Lisa. Look for an organization that’s willing to invest in you and is, is growing or is innovative, that’s trying to push the envelope a little bit because that’s going to push you as well as a professional. You’re going to feel like your career is moving forward if the company that you’re at is moving forward.


27:14
All right. I want to get into something and I don’t want to put you on the spot, Lisa, but I’m curious if you have any advice specifically for women as they try to enter a male dominated field.


27:26 LR
Yeah, I do. Sure.


27:30
My experience was not directly into like specifically green building or straight onto a construction site like we talked about. It was in an architecture firm where a fairly, maybe not 50%, but a pretty high percentage of the employees at my firm were female. Maybe it’s a different kind of standard than what you’d find on a job site or in the construction industry in general.


27:59
But I think that it’s really important as a female in this industry, in a male dominated industry, to just sort of recognize your real strengths, even if your strengths are, differ from what might be the sort of masculine vibe or the ways of tackling problems on a job site or on a design project in an office for anything.


28:25
Just recognize what your strengths are because that is what people need from you and that’s that’s what you want to build on. That’s how you advance your career, you you recognize your strengths. So that aside, I know that my salary was something I had to fight for and I sort of fought in a masculine way for it.


28:47
After having worked at a firm for so long and checking all the boxes, I could see that I was not getting a promotion or a raise that I absolutely should have been given and saw a couple of mail counterparts who had who are advancing. And I basically demanded it. I said and that the firm happened to be going through some stuff. And so I basically kind of said I need this.


29:16
It’s fair you need me because and the, my boss said, oh, actually, you know if you leave us other people will leave. And I was like uh, huh. So I I sort of pulled a little bit of a, in my opinion kind of a male strategy for that one. Just basically saying you like look at me, you need me give me more money.


29:38
And it worked. So that was kind of that was kind of nice, that was not my not my comfort zone. And so that’s sort of I know sort of good for me. I needed to get there somehow. And so I did that and it was not comfortable and I did it and it worked.


29:54
But I go back to trying to recognize your strengths. Another example, so this is also when I was an architect, I was coming to a job site. The job started at the very beginning of the pandemic and it had a very, very hard deadline for occupancy that they had to have people in.


30:12
It was a medical office building and it was very, very stressful because it was you know the beginning things were delayed, the the, the, the Super strong construction team was like at their wits end trying to make things work to be able to stay on schedule with this.


30:26
And everyone knows of all the mayhem that was happening in the construction industry at that time. And I was the only woman typically on like in the trailer. Once we came back with our masks to the trailer to the job site, I was the only woman. And you know there are some smart great guys and I just like I’m air quoting mommed them a little bit like I’m very service oriented.


30:56
I want to get the answers that they need. I want to make the project run smoothly. I don’t… I in this situation I didn’t need to be like I didn’t need to wrestle my my authority or any in any way. I like a little bit mommed them because I’m I’m caring. I listen, they were upset, you know they would get all out of whack.


31:18
You know the old guy would get even grumpier. The young guys would just be like flying off the handle like standing and running around because things weren’t being delivered. And I I like, used my, you know my gift for being kind of diffuse the situation and lay out things that I could do to help. And I and I really, think they’ve really, really appreciated me because I wasn’t being dead just like one more ******* in the room.


31:50 AM
I think that’s like so true in a way, though. It’s like there’s many different ways to interact with this situation and I don’t want to like generalize too much, but I think, like, women do have sometimes a more caring, empathetic way of going about things.


32:06 LR
If you don’t, that’s fine, you know, it doesn’t matter. It’s just I recognized my gift and my strength to this this kind of tough situation and I feel like I did a great job and maybe it’s a feat, more female way of going about it. And it didn’t make me lose footing in the room, or at least I didn’t think it made me lose footing because I wasn’t trying to be the ultimate boss of them, you know?


32:35
Yeah, if I was, if I felt like I needed to, then that maybe it wouldn’t have been my strategy to like be really nice to them and like ask them how they’re doing. But yeah.


32:43 AM
I have a follow up question, if you don’t mind.


32:46 LR
Yeah, sure.


32:47 AM
I feel like there’s like a thing that can happen where women, you get like put in this situation of like being expected to be the, the, I don’t know, the people organizer or like the emotional support or like, like the emotional labor that like a lot of women kind of get asked to do on top of their job to do that, right? Well, I mean that’s kind of like maybe home life too. I guess when you think about it, did it feel like that or was it just kind of like this is my strength and this is how I can contribute? Not like I have to.


