Geothermal Energy, Lithium mining, and the Power of Love with Laurel Glass Lees

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 Laurel Glass Lees, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, stakeholder capitalist, and environmental professional about Geothermal Energy, Lithium mining, and the Power of Love. Read her full bio below.

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:
2:06 Shout outs

3:04 Nic and Laura discuss when work doesn't align with personal beliefs

8:35 Interview with Laurel Glass Lees Starts

12:49 Laurel discusses Geothermal Energy and Lithium

24:46 Intersecting passions and balance

38:20 The power of love

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

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

Guest Bio:

Laurel Glass Lees is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, stakeholder capitalist, and environmental professional. She serves on the Board for the California Association of Environmental Professionals while growing her business at A STELLAR CO -- a pending certified BCorp -- and developing a power and minerals project in Lithium Valley as part of the Controlled Thermal Resources executive team. Laurel also enjoys her role on the advisory board for Geosite, a geospatial tech startup in Silicon Valley. She believes in staying true to her core values and principles, earning to give, and pushing society toward a more regenerative and harmonious life.

 Music Credits

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

Transcript

(Intro)

Laura:

Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental enthusiasts, Nick and Laura. On today's episode we give our shout outs. Nick and I discuss how to handle doing work that doesn't align with your personal beliefs and Toby makes a stunning appearance midsegment that ruins just about everything.

 Nic:

It really does, it's great.

 Laura:

 Certainly it stopped us in our tracks. 

 Nic:

 Yeah, for sure.

 Laura:

 Then we talked to Laurel Glass Lees leaves a regulatory affairs specialist at Controlled Thermal Resources about dermal dermal geothermal energy, lithium, and the power of love.

 Nic:

 Which is absolutely back to the future reference and maybe I'm dating myself, but the movie is great, and you should watch it. I'm just saying. 

 Laura:

 That's probably to younger persons out there everyone who's our age and older has seen it like 400 times. 

 Nic:

 You know it's still great, it's still great I'm just, I'm telling you if you haven't seen the movie, go watch it. 

 Laura:

 Finally, this day in science in 1975 Harvard professor McIlroy and other scientists concerned about atmospheric ozone depletion proclaim their support for banning chlorofluorocarbons.

 Nic:

 Got her. Got her 

 Laura:

 Banning chlorofluorocarbons as propellant in spray cans. And what happened to that. 

 Nic:

 I don't know you started off strong, and then right in the middle you just all confidence gone, you just totally met what happened ozone depletion. Oh yeah, no, sorry, yeah, that actually makes a lot more sense. And yeah, we were talking about it, I have no idea. I don't know we haven't talked about it in ages it just because I'm not in school anymore, but like, I don't I couldn't die. 

 Laura:

 I literally couldn't do it and ozone depletion, I don't know if we fix them or if we just stopped talking about them. 

 Nic:

 I think they fix some of it right I think no California actually was like all of those air quality regulations, I know that changed some of the way smog came through, but yeah, I don't hear about acid rain at all anymore, so I'm just gonna assume that everything's great now.

 Laura:

 Please be sure to subscribe, rate and review, hit that music.

(Intro Music) 

Nic:

 Today's Shout Out is a special one for us. I want to give a really big thank you to Betty Dehoney she is the outgoing NAEP president, and she's just an all-around great person she has been instrumental and, you know, effecting a lot of really great positive change and really doing a lot of great, wonderful things from a leadership perspective, I mean she exemplifies professionalism, determination, and support, which is what every great leader does. And we honestly can't thank her enough for her dedication to NAEP. You know so yeah Thank you Betty for everything you do.

Be sure to share your promotions, new jobs professional and project awards with us here on the EPR website. If you would like to sponsor a future episode, head over to environmentprofessionalsradio.com And check out our sponsor forum for details. Let's get for a segment.

 Laura:

 Yeah, I don't know if you had to do, I had to I had an awful, awful job that the vegetarian vegan in me is like, so disgusted by. 

 Nic:

 Oh wow, okay, what was your job.

 Laura:

 I was a. What was really a job at that point, but it was for graduate undergrad research credits, and I worked in the herp lab, and we were doing studies, I wasn't. I was helping with someone who was doing studies on the, I think it's the southern fence lizard.

 (Toby meows) Yep, but for one, and another type of lizard, like the native lizards to Florida that are being moved out by the Anoles. And, anyway, the fun part would be going out and hunting them, and finding them and then they would of course then be snatched from their natural habitat, which kills me. And then they would, I can't remember like, we ended up incubating their eggs I don't remember how those were harvested or found or whatever with them when the babies were born to identify them, you had to cut off a certain finger or toe, like that's how they were identified. And I just did my little job as a, you know, this is what I was told to do, but in, don't get me wrong, at the time I hated it, like, whatever. But, good God how gruesome like can we find a different way to do this or put them all in different cages or something, I just that part of like being an environmental scientist where some people think like it's all for the greater good of science. Yeah, I don't agree so I don't even know how I ever even got myself to do something like that. 

