Networking for your Next Job, Archaeology, and Career Development with Brandon Gabler

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 Brandon Gabler, Strategic Growth Director at SWCA and Treasurer for ACRA (American Cultural Resources Association)  about Networking for your Next Job, Archaeology, and Career Development.  Read his full bio below.

Special thanks to our sponsor for this episode SWCA Environmental Consultants - https://www.swca.com/

The SWCA Environmental Consultants (otherwise known as SWCA) has been helping clients across industries navigate environmental challenges for more than 40 years now. Founded in 1981, SWCA has grown from a small team in Flagstaff, Arizona, to become a global, 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm with more than 1,600 employees and 40 offices. Providing a full spectrum of environmental services – planning, natural and cultural resources management, permitting, regulatory compliance, water resources, ecological restoration, and disaster and resilience – SWCA is a recognized leader for bringing sound science and creative solutions to our clients throughout the United States and beyond.

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

Showtimes: 
2:47  Nic & Laura discuss leadership vs. management
9:48 Interview with Brandon Gabler starts
11:25  Networking for your next job
21:58  Archeology
25:39 . Career Development
37:32  Field Notes

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

Connect with Brandon Gabler at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-gabler-phd-rpa-76294b20/

Guest Bio:
An archaeologist with 20+ years of experience, Brandon Gabler is well-versed in cultural resources management. He earned a master’s and doctorate of anthropology from the University of Arizona, where he specialized in archaeology and ecological anthropology, and a dual bachelor’s in mathematics and anthropology/archaeology from Mercyhurst University. He has collaborated with State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) and Tribes in more than 30 states and worked directly with federal agencies during significant projects like the BP Deepwater Horizon spill. After years of honing his technical expertise, Brandon advanced his career in operational leadership, project management, and business development. The best part? Teamwork!

As a strategic growth director at SWCA, Brandon is focused on business development efforts in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes states while providing strategic planning, leadership, and mentorship for cultural resources employees in the region. Brandon also serves on the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) executive team as Treasurer and as a part of its Membership Committee.

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

Transcript

Laura  
Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite in Vermonters Nick and Laura on today's episode, Nick and I discuss leadership versus management. We talked to Brandon gobbler about networking through your next job archaeology and career development. And finally, Brandon said every archaeologist started out wanting to be a paleontologist. Here's some fun facts about paleontology. It is the study of the history of life on Earth as based on fossils. The term dinosaur was first coined by Richard Owen in 1824. And the Holy mammoth went extinct 2000 years after the pyramids were built. Interesting.

Nic  
You said holy, you did say Holy, holy mammoth,

Laura  
it says, holy, you signed holy

I guess doing my job and reading the notes. Why it says of all.

Unknown Speaker  
That's an outtake.

Nic  
While you name it as we all know

Laura  
blindly reading over here

okay, and the woolly mammoth went extinct 1000 years after the pyramids were built. How about that?

Unknown Speaker  
I was just gonna leave it. Yeah. Kinda.

Speaker 1  
I don't listen. So you know, whatever you do. Okay, is that music?

Nic  
That's WCA Environmental Consultants has been helping clients across industries navigate environmental challenges for more than 40 years now. Founded in 1981, as WCA has grown from a small team in Flagstaff, Arizona, to becoming a global 100% employee owned environmental consulting firm with more than 1600 employees and 40 offices, providing a full spectrum of environmental services planning, natural and cultural resources management, permitting regulatory compliance water resources, ecological restoration and disaster and resilience. SW CA is a recognized leader for bringing sound science and creative solutions to our clients throughout the United States and beyond. We're also excited to announce that EPR is hosting a second AMA on Wednesday, March 27, at 6pm Eastern. This ama will feature past guests from backgrounds and academia to target our students and career seeking listeners. It will be held on YouTube Live and you can head over to environmental specialists YouTube page right now and subscribe for notifications. Let's get to our segment. Like when there's a I've heard the phrase like when you have a challenge with a group or like a when when morale is low, right? The simplest way to change morale is changed leadership, almost always that changes the way things are done regardless of whether it's good or bad. It's just different. And I thought that was an interesting take. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. Because if you change morale, if you change leadership and it goes to a worse place, you will not improve morale. So I think that yeah, who said that? There was some one person on our meeting yesterday and I was like,

Laura  
I don't think changing leadership is an easy solution

Nic  
wasn't considered an easy, okay. That was something that would change morale regardless of whether it was the right thing to do and necessary thing to do. It's like if you change leadership, you change morale. Interesting. I think there's a truth to that. But it can change morale for the worse as well as for the better. Right? Yeah,

Laura  
it's have to be intentional. You can't just be like, well, let's just change it to anybody because then we'll just have different examples that make sense.