33:23 LR
They wanted me to no, this this was a really good opportunity to do it because they weren’t asking me to do that. Like they didn’t need me to be that. They just needed me to give them the color of the metal panel, you know, so and like help figure out how when they have to change these materials because they’re not coming, like what are they going to be?


33:41
So like really my my job was more technical and I had the answers and I worked with them on that piece. I just added that part and they weren’t. They didn’t expect me to be that at all this because they don’t expect that in the trailer. So that’s why I’m trying to say like that was something I could contribute, like because it was sort of a natural thing that I felt like needed to be there.


34:01
And normally I would keep that in. I was just telling my husband how to write an e-mail recently and I said, put a whole bunch of, put a couple of exclamation, exclamation points in there, like, be like, lady, a little bit, like, be a little feminine, like be kind of like exuberant. And he was like, what are you talking about?


34:23
And I said, I spend all day like taking an exclamation point out, taking out, oh, I’m sorry. Like, also there’s that I’m sorry I didn’t get the stuff. Like, don’t include that sentence in your e-mail. Like that is a quote kind of feminine way to to respond to something and I’ve spent a lot of time erasing that from my sort of business-like mode

35:20 AM

Yeah me too.


34:58
And in this case I just felt like it worked to just be fine just let them have a little comforting for me and that was that was just like one area. I think it’s it’s good practice to try to stay male and business relations I think you are probably you’re you can be more respected I mean there’s a lot of there’s a lot of benefit to taking some emotion out of you know daily daily back and forth with for office environment for sure One thing that I really like to do is provide a really high level of service in a lot of different ways in my life.


35:29
If that’s a feminine thing, then I I should realize that and I should not. I should not feel bad that I also planned the parties, you know, for the office. And I it’s fine. I enjoy it. It’s fine. It’s something I can contribute. It’s necessary at a job and I should get paid the same amount of money as everyone else, you know, because there’s all that.


35:54
That piece of the work environment is also important. It’s an important piece to be, you know, maybe compassionate or thoughtful or what else. I’m absolutely generalizing. You can’t ask that question without us generating what is female, what is male, which is you know especially today like not really a a topic anymore, right.


36:19 AM
Right. Yes, we’re making a binary out of it for sure. And, but I think that that’s really important what you said about like organizing parties for the office, but it’s not that you’re expected to it’s that you enjoy it and people are grateful and like they they’re not assuming you’re doing it on top of your other responsibilities without being grateful.


36:41
You know what I mean? It’s like there’s a difference there of like I’m doing something that maybe is perceived as more feminine or womanly but but it’s being appreciated rather than assumed like those are that’s a really different feeling, right?


36:55 LR
Right. And I’ve talked to a lot of construction like specifically construction based with company leaders or contractors on a that were a different scale than on my previous job. My architectural, like, the building scale was much bigger, but I’ve talked to a lot of like general contractors on like much smaller residential projects that’ll have like a girl in the office that does all my paperwork.


37:19
You know, that kind of stuff is just super lame. And you know, she’s your business partner and she probably makes sure the business runs. Your girl in your office literally takes care of the business. But yeah and I think it’s it’s kind of nice to stand up when you hear people say that like make fun of them or whatever you need to do to say what you need to do to stand up for your fellow ladies in in business world.


37:46
This is one one more thing to just to just mention I fell back on the title architect a lot when I would go on on job sites and now I’m my title is a project manager, still an architect. But I am very focused on this, on this consultant piece where we’re doing testing and verification and we’re very envelope oriented and it’s a huge, much more specific task rather than sort of being in charge of the entire project.


38:17
So I’m also a project manager and I’m working with a rater, the raters, the person talking to them like while they’re doing their job and talking to them on how it goes. I am the coordinator of that and even though I do a lot of like plan and spec review and I try to get things ready for the rater.


38:37
And by the time they’re there in the construction field, like when on the on the construction site I come in and I kind of I do my own little site visits and come to the meetings. But I’m looked at as a little bit of a paper pusher because I’m more an administrative task and that’s that’s new to me.


38:56
And I can easily get a chip on my shoulder that it’s like male versus female. But I think I, I also, even if it was just like a room full of construction women, I like they would still look at me like a paper pusher. And I feel like when you’re in the middle of some serious work that’s hands on related, it’s more like the tradesman versus the office person. So that’s even starting to veer towards I happen to be a woman in this position and so I feel like it’s male versus female.


39:26
So if you think that this that some kind of tension is male versus female, I don’t know if it always is. It’s can just be like what job you hold and what you’re telling like if that person thinks you should have authority over over them or not. But the paper pusher position is tough for me right now.