 Nic:

 Yeah, but I mean, they know we can say we all have challenges you know with what we do sometimes, 

 Laura:

 I think what the lizards, the thing or how you justify it is like, they regenerate. And so, they're likely going to lose toes in the natural…[laughter]

 Nic:

 Toby is taking center stage on Laura's screen and he is very, very much disapproves of…

 Laura:

 He’s like you do what? what are you guys listening to, the Podcat just decided to like, oh he just raised his head ever so slowly and look sternly into the camera, like, What did you say you just did?

 Nic:

 This is not okay, Laura is what was saying. Oh my gosh, that was amazing.

 Nic:

 Yeah, but aren't you like it did you like stuff that yeah well I mean, it's so my graduate research was with Box turtles right and we did have an identification system which was, it's typically just you know, filing out a notch in a shell, but one of my, I guess the lead for the project actually had a drill, and he would drill holes in it because, but it's again, it's the same kind of thing, it's like cutting your fingernails, it's like, it sounds way worse. 

 Laura:

 I know right.

 Nic:

 But like it's one of those things because like you can get a ship in the shell, naturally, that looks like a mark, and so he would be like well this this way, there's nothing that's going to look like this. And so you could tell turtles apart that way.

 It's still kind of dramatizing the really scary part for me, they're really really tough part was, you know, part of what I did was take blood from Box turtles, right, and so I had to literally try to open up at, you know, a turtle that wants nothing to do with you. Hope it doesn't pee on me, and then stab it in the base of the neck and pull out blood, and that's not easy, so you know I'm like the, I felt like I'd nurse on day one, you know like the first day, where you're supposed to draw blood from people and I'm just missing everywhere. I'm so sorry. First day I don't know why. So that was always stressful for me like I just felt so bad for, like, I'm so sorry again 

 Laura:

 I know the torture we do on these animals for the name of science. Yeah, easy. Good, but can you imagine like if aliens showed up here and we're like we're just taking some blood samples. Yeah, I don't mind us drilling into your, your, whatever it's gonna grow back it's cool to worry.

 Nic:

 We're just gonna take a tissue your fingers, you still have the rest of them. You know, I think back to when you have something that you have to do, there's, there's stuff you learn as you go right you get better at understanding the things that really mean something to you. So when, like you know Laura now versus Laura when she's in, you know, in school to go to different people. And so a lot of times I think when we grow, we kind of we just prioritize what's actually important to us we know, and then we are able to stand up about it, or stand up for it better. The older we get, because you just care a little bit less about what other people think and you care more about living my best life you know like this is the only one we got. So, you have to do what's right for you. 

 Laura:

 Right and I think that takes very deep understanding of what your values are and what's important to you, and not compromising them, and I think that's where regrets come from, for the most part, is that place where we go and we're like, oh just this one time or right in the name of science, or whatever, and the younger I think you can figure that out, the happier, you're going to be. 

 Nic:

 I know right and there are people that are like just already have that. 

 Laura:

 I know, it’s awesome. 

 Nic:

 They're the worst.

 Laura:

 But, like Laurel Lees, I think Laurel might want to be one of those people. So, that's true. I love hearing all the stuff that she had to say. So I think, you know, we've set it up for today let's let's listen to Laura.

 Nic:

 Alright, sounds great.

(Interview Starts)

 Laura:

 We are super, super excited to have Laurel Glass Lees here, she is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, a stakeholder capitalist and an environmental professional, as well as a board member at large with the California AEP, and she's still has time to stop in here and join us today, so welcome Laurel so glad to have you. 

 Laurel:

 Well, thank you, thank you so much for having me. I'm stoked.

 Laura:

 As we were just talking about Nick is probably going to have a hard time with Laura, Laurel and his wife's new being Lauren.

 Laurel:

 It's your lot in life to be surrounded by alliterative L’s.

 Laura:

Yes, absolutely. Which is funny because I'm surrounded by J’s, but we'll talk about that a different time. 

 Laurel:

 My husband's a J. 

 Nic:

 Oh, there you go. Now you’ve got another one.

 Laura:

 We're talking about that after hours. But I did want to talk about your middle name, so I thought it was interesting, Why, sometimes you include that answer to point out that that's not a married name. 

 Laurel:

 True. Yeah, so my actual last name is Lees. My middle name is Glass. And I like to have it written out professionally as Laurel Glass Lees, it just looks cool, I like the alliteration. Plus, my last name my maiden name glass. I'm the youngest of three daughters, my dad was an only child and so the patriarchal name, does it stop with us unless we carry it forward. I was born without a middle name so I was just Laurel Glass, and when I got married to James Lees I moved it over, And I just like, I like annoying people like we're doing now.