Nic  
This is interesting. I think like, you know, new leaders do change the way that groups work. And what one leader know represented is not the same, but another one is, when you have changes in leadership, I think they're always kind of it's a new puzzle. You

Laura  
see that less often in companies and you see that more often in nonprofits where they're changing. You know, if there's a board or something and you're changing the leadership every year or two, and it really does like, one year, morale and motivation is great. And the next year it's not and that's a lot of times just because of what again, back to role models, what is the leader doing, but they're not taking lead and doing something that no one else is either. So I think if a company decides to change leadership, it has to be very intentional and you don't want to remove someone who is creating. I mean, it's it goes more back to like what kind of culture do you want? And is there one leader who was leading you in that direction? Well, why would you get rid of them? Or replace them? You know, but you have to figure out which of the leaders are contributing to what you want and which ones aren't.

Nic  
Yeah, and I don't know like you say, we said we could come back to like leadership versus management but like see that's one of the challenges I think we see some leaders you know, it just it's like well, this is the stuff we have to get done and we need to execute it and so you're gonna do what I tell you to do cuts manage it, right you are you're task oriented, you're very short term focus. Very like I'm this is what needs to get done you need to do it. And it's a weird thing. And like another part of this that I thought of that I want your opinion on. It's like

Brandon Gabler  
teach leaders that they're coaching

Nic  
future leaders, and like good leaders spend them no, it's a it's a statistic, right? Who knows how true it is, but it's like, it's been 80% of the time training and coaching and 20% of the time executing. And I you know, even in my position, I have felt that I have very much felt like, Oh, I'm doing a lot more talking than I am typing, right, so to speak. So it kind of makes sense, but I don't know I wanted to hear your perspective on it. Is it is it really that graphic is there

Laura  
kind of makes sense but the same time a manager can be doing the same thing, manager can be delegating everything and then sitting back and just waiting for reports to roll in. So I think there's there's more to it than just like how much time you're doing versus how much time you're talking. But yeah, I mean, leaders are more concerned with the direction that everyone is headed. Manager just wants to know if the boxes have been checked in responsibilities and roles have been finished. So did you turn your reports in on time is this up to the quality of what we're supposed to be turning in but the leader says, okay, is this the quality of what we want to be turning in? And is it satisfying our client? And is my employee happy? And are we doing it efficiently? And you know, is this going to help us next quarter? And so I think really, managers are just a little bit more myopic. Than the leaders who have to look forward and say is the ship sailing in the right direction? Super

Nic  
well said like almost too well said. myopic companies the word

Laura  
word of the day, really is,

Nic  
but yeah, no, I appreciate that. Because I think that's a very good way of looking at it right like we're it's almost like a trying to see the forest through the trees, you know, kind of thing where it's very big pick because your matters, you know, you have to have both right. You have to have some awareness of short term, but it's not even thinking about long term you're in trouble.

Laura  
Yeah. So you know, and that doesn't mean because a manager if you're your manager, a lot of times, especially in environmental, you were hired to be a manager, it isn't your job to look forward towards the vision. However, some people are natural leaders and they're going to and for me, when I was managing my team, I was very much looking forward and saying, Okay, what projects can we get? So my employees stay satisfied, and they don't want to leave? You know? So it's just, it's a mindset, a lot of it

Nic  
is true. And you know, some people don't think about that people just like you say, it's automatic. It's like, I think with everything, you know, if you're an athlete or whatever it is. Everybody has a certain natural ability, right? Some people are better I think, than others. But it's true, true top of the craft, you know, regardless of what that craft is, almost always there are people who are dedicated to doing better or getting better learnings and not just being like, well, I'm good at this. So I'll just stay here and that and like true leaders like the pinnacle of their profession, are current. And they try you know, they try new things, but they're practicing all the time. I wish people could understand like, even like any kind of athlete, right, like, oh, man, I could do that. They paid me millions of dollars. Do the work to get the millions of dollars and it's not easy, even when they have they made it to the top just standing there is very difficult as well. So you've got to be able to continue to put the work in to get what you want. And nobody likes to hear that. I think it's even like influencers is another great example, right? You can want to do that all you want, but like, I know, Mr. Bass works 15 hours a day. That's how much time it takes for him to just think that he does. super popular, but very dedicated. Right? very dedicated to doing the job and not everybody's up for that. Yeah,

Laura  
for sure. And you know, just to before we tap things off here, like being just just suggested manager is okay if that's the expectation for your job in your role. If you want to advance because beyond manager as leaders, like let's not make that a gray area. You want to advance above managing a team you know, leadership is it's a skill in which multiple skills to be learned and developed and honed to be able to move up and advance that way.