39:47 AM
Yeah.


39:48 LR
And I think that we probably don’t have time to get in this episode, but that gets into like the structural and systematic ways that women get put into certain roles like absolutely the quote girl in the office or or in the paper pusher position now rather than tradesmen.


40:04 AM
Mhm, yeah. And so that could be a whole another episode to talk about why that happens. But yeah, I could see how that that would like impact how you feel about it. It like based on what role you’re in, if you’re more of the architect versus project manager. I mean, obviously you’re both. But you’re….Yeah, it’s the way. It’s the way the title or they perceive you.


40:25 LR
Yeah. Mm hmm.


40:27 AM
Yeah, that’s really interesting,


40:32 LR
The gratitude for working with women. Like when another woman comes into the office and becomes part of your work group, the dynamic changes just a little bit in this really nice way and and it’s fine for you to be however you are. You don’t have to always be acting like a man in a male dominated field.


40:49
You can just be a woman, you can wear makeup or not wear makeup, it doesn’t matter. But we may have different conversations or different ways of dealing with a problem, for example, that are actually beneficial to the whole to the whole group.


41:03 AM
I love that, Yeah.


41:05 MM
Agreed. Lisa, I liked what you were saying earlier about how some people, especially in your current position, might see you as a paperwork person. They don’t necessarily think that you have the background. So being in the positions that I’ve held, that was how a lot of people perceived me, especially in my early career because it was you’re working with tons of different contractors, HVAC contractors, most of them were male, and they just saw us as the paperwork people, which we were.


41:26
But they soon realized we also are the administrators of the program. So, you know, we’re telling you what to do for a reason. So that that kind of stuff I, you know, it happens to everybody, I’m sure. I experienced it for sure.


41:37
Another thing that I struggled with, especially in my early career and definitely before New Ecology, was the professional development stuff we were talking about as a paperwork person. I just did air quotes too. People didn’t necessarily like understand why you would want to like take a BPI class or a LEED class or something like to further your own knowledge and education.


41:57
They were like, you don’t need that. New Ecology was the 1st place where I was like, oh, I’m, I’m really interested in this stuff. And New Ecology said yes, take the classes that you want to take, educate yourself, do what you want to do. It was amazing to have that support.


42:09
It’s really like expanded my horizons. And another piece of advice that I would have for pretty much everybody, but especially women, is if you can and if you’re fortunate enough to have a workplace mentor that you can work with, that is ideal. When I first started, I was fortunate enough to have Marty as my supervisor and she is amazing. She is so smart, she’s, she helped me a lot in my career and also we became good friends. It’s great to have a core group or a core person that you can just talk to you about everything.


42:38 AM
Yeah, that’s a great point. Yeah. Marty. Marty is our head of decarbonization. For anyone who’s listening and doesn’t know she’s, she’s truly amazing. I love Marty. She’s like kind of great inspiration and we’ll definitely have her on the pod too.


42:53 LR
And she has a huge breadth of knowledge like it expands multiple careers and all kinds of interesting things.


42:59 AM
Definitely. Well, I know you’ve got to go Lisa, to a site visit actually. So I want to thank you so much for your time and sharing your, your experiences with us, your trajectory and and your advice also is awesome.


43:12 LR
Yeah, thank you so much!


43:14 AM
Is there anything else you guys would like to add before we wrap up?


43:18 LR
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this and congratulations because it’s an, it’s a really good opportunity to get these conversations out there in the field.


43:26 MM
Yes, thank you. We are so excited. And thanks Lisa and Alina both for sharing about your experiences. It’s great and I’m sure other people have had the same experiences. It’s always nice to hear friends that have similar experiences to you.


43:37 AM
Definitely.


43:39
So you just heard from Lisa and Michelle about their career trajectories, and I wanted to share some additional resources. As you can tell, we all really like working at New Ecology, so if you’re interested in hearing more about the jobs that New Ecology has to offer, you can check out our website at newecology.org/category/jobs and that’s where you’ll find all of our open job postings.


44:05
You can also find them on our LinkedIn by searching New Ecology or going to linkedin.com/company/new-ecology.


44:15
And if you’d like, you can stay up to date with what’s going on at New Ecology through our newsletter. We also post all open positions in our newsletter, so that would be a great place to find out about recent openings. If you’re interested, that can be found at newecology.org/buildingwell.


44:33
We hope to see you on the next episode! Thanks.

44:35

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