 Well it's really fun when people try to figure out like what your work email is, they're like is it Laurel dot Glass Lees, is it Laurel Glass dot Lees, is it isn't worldly, like what is it, I just like I'm like What do you want it to be, what, how do you feel about that.

 Laura:

 Awesome. Well tell us a little bit more about the work you're doing now.

 Laurel:

 So many things I'm grateful to live a fulfilling professional and personal life that is full of work, things like this give me joy. One of my biggest passion projects is the Orion podcast, which is co-hosted with my business partner Jessa Spainhower and co-founder of A Stellar CO. We are business guides. So we work with small businesses on their strategic planning and we help to do it from a stakeholder capitalism point of view as well as like a more progressive regenerative business framework. Our tagline is, “do business without being blank”. And we like to say that we're guiding the conscious economy, so our Orion podcast is to connect the knowledge and resources that people want to help drive a more conscious form of capitalism through focus on a lot of business leadership and thought leadership around a regenerative economy or conscious authentic leadership and Jessa, you know I mentioned I'm married to James spouse. Well I say I'm buried or business married to Jessa. We're 5050. 

And then when I'm not doing that, my main like source of income, like the bigger, bigger income generator for me is I'm an executive at a company called Controlled Thermal Resources. Yeah, which we're developing a geothermal power project and a lithium plus other minerals mining facility at the southern end of the Salton Sea in Southern California and 

 Laura:

 So interesting.

 Laurel:

 I'm just like, I'm so excited about this, I got this job, right before COVID lockdown. Yeah, when my spouse and everyone else I know, and loved lost their jobs, I was hired on at CTR, and I probably don't tell them this enough, but I love them, and I'm so grateful because they've made, They've expanded my life so that I can do these things and it's a shared shared added value between the company and me and they're so supportive of everything, it just feels really good. 

 Nic:

 Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about that project? So it's geothermal lithium, California lithium Valley. How'd that get started. 

 Laurel:

 Yes. So, back around like 2013-ish Rod, our CEO of CTR, secured a leasehold on some property at the southern in the Salton Sea because it's a known geothermal resource there are other existing geothermal power plants out here by Berkshire Hathaway, Cal energy folks like that. So it's like a well-known well studied established industry, and basically what it is, it's an underground brine, like hot water, hot water, and the hot water, you can pull up and pull up to the surface and the steam turns a turbine makes electrons and you put it out on the grid and it goes to all the folks, right, right, simple as fashion, and then the brine, that is remaining. They just inject back into the ground into an injection well so like these are about 8000 feet down into the ground. Yeah, on the production well and then, I think maybe to 15,000 on the injection well, don't quote me on those numbers but it basically, it just is a closed loop so there's a teeny itty bitty little industrial facility on the surface and I say teeny, tiny little bitty because when in my previous life before I was brought on board and actually saw these things with my own eyeballs. I thought they were like, monstrous petroleum plant with humongous structures, and we can talk about it a little bit more later but I was pleased to learn that the surface footprint is engineered very efficiently and it's small and the majority of the good stuff is underground in the brine, it's just a closed system. So it's also known that the underground water stuff if you will, has minerals in it, things that have come into solution in the water. So you kind of think of like what we do with water softeners when we pull minerals out or we add minerals into water so that we can drink it or use it for plant establishment and restoration.

 It's known other things in there like lithium, and potassium, and silica, and manganese and all the stuff. Well lithium is, is a US critical mineral it's on the federal list, and it's, it's good stuff. It's used in phone batteries and electric vehicle batteries, and yeah. So originally the project was going to be a geothermal power plant and then the community like the industrial community, the business owners, Berkshire all these folks were working with engineering tech companies, and came up with, not recently, this has been done for a while like softening waters is a known thing but they came up with like a more efficient way of pulling the lithium out. And so of course Rod, the CEO and his team of experts are working on designing and building this geothermal power plant that will also have lithium mining capabilities attached to it. So like the existing geothermal power plants that are out there. Yeah, it's 100% renewable baseload energy by the way, so it goes 24/7 365. It's really good to support solar and wind when it's not sunny and it's not windy you can like turn on the geothermal power instead of gas fired Peaker plants. And so this is like an existing thing like happens in life and a lot of Californians don't even know it's in their backyard. And, and so the existing companies like Berkshire want to add on lithium because it makes a lot of sense. And so we're just really stoked that we've got these pioneering folks out here in Southern California that are working on projects that align with state and federal policy especially new ones that have been rolling out like literally this week, I was really exciting. Yeah, and I think what makes me super passionate and excited about it being an environmental professional, is that it just is a strategic alignment with so many initiatives that the public agencies and nonprofits and community members want to see, but sometimes you can't do it without the power of business because business scales, right, and so we're in the process of attracting the right capital to build these projects, and do it right. And so we're constantly responding to the market like what's the market on lithium what's the market for this, that, or the other thing. And recently, So the price of lithium has jumped 67% Since January, it's, it's awesome. But what makes me more excited, other than the price point and the economics, and the pro forma of this project is its capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our largest emission sector, transportation, and it's, it is an American supply chain for that resource so that's why we call it lithium Valley or it's white gold, because yeah you can mine this lithium from underground brine in the closed loop system.