Nic  
That's a great place to stop. So yeah, let's go ahead and get to our welcome back to EPR. Today, we have Brandon gobbler on the show. Brandon has a PhD in anthropology and archaeology and is a registered professional archaeologist and currently the Strategic Growth director for the Great Lakes Midwest region. SW ca Environmental Consultants. Welcome Brandon.

Brandon Gabler  
Hey, Nick, thank you for having me.

Nic  
Yeah, we're really happy to have you on here first. of all, that's a lot of really wonderful stuff behind your resume there. But let's talk a little bit about your new role. Let's look at first

Brandon Gabler  
Sure, joined SPCA as of last fall and really helping the Midwest and Great Lakes teams here. Grow to work. With more of our clients throughout the whole Midwest region really. And that's growth in terms of what services we're offering. The clients that we already work for the agencies and groups like NPS and others that we're already doing work for but also adding to that list and helping us grow our stuff. In addition to that, we've got a great office in Chicago, where it's been established for over 10 years now. We have 10 or so staff in Michigan, another seven or eight folks in Cincinnati. We have a really solid 11 or 12 year old office in Pittsburgh. And we're just looking to grow everything that we can do from a science and creativity solution standpoint on the environmental consulting world for our clients in this region. Very,

Nic  
very cool stuff. So you told me here we haven't talked a lot about this on the show, actually. But you know, you worked for a different company before and now you've switched roles. So what was that? Like? Do you have any advice for people who are switching companies when you do change from one to another? I mean, they're they're different kinds of animals. Each company has its own organization, but what was the experience like for you?

Brandon Gabler  
I will hinge on something that I've heard on this podcast over and over. It's about working with your networks, the folks that we have met along the way that play a role in how we communicate how we work with a team, how we grow into a new position. It's all based on those relationships that we have. So I did the exact same thing. The advice is to reach out to those people you know, in your professional networks in your personal life that you've worked well with before in any capacity. The American Cultural Resources association is that framework for me it's been a great place to get to know the other cultural resources firms in our industry, and has allowed me to build a lot of solid relationships with folks that then I basically use my advantage as I was looking for a new role and worked out perfectly to fit into a company like Soca where the things that I value most the teamwork, the collaboration, the one company approach to everything we do is first and foremost. And so joining a team like this, where everything we do is based on it's our motto, but sound science creative solutions. The fact that we're able to do that company wide. countrywide means that it's really easy to integrate into a team here in the Midwest and help build on the relationships. They've already got the ones that I've got, and merge those things into one. That makes sense. Yeah, of

Speaker 2  
course. Yeah. And so, so whenever you go through this kind of process, which is always you know, I'd say it's a little challenging, it's a little daunting kind of to get started like okay, I'm gonna network and we're gonna look for a new opportunity for me, but when you do that, you end up getting multiple offers at once and so you've had that also be your experience. So is it just the the company culture that allowed you to make that decision for us? WCA or did you have to really weigh all the different

Nic  
things?

Brandon Gabler  
It was a lot of different things. It came down to a small handful of offers and one of the consistent themes between all of them was the company culture. Each spot felt like a place that I knew I would want to be successful, not just could be successful, right. You know, the, whether it was the interview process that felt right or the people who I knew from previous places that were at those companies, and I figure well, if, if that person is successful and happy here, I'll probably have the same luck, right? Those were the kinds of things that I boiled it down to and sbca ended up with the highest percentage of those factors and it's not to mention that and I'll go back to this you used to be at HDR with me the Yeah, the employee owned culture is really important. It's really cool. You can tell how much it plays into people's decisions on how hard they're working, how much they're willing to work for each other. And that weighs in and really impresses me when it comes down to Company A versus B or C. and played into that choice quite a bit. Yeah, and

Nic  
it's funny you say that, like we haven't actually talked about employee owned companies either. So what do you find is that draw? It's easy to say that, okay, it's employee and what does that actually mean? And how does that actually play out in the company culture? Right,

