Today is a holiday: Memorial Day. Thanks to all soldiers - past, present, and future - who have served to protect this country. And thank God for the day off. This week is going to be a whirlwind. Tomorrow in OKC; Wednesday in Little Rock, maybe meeting with ADEQ (won't know until tomorrow); Thursday in West Memphis; Friday back in Little Rock (to help Chuck interview someone). The family is going along this time to visit friends :) ...while I work :(. Next week will be normal (I think), but then I'm back to Little Rock and Memphis the following week. Everything except for the West Memphis trip is related to one or more pulp and paper industry clients. I wish we had more than one integrated paper mill in OK so that I could exercise all the expertise I built up while in AR (which has a total of six integrated paper mills).
I recently accepted a promotion to manage the Oklahoma offices. Technically we have only one office - in Oklahoma City - but I live closer to Tulsa and hope to open an office there soon. All that I've heard - that going from a project manager to an office manager (both at the "Managing Consultant" grade level) is the biggest step - is true. Client demands have not diminshed much, but managerial stuff sure takes up a lot of my time now...and it sure seems that there is a lot more travel. I'm thankful for the Arkansas office manager (my old boss) who is taking on many of my old clients. This allows me to focus more on the Oklahoma staff, for which I'm also thankful. They have welcomed me with open arms. It's been less than three months, but I feel very much at home.
Wow, it has been more than a year since I last posted. To those depending on me to "keep it fresh," I apologize. I'm sure I have plenty of excuses, but probably no good reasons. Anyway, this week has been, and continues to be, crazy! We interviewed three people yesterday, and we are trying to set up interviews for others. All three that came to the office yesterday are well qualified - they all have Masters degrees (two chemical engineers and one civil engineer) - and I enjoyed meeting with them, but the process sure does eat up a day. I am anxious to see who might join our team. Today we have an ISO audit, an internal "brownbag" training session, and all company conference call from the CEO, and we have another executive in our office all day (partially for the ISO audit). In case you don't know what "ISO" is: International Standards Organization. To be ISO certified means that you have systems, procedures, policies, etc. in place to ensure that everyone in the organization provides "excellent work" with the "highest degree of integrity," that we "continually evolve so that our services and products are increasingly effective," and that we "continually improve" the very system we are working under. However, it is soon to be all a memory because tomorrow I'm taking off...to fish, have lunch with my daughter (her last day of school), and prepare for and have a picnic with my Sunday School class...and then Saturday we are going to Silver Dollar City and White Water in Branson, MO!
Today is the start of the first week in Little Rock without Brandon Mik. Brandon worked for the Little Rock office for more than a year, but he moved to our Albuquerque office last week. We will miss Brandon, and we wish him the best. We know that his transfer will be a successful growth opportunity for him.
Yesterday was a big push to finalize a huge draft application. So today there is almost no stress. I'm just cleaning up a few things that slipped a little because of the big project and writing a few cost proposals. It's good that this day came. We are starting to run short on work. Hopefully these proposals will generate projects to keep us busy for a while longer.
Also, today is the first full day with a new president. It's sort of like a birthday - I don't really feel any differently.
You're probably too young to even know the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, much less one of their songs. I don't listen to LS anymore, but I've recently been reminded of their song "Travelin' Man." The only part of the song that describes me is the title; the song is about a much different type of travelin' man. Regardless, lately I have been a travelin' man. Two weeks ago I had a day trip to West Memphis (about 2.5 hours one-way from the office), last Monday was a day trip to Blytheville (3.5 hours), last Wednesday I drove to Oklahoma City (5.5 hours) and then drove back on Thursday, and tonight I'm in Columbus, MS (6 hours). I go back home Thursday after two days of meetings at a paper mill and then a half day meeting with the state agency in Jackson, MS (the drive home will be about 5 hours). I was even supposed to fly out of Jackson on Friday for a day trip to Washington, DC, but that got cancelled - thankfully. This amount of travel is abnormal, especially right before Christmas, and it is about to wear me out. I'll be able to recoup once this week is over. The next two weeks include the Christmas and New Years holidays, and I'm taking some extra days off so that I'll only work two days per week. See you in January!
Monday I was golfing in a client-sponsored tournament (my team won second place with a 55!), yesterday I worked on five different modeling projects, and today I'm preparing course material for our newest class "Advanced Air Permitting Techniques." If I could squeeze in a plant site visit and a meeting with the state agency I'll have run the gamut in one week!