 The other ways of mining lithium, like in South America, are these massive 1000s of acres of evaporation ponds. Just to put that in people's minds it's like a big, big landscape that you need. And this in the water evaporates at least find the salts and the salt is of a quality that it needs to go to China or elsewhere to be refined, and then it goes from that refinement to cathode, from cathode to battery, from battery to car. So that's the supply chain and it can go all over the world. And the other way to mine is like in Australia where they do open pit mining, where you kind of blow up the side of a mountain or a hole in the ground. That too is of a quality where it needs to go to China to be refined than to cathode, to battery than to car. We have the potential and the capacity out here in lithium valley to completely restore the entire supply chain, including American made cars, American made electric vehicles so you can mine lithium here in lithium Valley, it is a high quality where it doesn't need to be refined it could go straight to cathode. So you've like chopped out that complexity and enhanced your supply chain efficiency in that regard. And if somebody wants to come out here and build cathode plant, or be a battery manufacturing plant, then, then we can do that whole process and then we can work with American made electric vehicles and have an entire American supply chain for this solution to greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, and health meet our, like, extravagance, very lofty California goals for carbon neutrality.

 Laura:

 Yeah, I mean it's lithium Valley, you know, it feels like being on the East Coast that California is you know, further away than it is. And it's lithium Valley. It's a place it's been here a while like, people know it's there. And then, like, how do they find where to pull the lithium from. 

 Laurel:

 So it's kind of like the name within Valley, I like it because it's kind of a play on Silicon Valley, you know, the tech startup world, and we had a big boom and we're like so proud of ourselves. We're like so proud of this region and lithium valley itself is kind of a name for the region and Imperial County, and a little bit of Riverside County where the Salton Sea is so this is, if you know where San Diego County is in California it's sits on top of Mexico, and it's really big. San Diego counties, I think one of the largest in the United States. Fun fact that has the highest abundancy and diversity of organisms in the United States.

 And so Imperial County sits right to the east of it. And then on top of Imperial County has Riverside and the Salton Sea is in both Riverside, Imperial Counties and the known geothermal resource is underground, and it's like a big blob at the southern end of the Salton Sea some of its under, under the sea. Some of it’s under the exposed playa, some of its under other areas so the existing geothermal power plants right now are drilling into it and the more east, and our project is more West closer to the exposed playa. Okay. And it's a known thing. 

 Nic:

 Yeah. So do you have an expectation about how much lithium you're going to be able to extract from this and how long it'll go.

 Laurel:

 Yeah, so much fun to talk about 

 Nic:

 We're nerds here, it's okay. Yeah. 

 Laurel:

 Okay good, yeah I can unleash  that nerdiness, so at full build out so like our Dream Vision at CTR based on how much land control we have in capacity is to generate 1100 megawatts of power, geothermal power so that's like, like almost a million homes. Wow, I think, yeah, again, I'm kind of I need to brush up on my facts here but it's almost. And then the lithium 300,000 tonnes per annum. So that's a lot. So, yeah, wow. So like right now I think we saw on the Wall Street Journal yesterday, just to put this in economic context. It's predicted to be at eight sometime in March. Oh yeah, sometime, march, march, march, the second week of March.

Lithium was around 18 Or is predicted to be $18,000 a ton, so if you do 300,000 times $18,000 You can kind of see how that could scale. And, and the reason why it's super fun is because this lithium is not only like super high quality like I mentioned, but it's, we're gonna sell ourselves some of the power that we're generating so it's renewable energy mined lithium critical mineral. 

 Nic:

 So you're kind of combining all things in one, Really.

 Laurel:

 All the things we, that's why we like to think about it from a regenerative perspective so it's thinking how can we add value to every single part of our stakeholders in our supply chain, and we have the capacity to be really creative, our CEO is a visionary, and he comes in with ideas and he's like, let's explore that.

 So, and we're very passionate about the Salton Sea region, and the community itself because the Salton Sea for those that aren't aware, was written up when I got married in 2012. I mentioned this because I took my husband to the Salton Sea as part of our honeymoon.

 Because he’s British he came over on a K-1 Fiancé Visa and we weren't allowed to leave the country for our wedding so I was like let's go to Palm Springs by way of Salton Sea.

 At the time it was in BBC News written as, as a terrible manmade environmental disaster, and then in October of 2020 or 2019 I'm sorry October 2019 It was the county of Imperial rated as a state of emergency for public health issues.