Brandon Gabler  
it shows itself most in the work ethic and the results side of everything we do. I mean, we're still a for profit company. We do private sector work. We do a lot of work for other private sector companies throughout the country. And at the end of the day, we're business and in a business you have to successfully make money, right? We can't just fund the projects and then not get paid by our clients. It doesn't work that way. No, it does look good knowledge by all of our employee owners. That everything we bring in from a profit standpoint, from revenue standpoint. It's 100% reinvested in every person who works here, we're 100% employee owned and 100% of the full time employees are owners, which means everybody is literally working for everybody else. The end of your profits, the bonuses, the perks, everything is not going to a single owner or private owner or a small subgroup of owners. It's back in the hands of everybody or reinvested in the growth of the company which is also critical in order to be a successful consulting group. So that plays out nonstop in and have a feedback loop with the way we approach clients the way we approach our projects. Everybody's doing their part, take the best approach to getting the work done the right way, rather than worried about what's coming over their shoulders from the owner at the top that just is this mysterious black box or who knows?

Nic  
Yeah, yeah, the final boss in any video game. Yeah. No, yeah. Which makes sense. You're basically your own shareholders. Right? That's kind of kind of the way to look at it. That's pretty cool. So you're in this role, you're in a development role, you know, you're looking to build business build on what you've already got there. Have you been in that role before? And if so, what are those tips and tricks you use to kind of keep on top of that? There's a lot of work. It really is. It is

Brandon Gabler  
and what's really nice about the role I'm in now is that it's the sole focus of what I'm doing. I still get involved a little bit in the technical side of projects, more of a peer review and advisor type that standpoint, but from business development side have always done some of that, wherever I've worked, and it's a great thing to be able to focus more solely on that. And you and I both came out of that cellar Doer model. HDR which we we all are always selling and doing it's doing good work for a client is marketing, it is business development, because then they're gonna come back to us. But when you're in a strictly business development or marketing role, what we really get to focus on is those same things that I mentioned about looking for a new role. It's building relationships with the clients that we work with. It's creating a need that they probably knew they had, but making sure they realize we're the right folks to do it. Whether it's geographic positioning, or best in market science, or whatever our approach is, but honestly, a lot of it is just great communication and follow through with clients and teaming partners and everything through the internal project managers and field staff and everybody else if we're communicating the needs the goals, the required workload effectively, then the marketing and business development ends up coming naturally. Anyway, we're doing the right work. We're finding the right people to do the work instead of trying to keep it in a specific office or in a specific person's hand. You know, my goal has always been to find the right person to do the work. And if I think it's better to find a teaming partner that does a certain service line way better than we do. I'm going to do that. And what happens in the long run that same client trust us comes back to us to work with those again, because we we found them the right solution. It didn't matter who does it. And that's really, I think the best spot to be when it comes to business development being the client or the agency needs instead of what you think you want to do all the time, if

Nic  
that makes sense. And it really does. It's like you have to be a little humble. In this business. The ego can get in the way of a lot of good work. Sometimes it's like well, we can do everything. It's like even coming back to it like you know sometimes even if you could do it, right? How busy are your staff? How worn out are they? If they're exhausted, and you know, you're like, Hey, guys, don't worry. We got one more million dollar project for everyone to deal with. Are we hiring anyone new? No, we're just gonna keep going with what we got. Good luck, you know, and I think that's a lot of the ways you know, it's a perfect way to cover it. You know, it's you have to take a lot of different factors and you have to throw your ego away. It's hard to do, gosh, it's hard for me to do sometimes, but yeah, it's, it's important. It's super important. And it's

Brandon Gabler  
a delicate balance. We need to keep our stuff busy. We want to grow our own staff, our own service lines, and we do have to pay attention very closely to things like burnout. I know other episodes of this have talked about the same thing, but there's a fine balance between being overworked and under worked in a CRM industry for cultural resources. The Environmental Compliance industry is no different. How often do we joke that there's never the exact right amount of work? Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's just never you're either scrambling to get it or scrambling to perform, right and part of what we try to do is again, by having a one company approached by having a company culture that allows for that, we can level workloads, especially seasonality, by having those teams collaborating between regions between offices when it's snowing frozen up north, a lot of those staff can work with our offices down south or out west, and stay busy stay on top of projects, but also apply their expertise in bringing new ideas that the local folks wouldn't have thought of anyway. And that's how you grow new solutions, new creativity aspects to what we do be able to offer new services to clients that didn't know we can do that.