I'm normally not a gadget geek or on technology's cutting edge so this is really cool to me. Nothing much to say otherwise; I've been home due to illness for a couple days. This phone helps me stay in touch from home (or anywhere else) even easier.
It's Labor Day. Tomorrow starts the busy season. College career fairs and interviews begin in earnest this month. Several clients and industrial groups have golf tournaments over the next two months (everyone waits until it cools off). I am currently scheduled to play in three and will likely play in a couple more - what a job! On top of that, for whatever reason (maybe they are spending the rest of their budgets), clients tend to spend a little more in the fall. It's crazy but fun.
I'm starting my trip back from Louisville, KY (I have to fly through Chicago and St. Louis to get to Little Rock - go figure!) where I've been attending the annual Coal-Gen industry group conference. This was my first trip to Coal-Gen, and it will probably be my last. Despite a heavy focus in the agenda on environmental issues, especially CO2 issues, it was not the right place for an environmental consultant. The conference is just overrun by mechanical contractors, pipe fitters, industrial painters, etc. I did gather some good information about pending controls for CO2, but it really wasn't anything I couldn't have learned without spending three days out of the office. On top of the relatively ineffective conference, I had a terrible tooth ache the whole time. At least I got to watch some of the Olympics at night in the hotel.
I went to a public hearing today where people could comment on some proposed regulations changes. Compared to other public hearings I've been to, it was very uneventful. Only one person gave comments - the Executive Director of the Arkansas Environmental Federation, which is an advocacy group for industry in Arkansas (see www.environmentark.org) - and he just read the AEF's written comments (to be submitted later). It was good to be there however. Two part-time (they also use others) clients were there, and I think we solidified the fact that we stay on top of what's going on in the air permitting world (in Arkansas at least).
Yesterday, my entire office (at least those of us who were not out of town) went to an all-day seminar called "Get Motivated." It was well done and included some big-time speakers such as the founder of Monster.com, Jeff Taylor, and the former major of NYC and former republican presidential primary candidate, Rudolph Giuliani. There was a little too much sales pitching going on for my taste, but I guess they have to pay for the seminar somehow (the tickets were cheap). One thing that surprised me was the amount of faith/spirituality (specifically Christian) that was presented. One of many commonalities among the many extremely successful speakers was a Christian life and a trust in biblical principles regarding finances. This probably did not sit well with all of the several thousand people in (though perhaps they reconsidered upon hearing the presentations). I enjoyed it; it was a perspective you don't often hear anywhere outside of church, i.e., from our very secular print, TV, and radio media. Anyway, to get back to the point, in hindsight, I'm not sure the seminar was worth it to Trinity (30+ hours total of unbilled time), but it is nice to know that we are willing to take a chance on something like this.
An earlier post discussed my recent, grueling experience as an expert witness. Getting asked yes/no questions that you can't answer with a simple yes or no - like "have you stopped beating your spouse?" - is no fun. But now I get to be on the other side. I am working with an attorney to think of tough questions for an opposing expert witness. So basically I'm breaking down his analyses and pointing out anything that could/should be conducted differently, or anything that is questionable whatsoever. This is fun!
I love my job, but sometimes are better than others. Today is one of those times. Right now I am riding to Memphis (actually Collierville), TN with my office manager and another consultant to play golf in a charity golf tournament put on by the Valero refinery in Memphis. That refinery, which has been owned by four different companies since the Trinity-Little Rock office opened (Jan. '96), has been a great, long-term client so the expense (tourney fee and lost time/revenue) of this sales effort is worth it. Unless our fourth (we don't know who it is yet) is a pro, I don't think we have any chance of winning, but I'll let you know.
For the most part, we at Trinity are very much white-collar workers (we don't get dirty on the job) because we generally don't do stack testing or "field" work. Getting out of the office usually means going to a meeting, conference, or training course. We do occasionally get to tour plant sites, especially those for which we are preparing air dispersion modeling analyses (it's good to know what a site actually looks like when you are trying to build it in a model). It is these times when we get to break out the few tools (excluding software) we have. I'm sure the stack testers who tote equipment to the top of smoke stacks would scoff at me, but try carrying and using a camera, GPS, and two stop watches while also trying to make notes on a D-size plot plan drawing and multiple aerial photographs in 20 mph wind 150 feet off the ground. This is what I recently attempted (except for the stop watches - you only need those when doing visible emissions observations, which are typically conducted from ground level). I even got dirty! Of course, it was just from using the handrail while walking back down the *who knows how many* flights of stairs because the man lift broke while we were on top of the super structure.
More Posts
Next page »