 It is really dusty, you know, it's the desert, and there's a lot of sediment that gets blown up in the air, and the community is 18% Hispanic at a 28% unemployment rate, and the 90th percentile for cardiovascular disease and 15,000 children with asthma. So it's, it is a designated California disadvantaged community which means stuff out here like you can get incentives for doing work and so we're thinking to ourselves. Obviously, we're going to create at full build out over 2000 long term jobs, not like installing a piece of equipment but like moving laborers in a power plant and all the corporate people that need to work in an actual power plant 2000 And we did. We worked with the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corporation to see what impact that would have on the economy. And they started with generate over 4000 ancillary jobs, as well as over $350 million in overall earnings and taxes in the community. So for every $1 spent or generated by our company, it generates 1.23 And then the other part of it is, is we really care about the people and when you care about the people you care about what they're breathing what they're drinking what they're eating, and that is your physical environment. I don't need to tell environmental professionals this but it's like so habitat restoration, not just compensatory mitigation for on-site impacts like our plan is to how to be fully self-mitigating with on-site mitigation. But beyond that, it's habitat restoration as means of supporting the Pacific Flyway for birds as a means of covering the exposed playa, so it stops blowing up dust, whatever we can do.

 Nic:

 It's such a great thing and I love that, but it's not even the only thing that you do right. Like Laura introduced you as a multi passionate entrepreneur stakeholder capitalist and an environmental professional.

 How do those passions intersect and how on earth do you balance those things?

 Laura:

 Well, life is interconnected we are all one. I believe in the Dr Bronner's philosophy the all one mindset. So, nothing that any of us does but affects us all so all of the work that I do professionally is personal growth development spiritual enhancement enlightenment, all those things it's all connected. So when I do the environmental professional work, it is an added value to my business guides work in strategic planning, it's an added value to developing land at CTR, and it's an added value to just any stakeholder that touches all of our businesses. I started as an environmental professional, about 13 years ago, because I really wanted to quote unquote save the planet. You know, I watched environments change over time. I used to scuba dive in this area of the Cayman Islands called Cemetery Reef, and it used to be teeming with life and seahorses and over the years my dad and I would scuba dive and snorkel out there and I would just over time, see there's no seahorses the octopus are gone, the coral is bleached. And I was just like this my wild jungle ecosystem life where I get to just sit in the water and stare at things emerging and like these magnificent polychaeta worms and all these crazy things weren't there anymore, I was like, I must save.

 I must fix this problem. And then when you, when you go about your environmental professional career you become a consultant, you're in the compliance sector you realize that compliance and incentives are very different that public agencies have a role in nonprofits have a role of business scales. Everybody has a role and then you start to see the literal interconnectedness of everything, greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Vehicles and mobility affects the quality of life, where people can live. Density where does density go if I put density in the cities that mean I protect the rural communities but then do they have to dry which creates more GHG which how do we plan to do to go on and on and on and on. So, like overall like planning in my life, “there's John Nolan, who wrote the first plan for San Diego said, there's a place for everything and everything in its place”, and that's what I see in ecosystem functions in that way there's no ways, everything is reused. It's a fully regenerative system. And so, if you were to look at urban communities and human beings if we're all in right relationship with each other right relationship with our environment. We're continuously adding value and expanding, together with everyone in the right place and a place for everyone. 

 Laura:

 That's awesome. You talked about your interest in the environment where it came from? How did you connect that and turn that into a career?

 Laurel:

 Oh, this was 2008, the great recession. I graduated from the University of San Diego with an Environmental Studies degree in economics minor, and no one would hire me, I was either overqualified or under qualified for every.

 And I'm not saying whoa is me. I, for those of you who aren't making an assumption. I am a white woman, and I have a lot of privilege in that regard, just by my sheer existence and going to University of San Diego had a lot of privileged doors and could not get a job, so I just had enough, and I called everyone I emailed them and I was like I will literally do anything I'm a person that comes from place of Yes, like I all I want to do is take care of the environment, how do I do that, please help me and this company called AMEC Earth and Environmental, which became AMEC Environment Infrastructure which became AMEC Foster Wheeler, which is now Wood, they hired me. Yeah, they hired me on as an on call environmental on calm marine scientists $10 an hour to collect water quality samples, so I was in the storm drains.

 National City Marine Terminal 10th Avenue Marine Terminal. For the Port of San Diego. Yeah, so I was in full yellow crawling in the storm drains, and that's why I embarrassingly and lovingly called a sewer rat by my partner, because like it, but it was, it was magnificent, to go, okay I'm collecting the stormwater Why am I doing this and why does this matter. Yeah, for those that aren't aware, in California, much like New York, we will actually, New York has commingled sewer systems so we have what's called a multiple separate storm sewer system or MS4 our stormwater when so it very rarely rains, so anything that's on the road, such as zinc from your tires, oil and grease from your car, jet fuel dust that rains down from the flyway for planes, any contaminants and pollutants and heavy metals, builds up on the roads, then it rains in the storm water carries all that stuff into the storm sewer system. Now you'd think gross for like the cigarette butts plastic oil and grease all those things. Well it doesn't get treated in California, it goes straight into the ocean, and oftentimes the storm drains are right at the shoreline, and we are known for our surfers and our surf is outstanding. What happens in a rain event is you're, when I collected these water quality samples and you analyze and you send them to a lab and you get back, you see the discussing this like the fecal coliform, oil, heavy metals it's gnarly and so that's why they tell you to not go in the water for three days after it rains in California, gosh, yeah, because you get hepatitis, and we had a hepatitis outbreak, a few years ago, not just because of storm water quality, but also because we have a homeless population that lives at the beach, and we were not taking care of them, and they were not taking care of the environment and so the environment was not taken care of us. Yeah, so, um, I learned about that, and was horrified and just kept saying yes to any projects that came my way at AMEC and I had a phenomenal mentor Barry Snyder, who said whenever there's a professional organization that gives you an opportunity to participate or engage in the marginal professional community, consider saying yes, I know you're coming from a place of yes like give it a go. 

 Nic:

 Absolutely, yeah. 

 Laurel:

 Yep, yep, yep. So, say yes to all the marine science work, we worked at Scripps Institution of Oceanography collecting water quality samples there to understand the impacts on the local area have special biological significance in La Jolla, which just sidebar, Fun fact, it's an underwater Submarine canyon that's teeming with life it's like it's like an underwater forest the California Center over there. Yeah, awesome. Yeah. And so it's, it's super special and the ecosystem, they're super special and so we monitor the water quality there because it is special and protected.

 So it's doing that and learning a lot about how the marine micro- macro fauna affects in the water column affects pollution in the water and how pollution in the water affects climate and just the circular nature of the ecosystem how it affects everything, and I just said yes to every single project that came my way. And then, when the San Diego Chapter of the Association of environmental professionals were looking for a newsletter editor. I said yes. And there was a big pivotal moment that changed the game for me, President Obama came out with the American Reinvestment Recovery Act of 2008 which was an economic stimulus package to provide funding specifically for priority capital improvement projects so roads, bridges, culverts, those sorts of things. And so, AMEC, at the time had a long term on call environmental services contracts with the County of San Diego to perform environmental consulting work for CEQA, NEPA and Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act permitting all the environmental land use permitting stuff. And they, the County of San Diego in the Public Works Environmental Services Unit needed a junior planner that they could like boss around and help support the incoming AR RA applications and review them and apply for grants and apply for stimulus. So some, so I was like, yes. And so I got to sit in their office in learn about what planning is like how do public works planners review, projects, apply for environmental permits, process them construct them monitor them build them, like how do they. What are roads, and how do they get done?

 So like, participating in that was phenomenal and I ended up again just coming from that place of yes so anytime they have a special project that needed to be done, or an application to review anything I just said, Yes, and I ended up being so useful that I was there almost full time when it was full time, like 40 hours a week for three years straight.

 And before I knew I was like a CEQA practitioner. And I was doing the NEPA documents, and it was just like, and now it's CTR, the reason why they hired me in this role is because the regulatory compliance stuff is so complicated and confusing at the federal, state and local level, and whether this is a blessing or a curse my mind works that way like it sees it as a constellation, or a map of intersectionality, if you will. Yeah and so I get it like one, if you move one thing over here, it affects this and this and this and this and this and so I just have this strategic mind, because I went through the trenches or went through the culverts of what land use and environmental permitting is so I'm a regulatory specialist, but now in my career I look at it from a strategic point of view and how can I add value. 

 Laura:

 I'm really glad that you brought that up, about starting at $10, and literally in the trenches because I also started at $10 An hour sorting sediment samples, so.

 Laurel:

 Yeah. Laura we're like the same, I was counting Copepods in marine bio sediment, or like sediment. Oh god this is bringing me back, So University of San Diego is studied abroad in Bahia Magdalena nearby here Magdalena that's Baja California sewer, where the wild, where the whales calf.

 And, and so we would go collect sediment and water samples and my job was to count all Copepod sediment oh my god there's Copepod A and Copepod B, 

 Laura:

 I had nightmares about Polychaetas. Oh my god I close my eyes, alien looking monsters. That's crazy. 

 Laurel:

 I have another fun fact, I've thrown up into microscopes multiple times because... I know yeah TBD right. The world is your oyster at USD, we have this thing called Winter sessions so January basically have off or you can take a four week course and they made it more affordable to go study abroad during winter sessions and to stay. And so we went to Tahiti and study marine biogeochemistry, and for a week we were on a brigantine, collecting oceanographic samples. And that is how you barf in a microscope, you’re counting plankton.

 Yeah, in case you want to know like diatoms and dinoflagellates under a microscope look like you're on serious psychedelic drugs, and you're swaying back and forth in the open ocean. 

 Nic and Laura:

 Yeah, yeah, that that would do it.

 Nic:

 I have to say I have to say, it's, you mentioned sea calving, you know, so we're talking about baby whales, and the thing we spent the past five minutes on is the nightmares that you see underwater. That's how you know it's a nerdy podcast I love that. It's so great.

 Laurel:

 From the micro to the macro. 

Laura:

Yeah, listening need to understand you got to start somewhere. I like this job doesn't pay enough it's an internship, but it only pays $20 An hour like get a girlfriend it's somewhere.

Laurel:

Yeah, go for it, give it a go I think that is a takeaway for the listeners, is that was like it was $10 an hour on call no benefits and worth it. So like the finances are not the only metric of success. The human relationships that I formed a covet, and cherish. To this day, like Barry Snyder started at all. And like my one of my first boss is Brian Benz who's now at Harrison associates, these are people that to this day are supporting me. They are AEP and NAEP are a network of like-minded individuals and professionals that you can call on for support, personally, professionally, and for technical expertise, yes, I do not hesitate to do that because when you take on a job, and you give it a go and you give it your all, you show up 100% For your role. The world will unfold. 

Nic:

Yeah, just got to let it happen. Anybody else just get chills cuz I just got chills

Laura:

Join NAEP, get involved. We need volunteers for a podcast by the way I would like to just put that little spotlight in there plus NAEP has volunteer opportunities in all of our other multitude of working groups and committees, just waiting for someone to raise their hand and as you said, Say yes, say yes. Yeah, it's amazing how one out of 100 people will be that person, and then they won't be the one everyone else is going How come they get every I wanted and don't.

Laurel:

It's like, are my mantra in my marriage is yes, and love. So we come to something we get really stuck on it so there's this job opportunity this volunteer opportunity this committee opportunity and I'm stuck on it and going, what is this commitment I'm getting myself into, go yes this is going to be for the highest good. And I'm going to build upon that and maximize it and optimize it for myself, for my relationships and for my career. And I'm going to come at it every single time there's an opportunity to choose fear or love I'm gonna choose love. Yes, love, and then, like, even if things go wrong quote unquote wrong it's actually, it's actually right. 

 Nic:

Yeah, right. Everything's good experience. Absolutely, you learn something every time.

Laurel:

It's gonna feel really good and like the people that you're even if you're an introvert, clearly, I'm not, if you're an introvert, these human connections are so critical, even if there's only one or two.

Laura:

 We know this is super important to you, so I wanted we did want to give you the floor for just a minute to talk about your free spirit self, and  whatever you want to talk about.

Laurel:

Yeah, it's a lot, you can tell I live in California, because I'm woo-woo,

there's like a confluence. Yeah, yeah, I own it. I am stepping into the woo-woo and shining. I've been through a lot of peaks and valleys, professionally and personally in one specific I can mention is, at the AEP conference in Monterey, I had a panic attack, and I didn't know what a panic attack was, I was like laying in the bed, calming down, but it was in a perfectly calm state. So, I'm laying down and I'm getting ready to go out for the evenings activities for the conference in Monterrey and it's beautiful, and all of a sudden, my arms and my hands cramp up, they look like claws, and I can't feel my legs. And I can't really feel my hands or my arms and my AEP friend professional woman I respect so deeply, saved me she had to bust in my hotel room, put clothes on me because I was not clothed, and take me to the hospital where the people walked me through the day and asked me questions and it came to a, to a realization that I was totally and completely overwhelmed, that this was a panic attack and I was burnt out, but I didn't know that I felt that way because I had been masking it with things like alcohol, caffeine, food, and work. So putting the pedal to the metal, and not feeling anything, but doing really well at work, saying yes to everything right so here's your here's your cautionary tale saying yes, you have to do with respect to yourself. Exactly. And so it really woke me up to the fact that I was asleep at the wheel and not feeling anything. And I had a couple of family fallouts like personal things where I was like, oh man, my life like I'm exceeding, I'm making a lot of money I'm doing really well I've got fulfilling work life. I'm not behaving to my authentic self. So I explored a lot of different modalities for healing, and one of the biggest ones I did it was a human business intelligence assessment with this group at XQ Innovation in Orange County, and they helped me realize that I'm an entrepreneur, and some of my frustrations and anger and resentment was that I see the vision, I know the steps that it takes to get to that vision, people aren't going fast enough, they're not listening to me they're not doing what I want. And that's because I'm not the boss.

So, to live a more happier fulfilling life I need to step into my boss hood, and launch a business, and so that's what I did.

Laura:

Another one of our parallels.

Laurel:

See, see, you’re boss. And meeting Jessa in launching the Stellar CO, I like to call my spiritual practice, and my human because things that come through that self-awareness, cultivating right relationships with the human environment as well as our physical environment, and applying that to the economy so that we can make good profit. Yeah, like ethical monies is my healing, that's my purpose, that's my passion. And so I explore other things like psychedelics for unblocking my heart because, like some of my coping mechanisms like drinking alcohol and caffeine and everything was to block it all into like pardon it cover it up, and you don't really have that control when you're on different legal modalities, by the way, like legal psychedelics like these are these are legal everywhere and ketamine, for example, is the one I used in it. It just unlocked my heart, and allowed me to dress my fears, and address my anxieties in a safe space and now I'm not scared of anything. Like, I'm just not. And so I don't I don't come at things from, I'm going to fight you argue you win like that, but I kind of learned that my Enneagram personality type, my type, eight I’m the challenger. And if I'm unhealthy I'm Donald J Trump, and if I'm healthy, I'm Martin Luther King Jr. So I either channeling Martin or Donald and it's a daily choice I can make right yeah, through self-care and so that's my like stepping into be a cosmic mother where I am free to birth ideas potentially birth humans like CO create life and ideas on a free flowing basis. It requires one to constantly be in the pursuit of self-awareness, expansion of consciousness, self-care. And coming from a place of true love like I love you, Laura I love you, Nick, thank you for having me kind of place.

Laura:

Aw, I love you back.

Nic:

And we just met. So hey, let's let's slow down a little bit okay No, I'm kidding. But no, I really, 

Laura:

Come on Nic, unlock yourself.

Laurel:

Unlock it.

Nic:

This is just get ready to say the thing that really touches me, to me, you know, like I've gone through those same things and I think, you know, as a kid just like simple things like saying I love you, I love my brother I love you know people in my life that just, 

Laurel:

I love lamp.

Laura: 

I love pizza. 

Nic:

I love lamp. Great, great reference. It's just one of those things that takes a long time and so often we hide exactly you're exactly right, we hide behind other things because we're not saying I love you, Laurel, right, I love Yeah, right, and so it's still, it's a work in progress to that I think you know, it's never like you're like, I know I know what's wrong. I am automatically better, you know, and there's always a spectrum and it's such a good thing for you to bring up, And I really, I hate to say we're running out of time, but we are in. And so, is there anything else that you want to talk about, or anything else you want to share with the audience. 

Laurel:

Yes, I want individuals in the environmental profession and everyone that's listening to consider a new way of living your life so that you can exceed your own expectations and just, just like enjoy your human trip.

Right, yeah. And one of the newest tools that has expanded my life is a thing called cycle syncing, and it's really helpful for men and women, we're all on the 24 hour circadian rhythm, but the sun. So we eat and sleep and all those things with a 24 hour clock and that's how our society was set up, men and your hormones are synced to that really well. And you wake up and cortisol helps you wake up, and then you eat food, you go to work at nine, you end at five and you go to happy hour and then you have dinner and that whole system that 24 hour Monday through Friday workweek was set up by male patriarchy because that's how your clock works and you operate the best at three o'clock in the day you're running out of steam so you need that happy hour to have some human connection before you wind down and go home. Well, women are not only on that clock but we're also on an infradian rhythm. So our hormones are synced up to a 28 day cycle and when you learn about the four phases of the infradian rhythm, and you learn how to what to eat, how to exercise or when to exercise, and what type of exercise, and how that affects your hormones and your mood and what tasks at work to do and what phases. It changes your life. I recently told the folks that CTR, like there's going to be like at this, this point in time, it's best for me to be working on technical stuff at this point in time, send me out into the world to talk and explain at this point in time, let's go out and do some business development and capital raise, and when you sync up your life like that, and men see women who are fulfilling their best selves. It makes everyone better so cycles syncing is a consideration. And then finally, cultivating daily rituals that aren't on the 24 hour clock that can be flexible. I found that a daily ritual, no matter what times it happens in the day, maybe it's early meetings later, but above all things I first take care of myself.

So I plan first. What am I going to do to love Laurel? Second, what am I going to do to take care of my human relationships. I love you I love I love Laura I love Nick I love James I love lamp, how am I taking care of all these relationships and then you take care of your career. Yeah, in that order so self-relationships career, and the abundance, the profit, the performance, the tasks the productivity, everything, everything was, that's the flow state so cycles thinking and daily routines to reach your flow state. Yeah that's what I want everyone to consider. 

Nic:

That's such a great, great point. And thank you so much for being here. I guess I wish we could talk longer, but yeah, please do check out, Laurel Lees, thank you so much for being here. 

Laurel:

Thank you, guys. 

Laura:

Thanks Laurel. Look forward to talking again very soon. 

Laurel:

I love you.

Nic:

Love you. 

Nic:

Alright, that's our show. Thank you so much to Laurel Glass Lees for joining us. She is just so full. I love it. All the way from science to the woo-woo stuff, crazy way just like yeah, I can see how she actually ties all of that together to just be who she is awesome. So that’s our show (said in unison with Nic)

Nic:

Yeah. So, our show, I’m used to it actually it's my day to day. I'm married, I understand.

Laura:

Anyway, be sure to check us out next Friday. As always, and don't forget to subscribe before you leave and give us a nice rating and review. Thanks, everybody. 

Nic:

Bye.