Nic  
Right. Yeah, exactly. And it's funny, like, you know, it's so let's dive into archaeology and talk about the sacrament that we love to have, you know, and and since Laura is not here, I can do this. She won't get mad at me. But actually, you know, we were interviewing for people for a mid level for our group. And one of the people said, Why did you get into archaeology? And his answer was Indiana Jones. And he's, you know, and so we do like to ask, you know, do you actually spend time digging in the dirt? I know, typically there is that it's not quite Indiana Jones, but there's a lot of dirt digging. So what is our day to day life for an archaeologist?

Brandon Gabler  
Well, for one, who's currently me, there's not a lot of day to day archaeology anymore, which we've talked about and I'm in the business development side, but there there was for a while. I don't know I guess I got into the field because just like, I'll go out on a limb and say 98% of archaeologists, we all wanted to be paleontologists. And then, yeah, somehow ended up with archaeology. No, no, that was it. It's terrible. But I loved dinosaurs as a kid, and then got steered during high school in the direction of archaeology as a path that I could go to an undergraduate that had a great focus on that Mercyhurst College here in PA and went from there to the University of Arizona where I did grad school and that's where I actually enjoyed archaeology and undergrad, but I really loved it. In grad school, and between the coursework in grad school and the field seasons, the field work I did in the summers at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. It was just outstanding and no question that the archaeology of the Southwest US is some of the best that we have in the country. And that's where it was, you know, eat, sleep and breathe, archeology. And it's hiking, surveying playing, they're finding artifacts, learning analysis, learning new skills, each time a different project came up, or a different phase of a project. Came up, which just enhances the enjoyment of being an archaeologist, or doing the same exact analysis day after day after day, and we get old. And I think a lot of folks in this business all have cultural resources, archaeology, architectural history, Tribal Relations, and any other aspect of what we do, would answer the same thing, that variety of the types of projects and types of work that we get involved in is really what keeps us going and keeps it fun. Yeah,

Nic  
and I love that too. I love that you said that. You want to be a paleontologist, I actually remember as a kid, you know, Jurassic Park came out at a very pivotal moment for a lot of kids. And for me, I was like, I love dinosaurs. You know, and I had to learn everything about him to do it. And I even remember getting I think was for my birthday. A paleontology like discovery kit, right? So it was like it was just like a block of clay. And I had to work the soil to get to the bones, whatever. And then when I actually did it ended up being just four slabs that you put together as the easiest problem ever done in my life. So disappointed, right, and I don't know if it was that or I don't know if somewhere along the way biology took over. But

Brandon Gabler  
Nick, maybe you just were really good paleontologists. And you know, it's so good

Nic  
that I was like yeah, this is not even a challenge for me. You're right, you're right. I need a harder level of work life. You know, it's it's too easy. And I

Brandon Gabler  
said, Give me the complexity and you know, all natural life on earth. Go with biology.

Nic  
It's too funny. But you know, it's funny. You mentioned a little bit about like the career and the how you you worked in the early part of it too and like the other options that you have in academia, industry, etc. But people who are, you know, where you work, you know, a few years ago will say will be safe and say a few years ago, when you were just starting out, right? What advice do you have for that, like, where do you see the industry going?

Brandon Gabler  
Excellent question, and that goes some other folks from the CRM side that have been on the podcasts and others that we talk with a lot through acro. There's a few facets that are critical. writing, writing writing. On the list of needs, top of the list of skills to be efficient, and therefore quick and good. Not just quick, not just good, both within the components that go along with being an archaeologist or an architectural historian, need analysis skills, some artifact class, some level of spatial analysis, or at least a knowledge working knowledge of GIS because it's so tied into everything we do, even if you're not creating maps for yourself, being able to use the data that somebody else has pulled together and just click through a series of ArcGIS Online web maps or somebody's using QGIS in a small business because it's a really efficient, low cost option to make great stuff. You still need to be able to use those data to understand what things you might encounter during a project. And to summarize what you found afterwards, but you can't neglect the ability to analyze the actual physical objects that we've found while in the field. And they say objects because it's the buildings, those structures, bridges, culverts, etc. As much as it's the lithic avatars, the arrowheads, the projectile points, the cool ceramics the everything else is you don't need to be an expert in every single class of artifact or every single era of buildings, but having any level of analysis focus is a huge need from a skill set standpoint in our industry right now. Because we need those folks who, especially as there's more efforts being placed on limiting the amount of materials that are ending up in museums because not everything does belong in a museum because there's not enough space for everything. So the importance of doing quality infield analysis is more important than ever. I know when Gianna was on she talked a lot about curation and the issues with access materials being stored echoing her points that being a good analyst of some artifact class when you're an entry level field technician. And new to the industry archaeologists means that you've got a skill set out there in the field right now. That helps alleviate the crisis in the long run. You're certainly more employable both by academia and the private industry, and then to be able to write about it afterwards. Even better.

