Episode #44 is interactive, as Dr. Hal answers career questions from a high school student interested to one day work in meteorology, climatology or disaster science.

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Transcript:

00;00;02;25 - 00;00;22;29
Hal Needham
Hey, everyone, This is Dr. Hal, host of the GeoTrek podcast. A high school student recently reached out to me with professional questions about pursuing a career in meteorology, climate science or disaster resiliency. I thought, you know what? I should respond to those questions in a geo track podcast, and that's what we're doing right now in episode number 44.

00;00;23;13 - 00;00;48;12
Hal Needham
If it goes well, and I think it will. I love the interactive nature of back and forth dialog instead of monologues. If you all like this and it goes well, we want to make every double digit GeoTrek podcast episode interactive. So episode 55 would air on Monday, November 21st. We'll make that interactive as well. If this goes well and so think about questions you have in the field of extreme weather or disasters or resiliency.

00;00;48;22 - 00;01;13;12
Hal Needham
Shoot us those questions and I think we'll respond to those every 11 episodes and it'll make the podcast more interactive, more fun and more educational for everyone. Before I answer Christine's questions, I wanted to share a bit about this podcast. Gottschalk travels the world to find stories about the relationship between people and nature. Our stories investigate the impacts of extreme weather disasters and hazards on individuals and communities.

00;01;13;21 - 00;01;32;05
Hal Needham
Our goal is to help you understand better how the world works so you can take actions to make yourself, your family and your community more resilient from all the extremes that Mother Nature can throw at us. Hey, before we get into this episode, we have a favor to ask you. We would really appreciate if you would subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

00;01;32;14 - 00;01;57;02
Hal Needham
Your subscription helps us mark progress, which enables us to make more professional partnerships moving forward and ensures many more episodes of the Geo Trek podcast in the future. Well, hey, let's jump into this episode in my weather lab. You can sit over here by the rain gauge. I'll sit over there by the digital thermometer. Let's answer these questions that Christine had about pursuing careers in meteorology, climatology and disaster science.

00;01;58;01 - 00;02;01;08
Hal Needham
Well, Christine, thank you so much for the questions. I'm excited about the.

00;02;01;08 - 00;02;29;24
Christine
Interactive podcast here, looking at career questions for students and young professionals. The first question you asked me. What is my job title? And my main responsibility is my job title is Extreme Weather and Disaster Scientist. My main responsibility is really I do three things. I do extreme, or you can say severe weather forecasting for our parent company, CMT Catastrophe and National claims they've been doing great work in the disaster and hazard space for more than 30 years.

00;02;30;00 - 00;02;53;23
Christine
They're very concerned about any severe or extreme weather impacts, especially in the U.S. So during the springtime, especially in the plains states, the threat of tornadoes, hail, wind, that's all stuff that I'm forecasting. I would say March, April and May are the main months for that. And then, of course, later summer and into the fall, I think hurricane impacts are probably the biggest hazard that they're concerned about.

00;02;53;23 - 00;03;14;16
Christine
So I do a lot of tropical weather forecasting, especially through the summer and through the fall as well. So that's one thing I do a lot of weather forecasting. Number two, I'm the lead scientist for the GEO Track Project that includes the GEO track podcast here that we've all grown to know and love. We have some great interactions with people every week on this podcast, but there's more to geo track.

00;03;14;16 - 00;03;35;21
Christine
There's really a website and a science based platform where we're communicating constantly about extreme weather hazards, disasters and resiliency. We have a blog on there that sometimes I'll write a blog post, but more and more I'm coaching a team of writers that are writing really interesting articles about extreme weather. And then also we have a lot of videos on the Geo Trek site.

00;03;35;28 - 00;03;57;03
Christine
These are short videos like Reelz, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, but also we have some longer documentary style videos as well. This last spring, we did a tornado chase, for example, in the plains and did an 11 minute documentary, kind of a longer form communication piece about that. So we're really engaging with the media and with the public on geo track.

00;03;57;10 - 00;04;23;08
Christine
And then the third thing I do, I'm a lead scientist for an organization called Flood Information Systems, and this provides data driven flood risk analysis for flood prone communities. So part of what we do there, I help really build extensive comprehensive flood data sets where we can work with a community, build out their entire flood history, and then use those data to understand how risky they are to see extreme floods.

00;04;23;19 - 00;04;50;00
Christine
Not only do we look at these flood levels, but we also analyze how likely buildings are to be flooded utilities, roads, all those kinds of infrastructure and things like that. We're also analyzing the impacts of these floods. So those are really my main responsibility is helping flood information systems continue to run. I run also the US storm surge database called Use Surge, and then keeping geo track going and written content, video and the podcast.

00;04;50;05 - 00;05;09;20
Christine
And then, of course, weather forecasting for sea and sea. So a little bit of diversity there. I'm doing a lot of different things, but I like it. I like the variety. Every day is a little bit different and I get to work on different projects with different people. Question number two You asked me please identify 3 to 5 specific skills you need in order to perform your job and explain how you acquired those skills.

00;05;09;21 - 00;05;31;27
Christine
So number one, I would say just a strong basis in science. And how did I acquire that? That started long before the university. I was really blessed to grow up in a science oriented family. My father used to coach me through mathematics and he I remember doing algebra like seventh, eighth grade. I was struggling with it and I would finish problem number three and want to go right away to four.

00;05;31;27 - 00;05;53;13
Christine
He said, You're not done yet. You need to go back and plug in your answer and ask, Does that make sense? He would always make me review and double and triple check is the answer I just came up with. Does that make sense? According to the original problem. And so that type of thinking was really important. Also, I just grew up my grandma and my mom both really loved the weather.

00;05;53;24 - 00;06;11;25
Christine
My grandma was very into nature and the environment. Same with my mom, really, everyone in my family. And so I was very aware of the weather. I was really just passionate about it and so excited whenever there was a big storm. I grew up in the northeastern states and so blizzards and winter storms were the really the big thing that got me excited.

00;06;12;04 - 00;06;31;08
Christine
But I can remember also being 14 years old and I would pretty much read through every meteorology book in the local public library. And I remember laying in bed at night and reading this weather book and we had to explain the home I grew up in. We had three bedrooms upstairs, two of them had air conditioners. Mine did not.

00;06;31;16 - 00;06;45;13
Christine
So we had to keep all the bedroom doors open at night, so the air conditioner from the other bedrooms could reach me. And so I had my little light on. I was I was reading these books, but my mom was a really light sleeper. And so she would and we had a very early bedtime. I think it was like 930.

00;06;45;13 - 00;07;01;10
Christine
All the lights have to be off. And I literally could not put down this weather book. So I remember hiding under the covers with a tiny little flashlight. And again, my mom like this super light sleeper, and she could probably detect that light. If I heard a movement, I'd turn the light off. I was just I was 14 years old.

00;07;01;10 - 00;07;19;19
Christine
It was July and I'm I can't put this book down at night. We're we're studying all this meteorology, even in the summertime. So I was just really passionate about it. That gave me a really strong basis in the science. Eventually I went to Penn State where I studied meteorology. I transferred to geography, which is really the study of where things are and why they're there.

00;07;19;29 - 00;07;55;23
Christine
I did a lot of computerized mapping. There's an overlap between meteorology and geography. Any time you see weather maps, flood maps, things like this, climate maps are often really there's a lot of geography and what we call GIS geographic information systems embedded in that. So I got a background there in geography from Penn State University. I ended up going to Alaska for three years where I ended up studying atmospheric science and mathematics quite a bit, and then I ended up doing a master's and doctorate at Louisiana State University, really in geography with with a focus on climate science.

00;07;55;23 - 00;08;15;21
Christine
So those are some of the skills I developed, really. I'm going to group those together that were science skills like physical geography and meteorology, but also a lot of mathematical and analytical skills through there as well, especially the 16 credits of calculus that I did when I was in Alaska. There were also public speaking and communication skills that I've developed that have been very important.

00;08;15;28 - 00;08;38;26
Christine
The last several podcasts have been with broadcast meteorologists. We've had a lot of Geography podcast recently with broadcast meteorologists who've talked about the importance of communicating well and just how meteorology and broadcast meteorology has been revolutionized over the past decade. Now there's so much interaction on social media. People can do Facebook lives and Twitter lives and all these things.

00;08;39;07 - 00;09;00;09
Christine
It's amazing how important communication is to really reach your audience with an important message. And so that's another skill set that I really developed. You asked how I acquired these skills when I was an undergrad student. I was focused on meteorology and geography, but I also was very involved in some extracurricular groups as well. There was a campus ministry.

00;09;00;09 - 00;09;20;21
Christine
I was involved in the leadership team and one day the staff that were full time staff came to me and said, How would you consider emceeing our weekly meeting with 250 people? So that was a little scary. Standing in front of 250 people emceeing a meeting. You're introducing people, you're making people feel comfortable. You're doing some stand up comedy, you're creating some funny videos.

00;09;20;27 - 00;09;46;28
Christine
I did that every week for a couple of years that got me really comfortable speaking in front of large audiences. So that's something I always tell students Get a good GPA, but also get involved in some extracurricular things when you're a student as well. So those skills really developed at Penn State when I was an undergrad student and then also just I was able to develop a lot of skills in working with people, public relations, networking, these types of things.

00;09;46;28 - 00;10;07;22
Christine
I worked in Alaska. I was a public relations specialist where I really got to engage a lot with the media and with the public as well. And also I held a lot of different positions. I'm sharing some of the main academic ones, but I have worked at a laundromat. I work for six months at a chemical factory in Kentucky on an assembly line.

00;10;07;22 - 00;10;29;07
Christine
I worked as a baggage handler at an airport. I was a snowboard instructor in upstate New York. I've done a lot of things, and one thing that I learned through that is always do your best at whatever you're doing and there's always something you can take from every job, even that assembly line job I had. We would shut down early on a Friday afternoon and make sure we really cleaned and organized the place.

00;10;29;07 - 00;10;49;20
Christine
I still apply some of that knowledge to my work day. On Fridays. I'll try to really clean and organize and be ready to go for the next week. So there's always something that you can take from every lesson. I'm just sharing some of the high points here, but again, a solid basis in, I would say science, mathematics, but also communications more and more the better that you can communicate.

00;10;49;20 - 00;11;14;02
Christine
Public speaking, writing, all these things are really important in the really professional life today. Let's see. You asked what level of education or training is required for the position I applied for. Are there any specific courses I feel are essential for a good performance in this job? And beside the coursework, is there a certification or license requirement? There's no certification or license required for my job.

00;11;14;14 - 00;11;42;08
Christine
I would say out of the three things I do really weather forecasting, geo track science, communication, and then flood information systems, two of the three, the weather forecasting and the geo science communication. I think I could pretty much do them with a bachelor's degree if I had extensive experience professionally doing science writing and communication with the public. So really probably a bachelor's degree would be all that's required for those two four flood information systems.

00;11;42;08 - 00;12;14;28
Christine
While we're doing some really high level science research and analysis. Just today, I was doing an analysis with Phil Klotzbach from Colorado State University, one of the best known hurricane scientists in the world. And really, we're doing this high level stuff where we're doing statistics. We're involving some really advanced data sets. I don't really think I could lead that type of project without a doctorate in this type of work, because what you find undergrad, you're really getting a good broad view of the sciences, maybe Earth and Ocean Sciences, master's degree.

00;12;14;28 - 00;12;42;21
Christine
The way I look at it, you're doing research, but often you're kind of maybe not copying, but you're you're following maybe other people's research, but choosing a unique topic. But then a doctorate, you're kind of doing original research that hasn't been done before for a lot of these projects I'm doing with flood information systems, I don't think I could do them without the experience I had for four or five years doing a doctorate and doing follow up research after that.

00;12;42;21 - 00;12;59;20
Christine
So again, a lot of this stuff, there aren't as many requirements, but you really have to know your way around it. And so it really depends, I think, more on your experience and the skill set that you can bring to these different projects. By the way, these are great questions and they just keep getting better and better. I really like this one.

00;12;59;26 - 00;13;18;19
Christine
Question number four You asked me to describe my typical day, so that's really interesting. Since 2019, the year before the pandemic hit, I've been working mostly remotely, although I do a lot of travel as well. And so every day can be a little bit different. And I do have I'm very busy, but I also do have some level of flexibility.

00;13;19;00 - 00;13;36;19
Christine
I try to put some things into my workweek that like on Wednesdays, I sit on a science panel for the National Tropical Weather Conference. Again, I said on Fridays, I really like to organize and things like that towards the end of the afternoon. But one of the things I try to do with my typical day, and I guess no day is typical.

00;13;36;19 - 00;13;59;14
Christine
I mean, I try twice a week to get on social media live. Lately that's been like Tuesday and Friday late afternoon, but it can be whenever if there's no imminent threat, there's no hurricane right off the coast. I try to do social media weather broadcasting about twice a week. Now. If there's a storm approaching the US coast, I might be on there every 6 hours or something like that.

00;13;59;14 - 00;14;21;26
Christine
I'll really ramp it up. But in general, as far as my typical day, one thing that I really do like to do, I like to I'm in early riser, I'm early to bed, early to rise. I like to get up maybe 530. I really like to be working, if at all possible, maybe around six in the morning and put in a couple of hours just early on, then maybe go for a walk to stretch my legs, but I'll then push it again until late morning.

00;14;21;26 - 00;14;39;17
Christine
And then I personally kind of like to take an extended lunch, maybe a two hour lunch where I can run some errands. I'll often go to the fitness center, eat lunch, kind of break up the day a bit. Sometimes I see people going straight through like 9 to 5 with very little breaks for me, just especially because I'm at a laptop a lot.

00;14;39;18 - 00;14;55;21
Christine
That would be just I find it hard on my back and just hard on my body. I like to break the day up so and I can do that because I'm starting usually so early and then I get back to it for a few hours as well in the afternoon. Let's see. You had asked what are the most challenging issues with your job?

00;14;56;14 - 00;15;16;11
Christine
This is a really good question. It's always good with every job to think about what are the best things about it. But also, I love your question there. What's the most what are the most challenging things? Really? Two things stand out to me. For one, I'm working in the disaster space and really as an entrepreneur and a creative scientist in the private sector.

00;15;16;23 - 00;15;40;17
Christine
And so how do you do that? How do you develop products and solutions that help address the problems of society? How do you do that? But then make it so that you can run a business that can cover its expenses and pay a salary? That's a bit of a challenge. You know, I did my doctoral research at Louisiana State University, one of my dear friends that I went through grad school.

00;15;40;17 - 00;16;01;05
Christine
We had some overlap there. We both had the same major professor and then we both went private sector afterwards doing entrepreneurial type stuff. His name was Ezra Boyd and unfortunately he passed away at the age of 40, about six years ago. Just really tragic and I'm still very sad about it. I learned a lot from Ezra, but Ezra was really a disaster scientist.

00;16;01;18 - 00;16;23;01
Christine
And the thing I got as I got to know Ezra better, it was what amaze me about Ezra. He made himself so available to people, and he lived in the Mandeville area, just on the North Shore, just across the lake from New Orleans. And he launched something called Disaster Map. He was really into GIS. That's geographic information systems, basically, digital map layers.

00;16;23;08 - 00;16;48;24
Christine
Really into that. But using GIS and digital mapping technology, remote sensing, all these types of ways that you can do great mapping and spatial analysis. His passion was using that for disaster communications. And so and he was really building this when he passed away and it was starting to grow. He was starting to get funding. But I can remember sometimes, like South Louisiana gets a lot of floods and people would constantly be hitting up.

00;16;48;24 - 00;17;10;17
Christine
Ezra saying, Ezra, I'm in Slidell, Highway 11, near I 12 is flooded. How how can I get to Ponchatoula? And he would direct people, but he would have a ton of these calls where he's helping people through flood waters and he's helping people navigate disasters. And we'd often have these conversations like, you know, if you're doing that once or twice, it's one thing.

00;17;10;17 - 00;17;31;02
Christine
But when that's dozens of calls per month, all of a sudden that's a significant part of your schedule. And so that's part of a challenge for a disaster scientist. How do you develop products like that that help people can even help save people's lives? But how do you make an income on that? Or I guess we could use the word monetize, right?

00;17;31;13 - 00;17;53;07
Christine
I know it can sound bad. There are people in a distress situation. You don't want to be like taking advantage or like, you know, obviously you're not ever trying to exploit these people. But if you if you're someone like Ezra and you're doing this constantly to help people make decisions and to help them make optimal business decisions or even to help save their lives, you know, someone says, My daughter's trapped.

00;17;53;07 - 00;18;13;09
Christine
There's floodwaters around her. How does she get out of there? How do you how do you do that in a business model is what I'm trying to say. Where you're helping people, you're meeting their needs, but also you're making some income. I mean, is it a subscription service? Do people pay to use it or do you just freely help people that are in disasters and then put a donation button?

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;31;10
Christine
I mean, maybe that's the way to go that you say, hey, I helped 11 people last week navigate or, you know, last month navigate flood waters, maybe other people can help donate to that cause. I have noticed when you help people out through disasters, often they're extremely grateful. So maybe the way to go about that is to have a donation button.

00;18;31;10 - 00;18;51;16
Christine
I don't know. But just monetizing some of these things and building a business model in disaster sciences can be a little bit sensitive sometimes because you certainly don't want to take advantage of people that are have been hit hard or going through a terrible crisis. But at the same time, if this is what you do for a profession, you have to find a way to be able to pay your bills and make a decent salary.

00;18;51;16 - 00;19;15;09
Christine
So that's one of the challenges. Maybe a little bit long winded there, but definitely one of the challenges if you're working in the private sector, entrepreneur work in disaster science, it's like how do you meet people's needs but also make an income with that? I would say that's part of it. And then number two, I've noticed just sometimes being very overwhelmed again, recent podcasts we've been talking about how the rise of social media is a double edged sword, right?

00;19;15;17 - 00;19;44;10
Christine
So if I go back to when I was a kid, meteorologists were on TV, you it would never have crossed your mind that you could interact with them like in 1 to 1 communication or send them a Facebook message or send them a text message. You would never cross your mind that you could interact with them personally. Nowadays, we have a lot of personal interaction on social media, especially there's Facebook lives where viewers can chat with the the expert in real time.

00;19;44;10 - 00;20;07;15
Christine
It's amazing. So that is a good thing. But also what happens professionally. If you're doing really good work, a lot of times you're going to get a lot of requests for for your opinion and also for your services. So for your opinion, how this works, if there's a hurricane approaching, approaching the coast, my text and social media is going to be blowing up with people saying, I live at this address.

00;20;07;16 - 00;20;26;04
Christine
Is my house going to flood? What is the best way for me to navigate my evacuation without having wind damage? My daughter was supposed to move back to her dormitory this weekend. Is it going to be safe? Are the winds going to be bad? People asking all these questions, should I evacuate or not? This has come up on a recent podcast and it's something that's a challenge.

00;20;26;13 - 00;20;56;13
Christine
For one, you don't want to lead people astray for to just the it's a huge time crunch. If you're forecasting a hurricane, you're trying to have a good forecast, create new products, communicate with the public, and then all of a sudden in an hour, you have eight personal messages that come in where people want customized forecast. A lot of times it's you want to be there to answer everybody's question, but you just don't have the time or capacity to do it.

00;20;56;13 - 00;21;19;04
Christine
So I do like when people reach out to me personally, at least I will scan through their questions and I'll notice, you know what six people in League City are all wondering about the flood potential. So maybe that's something I'll address tonight on a Facebook Live. So I will read through early, scan through people's questions. At a minimum, I can respond collectively if I start seeing the same question come again and again.

00;21;19;04 - 00;21;35;16
Christine
I'll address that on social media live. But unfortunately, I often run out of time to get back to everybody on a personal text or Facebook message. So that's one of the challenges. But again, that's, I guess, a good problem to have, right? I want people to feel like they can reach out to me that I'm a credible source.

00;21;35;24 - 00;22;02;15
Christine
I don't hype the forecast and that I can help guide them. I really like that interaction. Sometimes it just gets a little too overwhelming, especially if there's, say, a landfalling hurricane. The second thing is really kind of being overwhelmed with like not in a disaster, just from, I guess, being asked to do a ton of different things, some of which are right in the sweet spot of where you want to go professionally.

00;22;02;15 - 00;22;21;05
Christine
But some of them are very peripheral. I'll give you an example. Again, I love disaster forecasting, extreme weather forecasting, especially flood wind impacts. Those are the things that really get me passionate. I can do that during a storm, but I can also do that long term, right? I can say it's February. There's no hurricane for six more months.

00;22;21;12 - 00;22;44;02
Christine
But this neighborhood here's their long term flood risk. That's something I can do every day of the year. And it's a it's really where my passion is. But along the way, I'll get people say, hey, you're kind of into resiliency work and sustainability work. We have a community garden that we want to develop in your town and we would love for you to be a part of that because you're a known face in the community.

00;22;44;02 - 00;23;09;22
Christine
People trust you can you help out with our Community Garden project? Things like this come up quite a bit and so over time younger In my career, I try to do it all and I just get sober now and just so exhausted now I realize I just can't do everything. So that's another challenge of how do you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to Over time, I feel better about respectfully declining some offers that come my way.

00;23;10;00 - 00;23;30;13
Christine
Again, I realize it. There's a great importance on having your top three or four goals and making sure you're hitting them, and that might mean that request number 17, you can't. So part of that is just reevaluating what your goals are, where you want to go. Someone explain the term value add to me what is your value add?

00;23;30;13 - 00;24;04;12
Christine
In other words, professionally, when we look at the the professional space for disaster work or extreme weather work, where do you fit in? What do you provide that's unique to you? Are very specialized that you can do maybe better than anyone else, though those are the things we really want to keep an eye on. Because if you do good work and you've chosen a good topic to research, you're often going to get way more requests for your services and you can possibly feel so staying focused and really focusing on your goals, not in a selfish way, but saying what are the unique things I can do that can help the most people out there?

00;24;04;19 - 00;24;22;25
Christine
And that may mean that we have to say no to a lot of other things, if that makes sense. That's always a really challenging thing and it's just something I think that I've become more comfortable with as I've grown professionally. Well, Christine, you also asked me about describing my time management strategies in order to make sure I meet deadlines and accomplish tasks.

00;24;23;07 - 00;24;46;12
Christine
Boy, I find the more structured and focused I am, the better it is two things that I do. For one, I actually have a master database that has all the potential work items listed in it. So I don't know, there might be 58 items in that right now. I will go through most mornings and I'll rank everything what I'll actually do before I rank them, I'll categorize them.

00;24;46;24 - 00;25;08;24
Christine
So category A means this absolutely needs to be done today and then I'll shade that row red. Category B means I would like to get it done today. Category C means I'd like to get it done this week and then Category D is everything else. And so I try to limit category A to seven items and Category B to 12 items.

00;25;08;24 - 00;25;32;21
Christine
So the total is about 19 items a day that I'm trying to get done. And so this really helps me to focus on something I've noticed is when I do these categories A and B A has to get done today. B, I want it to get done today and then I'll rank those from 1 to 19. What I notice sometimes is the project that I want to work on or that I've been working on.

00;25;33;01 - 00;25;56;18
Christine
It might rank like 14 and the project I really need to get done. The number one, I don't want to do it. So sometimes like administrative work, there's all kinds of different things that, you know, I drag my feet on. I don't want to do it. The more I can really rank the things I need to do, it helps me be a lot more efficient and get my deadlines done.

00;25;56;28 - 00;26;15;26
Christine
Always be aware about other people. So for example, if you need to do an interview with someone and write that up by Friday, that's something you need to contact that person probably on Monday or Tuesday. You always want to give a buffer, give a couple of days for people to get back to you. So always those things early in the morning, especially, Who are the people that are waiting on things for me?

00;26;16;14 - 00;26;39;19
Christine
Take care of those things up front and then sometimes do the research I want to do later. So that helps. A second thing with time management that I really believe in is putting the phone on silence. If I'm doing a podcast, if I'm doing research, if I'm doing writing, I see a lot of people and I'll say, especially the younger generation, every 7 minutes, their phones going off their phones has notifications.

00;26;40;00 - 00;27;03;02
Christine
How can you write an in-depth science article when you're interrupted every five or 6 minutes? It's really difficult. I think for me it really helps to put my phone in my everything on silent and to really get deep, whether I'm writing, analyzing, communicating, doing a podcast for me that really works. I carry that over even to my midday workout when I'm in the gym, the phones on silent.

00;27;03;02 - 00;27;24;00
Christine
Usually now I am checking through my messages at least several times per day. So and if you know, if I see an urgent message from work, I'll call them back immediately. But I think it is important to have these blocks of times where you're uninterrupted. I think your work quality will be better. You can be focused better. And then I like to, you know, return all my messages, for example, at once.

00;27;24;01 - 00;27;44;26
Christine
So every now and then people will get a little frustrated. They'll say, We've been trying to reach you. But again, with with the office, I like to keep really close in touch. Sometimes family or friends, they're trying to call me at 10:00 on a monday. It's like, Well, I have work to do. I'm I'm focused on something. So you also ask me, what are the what are some of the most effective problem solving methods I use to resolve issues at work?

00;27;44;26 - 00;28;06;15
Christine
Please, please include some examples I like to really do goals. So every three months or so I like to have goals for for that period of time. It's important every now and then to step back and look at the bird's eye view. You know, what's the big picture here? It's really easy with work just to be reactive instead of proactive to spend the day just replying to people's emails.

00;28;06;21 - 00;28;30;19
Christine
It's important to step out from that and say, Wait, every now and then, what's the big picture? Where am I going? I am I going on the path that I really want to that I feel like I can really help the most people? So yeah, writing also brainstorming, taking time to write down, you know, when you have a problem, when something needs to be resolved, do some brainstorming, write down every possible solution and kind of work through those things as well.

00;28;30;25 - 00;28;48;26
Christine
I find that to be to be helpful as well. And then lastly, we spend a lot of time trying to solve problems that are unnecessary. So for example, the battery on my laptop died about a year ago. Now I realized, like wherever I go, I can just have it plugged in, right? It's plugged in right now. If I'm traveling, I can always find a plug.

00;28;49;04 - 00;29;09;20
Christine
So for me, it's not worth the several hours it would take to pack it up, ship it to our parrot office, have to find a replacement computer for a while, and then have it shipped back and put in a technological ticket for this to be fixed again. It would be a couple of hours of my workweek and you know why fool with it.

00;29;09;20 - 00;29;30;07
Christine
It works fine as long as it's plugged in. So a lot of times I find myself being really kind of stingy and just focusing on the key things that need to get done. There's usually a lot of peripheral things that you can waste time on that are not as necessary. Number eight As you consider your previous jobs and experiences, what entry level skills did you gain that help you in your current position?

00;29;30;07 - 00;29;49;25
Christine
So great question there. And again, I've shared a little bit about this. I've worked in a lot of different positions everywhere. You know, I'll say this one thing sometimes we have a goal, especially as a young professional. We think we know where we want to go and along the way we run into other things that we weren't expecting.

00;29;50;03 - 00;30;13;07
Christine
That can be huge blessings. Like for me, when I went to Alaska, I wanted to become a professional climate scientist. I enrolled to study atmospheric science. They told me my math level wasn't high enough, so I thought, Wow, I'm going to have to take like 12 or 16 credits of calculus. Well, while I was doing that, I got a job with the University of Alaska in the public relations office.

00;30;13;07 - 00;30;38;24
Christine
I had no idea what public relations was. Next thing you know, I'm making up a tour for tourists to travel with me through the Geophysical Institute and the International Arctic Research Center. And we went to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. We looked at seismographs, we met atmospheric scientist, we met people that study the aurora in space weather. And, you know, I developed this thing.

00;30;38;24 - 00;30;58;21
Christine
And along the way, I realized, you know what, I really love this. I really love communicating science to the public. I didn't realize this is a thing. I didn't realize I'm good at it until I got there. Had I been able to go right away into atmospheric science, I would have done that in a heartbeat. I never would have really done that.

00;30;58;21 - 00;31;20;23
Christine
Public relations work in Alaska. Here I am 15 years later, and actually a lot of those skill sets that I developed in public relations, like writing press releases, engaging with the public and the media, I use those skills every single day. And so again, that wasn't on my radar. But along the way, some things blindsided me and redirected me.

00;31;21;03 - 00;31;38;26
Christine
So that can be a good thing. Some some of the paths you think you want to go in your career. Actually going a different path can be even better, so just keep your eyes open to different opportunities you have There may be something that comes your way that was never on your plan, never on your radar, but it actually is a better path for you.

00;31;38;27 - 00;32;04;06
Christine
That's what I found. Found out, Like with science communication, I didn't realize that's even a thing or that I'd be good at it. Likewise, I also worked at the international Snow and Ice I'm sorry, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. I worked there from 2007 to 2008. As a scientific programmer, I thought I would love scientific programing, like computer programing because I love science and I lived overseas and was a pretty good linguist in my year.

00;32;04;06 - 00;32;29;19
Christine
So I thought, well, computer programing, that's like linguistics for science. I'm going to love this. It was really hard for me. I am not a good computer programmer. It I really struggled with it and it got to the point even I kind of dreaded coming to work just wasn't a good fit for me. And at the end of my time there, my supervisor, who really did a great job trying to mentor me and instruct me, she told me, she said, Don't look at this as a failure.

00;32;29;19 - 00;32;56;29
Christine
She said, there's a reason why even college students are encouraged to do internships. Get out there and try something. You may love it or you may hate it, or you may say, you know, this just isn't a good fit for me. But how do you know unless you try it? Her point was, if you try something and it's not a good fit, that was a smashing success because you've just realized, okay, I thought computer programing might be a good path for me, but it's really not.

00;32;56;29 - 00;33;15;12
Christine
I don't have an aptitude for it. I don't enjoy it. So again, just getting out and trying things, I think it's really important and you'll be blindsided. You may end up going some paths you never expected and some other ways that you thought were going to be good fit for you might not be so that's part of the adventure and the exploration of just trying things out.

00;33;15;19 - 00;33;46;27
Christine
Do internships, do summer studies, co-ops, different things like this. You'll get to know yourself better and get to know your strengths and weaknesses as well. Christina You asked how important is networking in your line of work and how do you build a professional network in person and online? An excellent and a very, very important question. A lot of students and young professionals, I think, did not realize the value of networking and part of this is they're such a focus, I think, especially in the sciences and mathematics and just having a high GPA.

00;33;47;06 - 00;34;09;18
Christine
And so we can feel like if you get a degree, you have a high GPA, it's all going to work out. Great networking is unbelievably important. How do we do that? So part of it is just being a being personal with people, getting to know people looking for opportunities to get to know other other colleagues that are your age or even older colleagues that can help mentor you and guide you.

00;34;09;18 - 00;34;31;21
Christine
Ask questions, get to know people, ask them, you know, man, take $3 and take someone out for a cup of coffee that's older in the field and just ask questions and just listen. What do they think are the biggest problems that this field faces? Where are the opportunities? Where are the challenges? If they could go back in time and start over, what would they do differently?

00;34;31;26 - 00;34;52;17
Christine
Just get a mentor, build relationships and just as much as you can to soak all this in? Well, easier said than done. How do you do that? Right. So it's not always easy. Check out career fairs. Often a college or university will have career fairs. Those are online as well as in-person. Even in the job interview process. Take a deep breath.

00;34;52;21 - 00;35;13;00
Christine
You're being interviewed, but also interview them. Ask them some of those questions. If your interviewer is a personal person they'll share about their life and their experience as well. So another thing, conference and workshops in science. There are many of them. Often we see these mega conferences where 5000 people, there's a place for them and that can help you network.

00;35;13;00 - 00;35;37;22
Christine
But I'll tell you, I've seen tremendous good from smaller workshops. I'm talking 40, 50, 60 people. There are a lot of these smaller workshops that bring together people from different disciplines and look for a workshop where you all stay in the same session. You know, at a workshop people give presentations, but if you're at a mega conference, you have hundreds of breakout presentations.

00;35;37;28 - 00;36;03;12
Christine
You'll have 20 people in a room, they'll listen to someone, give a talk, and then afterwards everyone leaves and they go somewhere else. In my experience, I can spend three days at a mega conference and hardly get to know people. If you go to a small conference where there's 40, 50, 60 people and you're all in the same session and then you all eat your meals together, all of a sudden, wow, I just left that conference with a couple of people that I spent spend a few hours a day with.

00;36;03;14 - 00;36;30;19
Christine
We shared a lot of meals together. All of a sudden, that's going to lead to probably more collaboration. So that's really important. Any time that you can establish relationships and and have ongoing interactions week in, week out, that's very valuable. Again, I shared about the National Tropical Weather Conference. It's really one of the highlights of my week. I sit on a science panel, but every Wednesday morning I see Alex, Tim and Bill and we're connecting, we're catching up.

00;36;30;25 - 00;36;50;14
Christine
But it's the repetitive nature of building these relationships over time. It helps me know them and what their needs are, but then they also get to know me. They get to know my strengths and what I can offer as well. So it just helps us network and help each other out. So anything that you can be involved with that's ongoing and regular, I think that's just really important.

00;36;50;20 - 00;37;10;26
Christine
The last thing too is just relax and build friendships. You never know where they're going to lead. You This has to do with obviously business is important, professional life is important. But when you're at a workshop, when you when you're working with people, try to get to know them personally as much as you can. So what makes this person tick outside of the workplace?

00;37;10;26 - 00;37;29;28
Christine
What's the what are the most important things to them? Family is important to all of us, but what about hobbies and interests? Maybe you meet someone who's really into horses, so just get to know them. Like where did that come from? Did they grow up on a ranch? Do they do they ride every weekend? Just get to know them a little bit better and it'll help you build a relationship with them.

00;37;29;28 - 00;37;50;13
Christine
Maybe they're a passionate Los Angeles Dodgers fan, Right? And a few months later, the Dodgers make it to the World Series. Them a send them a congratulations text. It'll help you catch up with them and continue that relationship. But again, it's it's those types of connections outside the workplace that all of a sudden they feel more connected to you and you feel more connected to them.

00;37;50;21 - 00;38;08;28
Christine
It's not about using. People are being selfish, but the more people you're connected to, the more people you'll get to know and build a relationship. It'll help you meet their needs, but also help them know about you. And all of a sudden you won't be. You'd be shocked how many times you send that text. Congrats. The Dodgers are in the series and they're like, Hey, we need to catch up.

00;38;09;06 - 00;38;25;15
Christine
Actually, there's a project you should be involved with, right? Again, you were just connecting about baseball. You weren't trying to use it in a manipulative way. But all of a sudden when when you show up on people's phones and radar, they're Oh, I remember that how a guy let's let's let's bring him in on this project. You know, we like working with him.

00;38;25;15 - 00;38;30;12
Christine
So networking very important. And again, just really it's all about building relationships.

00;38;30;22 - 00;38;52;16
Hal Needham
The next question, what is the most rewarding part of my job that would have to be forecasting the likeliness of extreme weather near where I live there in the Gulf Coast region every year people are on edge as tropical storms and hurricanes get in the Gulf of Mexico. They really want to know what kind of actions they can take to help save themselves and save their property.

00;38;52;28 - 00;39;11;17
Hal Needham
I never really tell people what to do. I never tell them they should evacuate or or what exactly they should do. But I'll help them interpret the impacts of these storms. I will direct them to the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. But there's usually some interpretation of impacts I can do that enhance the forecast a little bit more.

00;39;11;27 - 00;39;34;08
Hal Needham
A good example, when there's a tropical storm out there and the winds hit 50 knots, that's sustained winds of 57 miles an hour, that's when we typically start to see more tree falls and widespread power outages for some people. For example, if you're taking care of your mother or grandmother and they're on oxygen, maybe they need to have a power supply or their health could really be impacted.

00;39;34;08 - 00;39;52;26
Hal Needham
So for some people, that threshold of losing power is a non-negotiable. As soon as they think that it's probable that they're going to lose power, they want to evacuate. And so helping them understand the likeliness of impacts like that can really help people make decisions. Several years ago I launched the Hazard Area likeliness index or the Howe index.

00;39;53;02 - 00;40;14;10
Hal Needham
What I'll do is I'll take the three major hazards of a hurricane. That's a wind, rain and storm surge, and I'll give the likeliness of it. Is it unlikely, possible, probable or likely? And at each of about 12 hour increments, I'll update the forecast map. So to help people interpret what's their risk of those different hazards, that's really my favorite part of my job.

00;40;14;10 - 00;40;35;12
Hal Needham
I love the interaction with people. And when people can really understand their risk and make informed decisions to help protect themselves and their families, that really means a lot to me. And that's my favorite part of my job by far. The last question, I love this one. What advice do you have for people who are just starting out and aspiring to advance in my field of study?

00;40;35;26 - 00;40;54;19
Hal Needham
Three piece of advice I have the first one that comes to mind. I was in Alaska. I was working this public relations job and I had a math book, a big calculus book behind my head on the bookshelf, and a glaciologist named Carl Benton came by. He might have been, I don't know, in his upper seventies. He was semi-retired, but he just loved science.

00;40;54;27 - 00;41;15;07
Hal Needham
He walked by my desk and stopped. He said, Is that a calculus book? I said, It is. And Dr. Benson told me, you know, 95% of success in mathematics and I would interpret in science in general is convincing yourself that you're having fun. And, you know, I'm not the quickest learner. When I studied all this calculus in Alaska.

00;41;15;23 - 00;41;33;01
Hal Needham
I didn't quite get it on my own. I often had to go to the math lab and get help from tutors on the weekend when my friends and my roommates were out there skiing and hiking. I was often going to the math lab and I realized your attitude in all of this makes a huge difference. I chose to say, You know what?

00;41;33;01 - 00;41;56;24
Hal Needham
I'm going to have fun with this. I'm going to view this like I'm exploring, I'm discovering, I'm solving riddles, and I'm going to have a great attitude with this. And it wasn't that bad. It actually was fun. And Carl Benson was right. 95% of success in the sciences is convincing yourself you're having fun, you're exploring, you're discovering. There were a lot of students in the math lab on those weekends bellyaching and complaining, I can't believe we're here.

00;41;56;24 - 00;42;15;24
Hal Needham
We could be out having fun, and instead we're in this stupid building, right? So it's all about your attitude. And I've noticed this through grad studies. If you do a grad school program and you're really getting into data analysis, you might end up working 60, 70 plus hours week. And some of these stipends might only be 16, $18,000 a year.

00;42;16;03 - 00;42;32;11
Hal Needham
When you do the math, you're making like five bucks an hour. If you don't love what you're doing, if you don't have a passion for it, it's going to be really hard to make it through. And so think of your language. I hear students all the time saying, Oh, I can't believe I have to write this paper. I Ought to do this analysis.

00;42;32;15 - 00;42;52;26
Hal Needham
They're using words of duty have or it must when you're using words like get to or I want to. I'm excited about stuff. It changes everything. And I noticed that when I was in grad school, I really tried to keep a positive attitude and have this perception, Hey, I get to do this, this is a privilege, This is exciting.

00;42;53;11 - 00;43;15;02
Hal Needham
That's 95% of success in the sciences. If you have a good attitude, it's going to go a long way. Number two, I see a lot of young people and young professionals really getting paralyzed with fear. They're 18 years old and they're trying to figure out what their major should be in college or they're 23 years old and one of their first jobs just or trying to choose a first job and paralyze like what if I make the wrong choice?

00;43;15;25 - 00;43;34;08
Hal Needham
We have this perception sometimes that our professional life is just long, straight path, and if we got on the wrong road, we're doomed. We have just shot ourselves in the foot and we're really going to hurt ourselves forever. I want to encourage you not to be paralyzed with fear. Look at my path. I had so many zig zags.

00;43;34;08 - 00;43;51;21
Hal Needham
It was unbelievable. And what I found is the most important thing all the way through was just to do my best in whatever job I was doing. Sometimes I was doing jobs I loved. Sometimes, like when I was on the factory floor. I did not enjoy that really, but I wanted to go show up on time, have a good attitude and do my best.

00;43;51;21 - 00;44;08;20
Hal Needham
But don't be paralyzed with fear in whatever jobs you do. You can do a job that really is not a good fit for you, but there's usually something that you can take from that and apply it along the way. So chill out. Take a deep breath. It's not about you making a perfect choice when you're a young adult.

00;44;09;09 - 00;44;32;10
Hal Needham
It's about keeping your eyes open, meeting people, networking, looking for opportunities. But whatever you find yourself in today, do your best at it. That you can. And the last piece of advice I would choose a field that you're passionate about, whether that's biology, meteorology, chemistry, whatever you're passionate about, choose a field that you love, but the topic you feel you choose.

00;44;32;16 - 00;44;55;26
Hal Needham
Feel free to have some lateral movement and some flexibility with that. Again, my passion was climate and weather. I grew up in the northeastern states where the extreme weather was blizzards. I had never really been in a hurricane before. Yet I chose professional league to study hurricanes and coastal flooding. Why in the world did I do that? It really had to do with high impact, high profile topics.

00;44;56;06 - 00;45;18;17
Hal Needham
Feel free to adjust and be flexible and redirect yourself into topics that are really high profile and high impact coastal flooding. When you get a storm like Katrina and you get more than $150 billion in losses, when you get these 100 plus billion loss events, there is going to be a ton of funding for research and for mitigation and for community outreach.

00;45;19;08 - 00;45;38;29
Hal Needham
You get these high dollar, high fatality hazards and there's going to be a lot of opportunities to help people. Now, again, my passion is I love winter sports. I love hiking mountains, I love snow. I was a winter sports athlete at the national level. But had I gotten in to say, avalanche research, there's a place for that. There's an importance for that.

00;45;39;07 - 00;46;03;11
Hal Needham
But the collective impact is tiny compared to, say, coastal flooding in Florida. So avalanches do affect backcountry skiers and some some small towns in the Rockies, for example. But it's nowhere near the collective impact that you're going to get with something like sea level rise or coastal flooding. So I'm really glad that I chose a more mainstream high impact subfield within climate and meteorology, and I'd encourage you to do the same.

00;46;03;16 - 00;46;23;23
Hal Needham
You can find out what these high impact fields are just looking at the headlines and the national news and international news. These these things like coastal flooding, drought, wildfires that we're seeing widespread impacts. There's going to be a lot of funding for them and a lot of opportunities to help a lot of people. Christine, thanks so much for these great questions.

00;46;23;24 - 00;46;31;27
Hal Needham
This was a fun, interactive podcast and we wish you the best in your studies and professional pursuits. Students like Christine can reach out to.

00;46;31;27 - 00;46;33;23
Christine
Go track once they get into college.

00;46;33;23 - 00;46;51;24
Hal Needham
We often hire part time college students to do writing, create videos. We even have professional partnerships with organizations like Flood Information Systems, where students can help build weather and climate datasets like flood datasets or map out housing elevations so we can get a building inventory.

00;46;52;03 - 00;46;54;18
Christine
So if we know that a flood hits a city, we can actually.

00;46;54;18 - 00;47;09;21
Hal Needham
Estimate how many buildings would flood. That gets into geographic information systems and digital mapping. There are a lot of opportunities, and we often do hire college students to do part time work for us to reach out to us. If you're interested in extreme weather hazards or their impacts on society.

00;47;10;04 - 00;47;11;14
Christine
Thanks so much for listening, everyone.

00;47;11;14 - 00;47;12;23
Hal Needham
And remember, we're going to respond.

00;47;12;23 - 00;47;25;03
Christine
To more listener questions in episode 55, which is right around the corner. It'll be on November 21st. So if you have questions about extreme weather, about resiliency disasters, reach out to us. We'd Love to answer your.

00;47;25;03 - 00;47;26;25
Hal Needham
Questions on a future episode.

00;47;27;06 - 00;47;31;00
Christine
Hey, thanks so much for our geo Track production and marketing team. Our featured.

00;47;31;00 - 00;47;35;04
Hal Needham
Team member of the week is Social media Manager Ashley Anderson, who.

00;47;35;04 - 00;47;41;04
Christine
Incessantly shares gotcha content with tons of people online. Thanks for your positive attitude and hard work, Ashley.

00;47;41;04 - 00;47;49;01
Hal Needham
It's been a pleasure to work with you. Take care everyone and we'll catch you on the next episode of the Geo Track podcast.

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