Nic  
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's funny you say writing it's one of the greatest skill sets you can have, especially early on, because like you say, I don't do as much nearly as much writing as I used to, but being good at it. Got me where I am. Do I love it? No, they recognize it realize its value. Yes. And you know,

Brandon Gabler  
it also contributes to your communication skills in every other aspect of the work you do. So if you're a good efficient skilled writer on a technical report, you're more likely to be a good efficient skill writer when you're putting together a proposal for a client or an email to a colleague asking them to help you on a project and instead of sounding like you're an office chair or an unintelligent bum, you actually come across representing exactly what's needed to be done and nobody has any questions. So it goes in every aspect of what we do. And if you're more skilled at that aspect of what we do, there's also less stress involved in the whole process. 
__________

Nic  
Yeah, It's funny, I kind of think of it like, you know, when I was younger, I read a ton of books, a lot of books a lot about everything, right? Fiction, nonfiction, whatever loved it. And then my mom was like, you don't read books anymore and they had been the internet. I read more than I ever have in my whole life. But you know, it's like that's what's changed is just the technology and the ability to do that. But even with writing it's like yeah, I don't write reports nearly as much Jeremy emails. It's so many. And so even that you're totally right. It's a point hadn't even thought of it's just like they're, the skill has been around and it's going to stay a skill, and the better you can can work on it now. I mean, long run, it's helped me immensely, immensely. I mean, lots of different ways. So we could talk about that forever. I know we've got a few other things I want to get to before we let you go. But you mentioned to Accra and we've had a couple of books on from Accra before, how long have you been a member with them?

Brandon Gabler  
Technically? Good question. Around 2012 ish. Korea is an institution that it's a trade association, lobbying group business organization, basically so only companies are members, individuals, other than students are members on their own. And in 2012 ish. When with HDR in Virginia office, we won a contract with the Delaware DoD who then basically stipulated that they wanted their consulting CRM companies to be Akron members. And since then, I've only worked for Accra member firms. So I've been circumstantially involved in actors since 2012. actively involved since about 2017. I started attending the annual conference then, meeting folks got added to committee I think the Communications Committee shortly after the 2017 annual meeting, that I wanted to get involved I thought it was really cool. And since then, have joined in with the membership committee I was on the board for a year and then was elected treasurer and have been treasurer since October last year. helping keep our finances in line. It's something I never, never thought I'd end up doing. But it's really cool. Yeah,

Nic  
it's funny as Anna, I'm the treasurer for nav, so we should share notes.

Brandon Gabler  
And we're partner organizations which is awesome. Awesome. Experience. It's great for the members of both to be able to share those webinar classes and other resources. And frankly, if you're out there looking for work in the CRM industry, I I'm biased. I think you should only be working for Akron member firms, because that's a really positive benefit for staying in touch with what's going on in Congress in your local and state agencies that are passing regulations that impact the CRM industry and similarly with an AP by being there and hearing the latest and either greatest or not so greatest impacts to funding sources or grant programs or regulation changes. You're able to react, pivot, flex the business that you do to make sure that we're still able to meet the needs that our clients are going to need to get their projects completed, and all that good stuff. So there's a lot of benefits just to being an employee had a member organization of either one of those, find institutions. And

Nic  
I mean, it's a great scene. I'm talking about networking. It's a great way to do that. Right? You you have a large institution with lots of different larger confirms and larger and smaller firms. I'm sure you have this network that you start growing and it's it's funny, you talk about active involvement, right? You're the treasurer. That's so much more valuable than just being there. You know, being on the board so much more valuable than just being because people see you they notice you they recognize you because you're part of the leadership team. So I always love to talk to that advice out there to people but when is your next conference?

Brandon Gabler  
Is this fall, the annual conference frakkers Every fall typically either the second half of Labor Day week or the third or fourth week in September, and I believe it's the latter this year. Yeah. It is in Albuquerque, New Mexico this fall, and I'm excited about that. I always love going back to New Mexico. And as I mean, for an archaeology standpoint, it's wonderful but the food much like you and Lauren talk about on the pot all the time. Yeah, we travel for food. We travel and experience things through our stomachs, right?

Nic  
Oh, yeah. I mean, like, I mean, my favorite thing, people talking about any other red green Christmas, which is a thing it's a real thing, for sure. And it's great. And it's wonderful in every place. I love to ask what's the hottest one because usually the best one. But I agree with things, the secrets. I think our SOP is, and I don't I think most people don't even know what the heck those are. And they're so good. There's so good. I'm like, I ate lunch. And I want to eat lunch again. Like that's, that's how good they are. You know, we got to a good place. Yeah, so yeah, I'm literally I'm literally my mouth watering.

Brandon Gabler  
Like that was a rude drop for me and everybody else that's listening to because you've just created a cascade effect and yes, all supermarkets will be sold out of anything fried bread related. The coffee to September 26 to 29 is found right.

Nic  
Yeah, it's hard to get I guess. So aside from the food, which is going to be great. What are you looking forward to at the conference?

Brandon Gabler  
As always reconnecting with folks is really the top of my list. It's kind of an easy cop out but the value of the conferences and building not only our own personal professional relationships, but the teaming relationships that come from that. I don't know how much work would get done in the CRM industry or the environmental sphere in general, without having great relationships with teaming partners we can trust and a ton of that happens at the annual conference. So between that and honestly one of the better sessions every single year is our government relations update. And we're in an election year. The conference will be six weeks before the general election. There will be a lot of information shared about what the resulting election could do to the regulatory side of things. We'll probably have a pretty good update about the potential changes to the Army Corps, Appendix C, which is a proposed rule change right now and it's under review to the public comment phase. By September we probably will have more info about that, if not before change. So the conference is quite likely going to be loaded with just an absolute ton of information critical to the whole environmental compliance world. Yeah,

Nic  
I mean, yeah, it's funny. We just did a conversation at my job. I lead a discussion about the chevron doctrine and how that's going to impact a lot of what we do from an environmental policy standpoint. There's a lot of really interesting case studies that are going to be decided this this session. So yeah, I'm right there with you. I think it's really a really, really fascinating thing. So yeah, more to come on that we'll have to have somebody back and talk to us about how it went and all that. But now it's time to get into them. A section we'd like to call field notes, which is where we talk about our memorable moments in the field doing the work that we love, and we always encourage our listeners to share those stories, using hashtag field notes so we can read them on future episodes, but I know that you've had a long like it's maybe you're not in the field that much now, but I know you've got a long history, a lot of good stories. So do you have one for us?

Brandon Gabler  
I do I have at least one. We'll start with the first and to preface it. I really try not to take myself too seriously all the time. So even though this is a story from the field, it is definitely on the light hearted side. And I was working in Los Alamos National Lab doing excavations at a series of very small structures. called Field houses. And we're working out in the canyons, ended up I was working with Craig Lockard, who also was at HDR with us and yeah, he's a great guy. Greg was the crew chief. He was the field lead Field Director for the summer a couple of summers that I was there and every day Greg would get pumped and the crews out in the field together and he said alright, find the gold mask today and he picked someone different say to each day Yeah, every day it was easy. Like we really did have an amazing job and amazing area. The weather was perfect. The archaeology was awesome. So Gray was always excited. And this summer I was camping on a ski hill 9500 feet elevation and decided that maybe Greg needed to find his golden mask. And so I sat there for a week or so, carving this mask out of a piece of from the stump of a tree. And we can have gold spray paint sprayed during the next field day when one of the archaeologists was away from their excavation unit, writing up some notes they had left some backed are in their unit. Right, right. So nobody saw me I slide the mask underneath the pile of dirt. turned back to doing my own thing. Yeah, a few minutes later, the archaeologist who is a member of the same old Alfonso Pablo, and is now a bleep a professor either at UPenn or somewhere pretty cool. He's doing great stuff. He might even be back working with his home Pablo. His nickname was woody But Dr. Joseph Aguilar if you're out there listening. He gets back to his unit. He goes to scoop the dirt and you see his face just go completely. He knew what happened. He pulls it over to Greg Hey, Greg. We could finish I think I may have made Greg summer that year because somebody finally found the gold mask. He had it on display in his office for years afterwards. It was just some it's just fun. We've got to have fun out there. It's part of what we do. As if we weren't already finding really cool stuff which we found something else.

Nic  
It was funny though, you know because I think we joke about Indiana Jones and I think that's the mystique and the truth is, you know, obviously most of the time it's like, Oh, here's another rusty nail from 100 years ago. Okay, great. I got seven of those. How about you at all we got 12 and nothing else. Great. Awesome, you know and so it's

Brandon Gabler  
more of the classic project of Well Did you find anything? No. Great. Brian's happier that way. And that's okay. That's part of what we do. But we need something to add some sparking some fun now and then.

Nic  
And like they're really hard there are no matter what you do. There's always cool projects. There's always stuff that pops up and there's always unique things that happen you know, and getting to experience some of that, like in your career is really cool. It's really fun. I love that story. I love you got to have fun. You know, it's like there's stories you never live down to. Right there's a friend of mine I every time I see her I'd like remember that time that it took people over your head and you ran away that day or being in a clearing talking I've ever had two screens gone. Right? And it's just gone. And I'm like looked around like I don't know what happened. And then I looked at there's a turkey nest. I'm like, come on. So that's what I think I've ever done. See? That's the joy of working in the field. It really is. But I only have you for a few more minutes here. And again, Laura is not here. So I either talk sports as much as I want and you happen to you refer the right teams. That's important to me. So you're a big Pittsburgh fan just like I am. That means Steelers, penguins and pirates. For those of you who are wondering and you know, storied franchises and but not in my lifetime when it comes to the pirates. There

Brandon Gabler  
are certain other stories about the pirates that not so much. And I think unfortunately, much like you kind of grew up in the same era of pirates teetering on success and then completely dropping off. I'm not that much of a baseball fan in general. Right but hockey and football but I can go through and through.

Nic  
Yeah, where does it come from? Why Steelers why Pittsburgh?

Brandon Gabler  
I grew up in Northwest Pennsylvania little time and St. Mary's shout out to straw brewery and nearby and Bradford Zippo lighters for anybody that doesn't know our St. Mary's is a cool little town off in the Allegheny forest. It's too much of a generalization but not too bad. And it's so blue collar town. It's a sports town and like everywhere else in western Pennsylvania. We had to sports down it's gonna be black and gold. So I mostly grew up before leaving my hometown. I was mostly into hockey. So it was penguins. I was playing pond hockey and skating every winter. On frozen mini golf ponds. Flooded parking lot that was used for many golf in the summer and then skating in winter. And then of course, developed into a football fan later. And Steelers were the only team I could report. Right now that I live in Michigan. I do have a soft spot for the Lions and I was watching them succeed finally,

Nic  
finally. I know but it's funny because like this this for me, right like the penguins were phenomenal. And the 90s because phenomenal team. And so it was really cool to see them win and to be successful. My my parents are more football than hockey. So that was there was a particular second but they were really good. And then I became an adult and we got you know, say the kid and the Tom Brady of the NHL, which is very, very, very accurate statement. And then I moved to DC and you can imagine living in a place where everyone's a capitalist fan. I even mentioned that I'm a penguins fan, and they will talk to me ever again. You know, it's it's kind of it's so funny. And you know, would it be because I would tell them that Sidney Crosby is the is a better player than Ovechkin maybe, but you know, they started it. I'm

Brandon Gabler  
sure that had nothing to do with it at all. No, and it was actually hard because I'm married into a Detroit family. And so my father in law is very much a Redwings in mind, etc. Fan. So the Oh 809 years were Redwings. pangolins back to back. Yeah, it was a very stressful time. I think it worked out well that each of us won one because it had been lopsided in either way. It might have been very silent following 20 years right.

Nic  
Oh man, I could say I wish we could talk more about it. But you know, we are running out of time. So is there anything that we didn't ask that we'd like that you'd like us to?

Brandon Gabler  
I don't think so. I'd love that. We covered the networking communication aspects so well because they are I think every bit is critical to the environmental consulting world is as EPR has ever claimed that they are it? Number one thing that we do is we're doing work as people for other people to get stuff done. The only thing we can really sell is our our knowledge, our work and the labor. And so doing that in a siloed isolation doesn't work well for what we do know, make connections, make friends, make a great network for yourself and have fun along the way.

Nic  
Yeah, and you know if they say anything, right, if you're fundamentally decent, it'll be fine. You'll be fine. You know, you'll be fine.

Alright, thanks so much for being here. Where can people reach out to you if they want to get

Brandon Gabler  
in touch emails great Brandon dot gobbler gap. LDR SW ca.com. I'm also on LinkedIn finding on there. And some you know

Nic  
called to connect. Very cool. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Laura  
That's our show. Thank you, Brandon for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye, everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai