February 10, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode of Curiosity at Work, Dr. Julie Pham interviews Jerry Waldron, Interim Construction Management Director at Seattle Public Utilities (SPU). With over 35 years of experience in engineering, infrastructure, and public service, Jerry shares insights on leading large-scale utility projects that impact daily life in Seattle. He discusses the challenges of fostering curiosity in a policy-driven environment, the importance of continuous improvement, and how SPU’s Skills and Knowledge Transfer (SKT) program helps employees grow. Tune in to learn how Jerry empowers his team, drives collaboration, and ensures Seattle’s essential services run smoothly.
Connect with Dr. Julie Pham:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliepham2/
- Website: https://curiositybased.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliephamphd/
Connect with Jerry Waldron:
- Email: jerry.waldron@seattle.gov
- Website: https://www.nwccc.org/about-nwccc/officers/
#JerryWaldron #SeattlePublicUtilities #CuriosityAtWork #Leadership #ConstructionManagement #PublicService #Infrastructure #ContinuousImprovement #Collaboration #WorkforceTraining
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
I'm Dr. Julie Pham, founder of Curiosity Based.
We help people practice curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace, because that is
where we spend most of our waking hours.
Curiosity as a practice boils down to self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication.
So join us as we interview leaders to see how they use curiosity at work.
Welcome to the Curiosity at Work podcast.
(00:26):
I am Julie Pham, the CEO of Curiosity Based, and I'm super excited to have this conversation
today with Jerry Waldron, who is the Construction Management Director at Seattle Public Utilities.
He has a 35-year career starting in the military and then working in Panama as an engineer,
then going into the private sector before he started working for the city of Seattle.
(00:48):
So Jerry has this wide diversity of experience that I'm really looking forward to sharing
with our audience today.
Welcome, Jerry.
Oh, thank you, Julie.
Hello, audience.
Yes.
So Jerry, could you just share a little bit about the team that you lead at the city
(01:08):
of Seattle in the Seattle Public Utilities?
What's, how many people, how do you work together, what do you do?
Sure.
So part of me as a role of the Construction Management Director at Seattle Public Utilities
is having opportunities to lead 49 full-time employees that are experienced in inspection,
(01:30):
resident engineering, construction management, and we deliver what we call capital improvement
projects.
So you may ask, what are those?
Well, capital improvement projects on our perspective is the folks that live in the
wonderful city of Seattle, they pay like a utility bill.
And to be clear, it's not the electric bill that we're interested in.
What funds my department is the trash bill, the storm drainage, and the sewer.
(01:56):
So a lot of our capital projects has opportunities to look at growth management acts, private
development, and we install utilities that serve essential services for like when you
flush the toilet, when you turn on your sink.
And so basically if your fire flow is not working during a fire, you contact my department.
If people aren't picking up your trash, you contact my department.
(02:20):
Or from the standpoint of if you've got an overflow of a sewer in front of your front
yard, contact my department.
That's kind of what we do at Seattle Public Utilities.
A lot of our essential services are tied to environmental things related to people's
health.
So if you can't wash your hands during the era of COVID-19, what would that have been
like for you?
(02:40):
Or if you've got a backup in the basement and you just can't enter your basement anymore
because it's full of sewage, like what do you do then?
That's the opportunity for us to kind of step in to help solve those problems.
Let me take a step back on what public work means to me and what it means to the world.
So what it's like for us is we develop a set of plans and it goes into an award book
(03:03):
and civil plans.
It gets packaged up, sent out to the advertisement side of Public Works where contractors download
the package to review it.
They only get three weeks to review it, even though it takes us a few years to design it.
They bid on it and we get the opportunity to work with the lowest qualified bidder.
It can't be the highest bidder.
(03:24):
It's got to be the lowest qualified bidder.
And my team's role is to make sure that the contractor is doing what the contract says
and us administering it.
So now going to the inspection.
So I filled frontline staff that observed the work.
So pipe being placed in the ground and excavation that's required to put in a new vault,
(03:44):
things like that.
Then we've got resident engineers.
And what the resident engineers are is basically the face of the project during construction.
So if you've got a situation where we're closing down the street and you're asking,
hey, how long is this going to take?
That's where the responsibility of my resident engineer kind of helps manage the job,
(04:06):
so to speak, and the inspectors.
And then we've got construction managers that run the program.
So if we've got several projects that are dealing with a water main extension,
that's usually a program versus just a project.
And so this group of 49 folks do a fantastic job just to make sure that we're keeping the public safe,
that we're installing the infrastructure that's required to meet up with the demands
(04:29):
that this wonderful community places on us.
And also an opportunity to just to kind of plug the industry.
It's a fun industry to be in.
Yes, it's composed of folks with engineers, project management certified individuals,
and construction management certified folks.
However, we do have the opportunity to oversee folks that are in the trades.
(04:54):
And so that's just something that the future workforce is really going to have issues with
because a lot of folks are not going into the trades.
So it's an opportunity for all of us to learn together.
So just to recap here, you've got the people who are working directly with the contractors,
choosing the contractors and working directly with the contractors.
You've got the inspectors, you've got these resident engineers,
(05:15):
and you also have construction managers.
Yes.
And then you also work with a team of consultants too, right?
It's pretty closely.
Yes, we do work with a team of consultants that help provide during the times
where we either don't have the expertise or we don't have the capacity
because we have lots of projects to deliver.
(05:35):
You know, because part of that too, and I apologize to my team up front,
I forgot my office engineering team and of course the administration staff
and my materials lab folks,
we all act as a unit to make sure that the materials that are delivered to the site meet our standards.
That's really key for us because if we really think about it,
(05:57):
even though my team's only engaged during the design and construction for a few years,
our asset owners who are the maintenance folks have to maintain it for the next 50 to 100 years.
So we're really keen on making sure that the designs are put per plan and per our standards.
And then on my office engineering side,
if you think about it as the bean counters to make sure that every dollar that you spend on your bills
(06:23):
are being spent efficiently and passes audit checks,
that keeps our monitoring controls to make sure that we're staying on task
and that we're actually spending the dollars that we've committed to you all
to make sure that's going to the appropriate fund.
What I'm taking away from this is your work is very concrete.
You are dealing with buildings, with projects that people are going to interact with every day.
(06:52):
And while you're thinking in the long term of how did these last for 50, 100 years,
there's nothing theoretical about this.
It's actually physical, the work that you do.
Yes, a lot of physical work that we observe.
We do have the contractors, we do have crews.
But what my team will share, what's one of the most difficult things working for the utility
(07:16):
is the fact that you don't see it.
So pipes in the ground, you typically are not supposed to see.
If you do, you might want to give somebody a call.
But you're not supposed to see it, whereas other departments,
like let's say the Seattle Department of Transportation,
they build bridges and fancy roads.
Kudos to them, but you see it.
You see it every day, whereas ours is more of a nuisance,
(07:39):
like, oh, when are you guys going to be gone?
So it's an interesting dynamic, but we are one city.
So that's the beauty of working with the City of Seattle.
We do collaborate with the other departments to provide the power and the roads
so everybody can basically have a standard of living that we at the City of Seattle
are very proud of is very high.
(08:00):
That's a great point, which is actually if you're doing your work well,
you don't see it.
It just runs smoothly.
And then I think you also said to me earlier that about 70% are in the field.
They have to come in every day, and then 30% can work remotely if they want.
Yes, that is correct.
(08:21):
I mean, because if you can imagine, even though that there's robotics
and drones and things like that, there's nothing like having eyes on the ground,
seeing the work get installed.
So that's the 70% that are pretty much out in the field all the time.
The 30%, there are opportunities for individuals, like I mentioned,
my office engineering group that does the number crunching to make sure
(08:41):
that we're following our financial policies and standards.
They're allowed to work remotely as well.
And then the mayor just recently encouraged us to return three days a week
in the office, and that's what we're currently doing.
So the split is still about the same.
If you were to poll my staff that have the opportunities to work remotely,
(09:01):
they enjoy it, they would love to stay working remotely.
But one of the things that I enjoy having them come in the office
is the interaction between the field staff and them,
so that we're building a team that's very collaborative and partnered.
It's much easier versus trying to do it over a phone call or a Zoom call.
We think of curiosity as a practice, and it's something that we sometimes do
(09:26):
and we sometimes don't do, and we sometimes don't do it
because it's really hard.
Could you share when is practicing curiosity difficult for you in the workplace?
Yeah, great question, Julie.
And I need to provide framework before I answer it.
So it is basically – there is a misnomer of public sector folks.
(09:47):
We're basically branded as civil servants that don't care.
We're not efficient. We're lazy, things like that.
What I would like to declare is that's not who we are.
The values of most civil servants are very passionate about what they do.
They care about the environment.
We're thinking about future generations.
We're providing the level of service.
(10:08):
We're looking at the demographics of our aging infrastructure
as compared to the aging growth population.
But the inefficiencies that are developed within the public sector,
believe it or not, is like we all are in an assembly line.
We're siloed.
And so when folks are working on their widgets,
sometimes it's hard for folks to understand, like,
a decision that's made during the assembly line,
(10:29):
how that impacts both the downstream and upstream folks.
And that's what's hard about working in the public sector
because if you can believe the aspects of using our design-bid-build approaches,
you've got policies and standards that contradict each other a lot.
And then if you can picture now you've got to work in a sandbox
(10:51):
where you're working with other agencies
that may have different standards and policies.
So who's got better standards and policies
and who's got the prioritizations?
That's where a lot of the inefficiencies kind of come from.
And so going back to the question about the curiosity,
you know, one of the things that's really hard in the public sector
is the institution of, like, hey, these policies and standards
(11:14):
have been around for a very long time.
And why should we change?
Well, what I inform folks is that, you know, as we learn,
we have opportunities for continuous improvement.
Also, the demand of our service providers, you know,
the wonderful customers that pay their bills, that changes too.
(11:35):
And so the curiosity for us is always thinking about an opportunity to say,
well, yes, we may be successful doing what we're doing
for the last 50 to 100 years.
However, what are we going to do to get better?
And so I'm very enthused of finding out approaches of,
hey, how can we be curious at work?
(11:57):
And so some folks have asked me, like, what are some of my approaches
to getting curiosity at work?
So I could tell you what doesn't work.
What doesn't work is somebody coming in and says,
effective immediately, we want to make change in a memo.
I sent that one email.
Why isn't the group doing what I'm telling them to do, right?
Not a very good practice because in the city of Seattle,
(12:21):
we're a matrix organization, and it goes back to that assembly line
that I'm talking about.
So if you can picture yourself leading a project and you're saying,
hey, I've got this project, but I've got different workforces,
I've got collective bargaining agreements that I'm working with,
but you're not their boss and you're telling a group of people to do XYZ.
It's very difficult to do.
(12:42):
And so in order to mitigate that, what I encourage everybody to do
that enters, like, from an onboarding perspective,
follow the processes first.
Just don't want to make change immediately.
But once that project is done, celebrate, get together,
eat some pizza, and say, hey, what worked well with the project?
But more importantly, what I want is on the curiosity side,
(13:06):
what can we do to improve?
Now, I found when I do this with my staff,
they're very anxious in regards to telling me what went well
because there's so many things that they want to change immediately.
And so to help mitigate that anxiety is what I tell folks.
It's like, hey, it's great that we want to make change.
(13:26):
So if we're going to make a single change,
then we're going to have to take off two business practices
that are not working off.
Because you can't overload just adding more processes
on top of processes.
You're going to run into what our forefathers, if you will, came into.
You're going to develop policies and agendas that will contradict each other.
And folks are going to be like, what are we supposed to do with this?
There are lots of in a matrix organization.
(13:48):
And so what creates efficiency is when people are doing their own work efficiently.
But then at the same time, there could be a lot of overlap.
And sometimes people are actually doing similar things.
And it's so big that that messaging can be confusing.
Yeah, in fairness, yes, it can be confusing.
Because even though we all have the same mission,
(14:11):
you've got a fantastic video on YouTube, Julie,
that talks about how when you send out a message, folks interpret it differently.
And that's what happens in a matrix organization.
Folks, this is what Julie said.
No, she didn't, right?
And that's where the vision is really important to be clear and reinforce.
This is the vision.
This is where we're going.
And just double checking and pausing.
(14:31):
What did we all commit to?
Are we following what we're saying?
And what you were saying about just sending out a memo
and trying to create change right away.
And it's just, well, maybe then what you're also saying,
hey, maybe we need to get together and talk about this so that we can.
And also agreeing to or having, when you said learn about those processes
(14:55):
before you just say change things,
what I'm also interpreting is have some empathy for what the current process is
before you just try to change things.
So, Jerry, talk to us about what do you do to help foster the practice
of curiosity at work with your team?
(15:16):
Yeah.
So, as my family knows, as a director,
I wake up at 5 o'clock every morning without an alarm.
It drives my family nuts, but that's okay.
But I do ask these three questions as a director.
So, the first question I ask is who do I need to sponsor today
so that my employees feel empowered to resolve issues
and take strategic risks at lowest levels?
(15:39):
And what I mean by this is I want to make sure my staff builds the confidence
and get trained up to the point where they can make decisions
without informing their supervisors
because that's just building the culture and building their strengths, right?
Figure out the strengths and weaknesses and really expanding on that.
And the second question that I ask is which peer team do I need to check in today
(16:01):
so that our organizational business practices
and change management initiatives are being performed with high quality?
And what I mean by this is following procedures in my world
is very, very important because if you stray from it,
that means you could be up against a potential claim
that could be a million dollars that you're going to lose.
So, you have to be very, very clear following those policies and procedures.
(16:23):
However, but when you do make a change, you need to follow up and reinforce it
because what you don't want to do is create a culture
where folks should be like, oh, this is just a flavor of the month.
You know, so and so will be gone in a couple of months.
Don't worry about it. This will go away.
You don't want to develop that culture either.
So, it allows me to check in with my peers to see how is the core functions going along,
(16:44):
but how are the changes coming along as well?
And then the last question that I do ask myself is
when is it my next external stakeholder engagement?
Because in my public works world, there are times where I am in a claims
and it's reheated to negotiate.
Just keep in mind, I'm negotiating with a low bid contractor
(17:05):
that probably didn't want to be the low bid contractor.
They probably left a lot of money on the table
and they're trying to find ways to try to make that up.
And what we'll share, Julie, is like, you know,
at the City of Seattle, we are fair and equitable.
It's like, hey, if there's entitlement because there is a true change to the contract,
we will compensate.
However, if a contractor is asking for something that's in the contract,
(17:25):
we're going to say, no, it's in the contract.
You just do it because you signed the contract.
And the second half of that is really,
I'm really trying to foster partnering the change of the safety culture.
And I kind of started off by saying, you know,
from the standpoint of the workforce, you know,
because, you know, folks are not really entering the trades as often,
(17:47):
folks are being rushed into it.
And so what I mean by this is, you know,
if you could picture starting your first job in construction
and I sit there walking around
and when I see a new person, I sit there and observe,
and then I'll walk up to them if they're doing an unsafe thing.
Like, what safety trainings have you performed in order for you to do this work?
And they're like, well, I just started today.
(18:08):
And so it's like, okay, then we've got a problem.
And so really, really trying to change that safety complacency to say, yes,
scope schedule budgets mean a ton,
but we do need to emphasize on safety so nobody gets hurt.
The first thing that you brought up was empowering your team.
And I can imagine that is something that's really important in a big organization,
(18:29):
because you can't do, you can't have tell them exactly what to do.
You actually have to empower them.
And then they have to go off and lead their own teams.
And I think that's actually something that's really applicable to all organizations.
The other thing that you said about just the importance of following procedure,
because there are consequences in your sector to not.
(18:53):
So in the construction side, to get things done,
you usually need more resources if you're behind schedule.
And so that leads into skipping steps in regards to standard operating procedures.
Like, we need more people out here today.
And what I meant by the safety aspects is because when you do take safety trainings,
(19:13):
you quickly learn where to stand next to heavy equipment.
And that's the eye test that I immediately put out there when I'm out in the field.
I'm like, oh, this person has not had the training,
because they're standing in the wrong place.
They're going to get killed.
So that's my first litmus test.
And I don't wait for it.
It's not like I wait out there for five minutes and just observe one person
and wait until something happens.
(19:34):
It's like within seconds, it's like this person does not know where to stand.
And do you think that they feel safe asking, hey, where am I supposed to stand?
Is that the environment for that kind of communication,
open communication when you're seeing safety issues pop up?
Yeah.
I wish I could tell you, Julie, that every contractor is A-plus
(19:54):
and they're on top of their game.
But, you know, you see news reports.
People get hurt, unfortunately, quite often in construction.
And the thing that I would like to communicate to the audience is the fact that
most of them could have been preventable.
And so how do we get better to just prevent it?
Because can you imagine, Julie, that I'm working on an initiative to say that
(20:17):
I'm trying to push us to a level where there are no metrics.
Nobody gets hurt.
Well, there's a lot of effort that goes into that.
So we'll see.
We'll see how that plays out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can.
I think that one of the challenges of curiosity is when people feel that
there's so much work, that there's so much to do,
(20:38):
that we maybe have to skip steps so that we can get it done.
And yet, there's also practicing curiosity actually requires slowing down
and asking questions.
And so I can see how that would be a challenge.
And yet, in your work, there's so many.
It's so high stakes that there are actually lives at stake here.
(21:05):
So moving on to the next question, Jerry, I know that with the city,
there are people who stay for a long time,
and yet you're also constantly recruiting.
How do you recruit, interview for curiosity on people who join your team?
(21:26):
Yeah.
What I would say from the standpoint of the power of the Internet is
fantastic because most organizations have their values posted on the Internet.
And so one of the benefits of working at the Seattle Public Utilities,
going back to the premise that we care, we've got the CARES principle.
(21:47):
And the CARES principle is basically an acronym that covers customers,
affordability, risk, equity, and services.
And so going back to the curiosity side,
what I like focusing on is the equity and the empowerment.
So what does this mean to me?
So one of the things that we realize within the utilities is we've got a very interesting system
(22:10):
and how we prioritize fixing things.
And what I mean by this, Julie, is from the aspects of where we're a team full of engineers,
PhDs, planners, we can look at models and determine where things need to be fixed.
It's engineering.
However, on the people side, how do we get informed when something's not working?
(22:34):
So the things I've described early in the interview, the sewers that's overflowing or my sink's not working.
Well, if you look at the demographics, you can easily look at the city of Seattle
and we track this information of how often folks in, I'll say, more privileged communities
complain more than the ones that don't.
And so we need to put in aspects of, hey, let's be curious on why that is.
(22:58):
Why are folks in certain regions of Seattle constantly complaining and others are not?
Is it due to the demographics of them not having cell phones?
Or maybe there's multiple languages.
Maybe there's a fear of somebody reaching out to the government.
So part of our roles of asking those types of questions is like, hey, what's been your experience?
(23:20):
Is there anything that your current organization does that might be different than ours?
Or on the flip side, what are we doing great and what can we enhance?
And we'd love for somebody to kind of walk in and take an opportunity to look at our current system to say,
hey, this is what you're currently doing, but you can tweak it by just doing this to make it better.
(23:40):
That's what I like encouraging staff when they're onboarded on our organization.
So what I'm hearing you say is actually in that interview, you want candidates to talk about ways that they can see things can be improved
for them to actually bring that up in the conversation as well.
(24:01):
Yes, because with the power of information, you need to do a little bit of planning on your side to make sure that what you're saying is what they're doing.
But that should not be a huge effort.
And I think if you were to take a reflection of what it would be like on the interview panel,
if you had a candidate that did the research to say, hey, this is kind of what I do and this is what I could make it better,
(24:22):
that would draw your interest more to that candidate versus the ones that don't do that.
I mean, you know, by the end of the day, if we were to hire the same person that has the same skill sets over and over again,
then it'd be very difficult to have continuous improvement.
And so that's why I'm working in the city of Seattle where we're really pushing diversity and inclusiveness.
And the fact that the city of Seattle's demographics is that way already, it makes it very, very easy to start incorporating ideas that are just,
(24:49):
hey, there's just better ways of doing things now.
OK, Jerry, last question. And this one doesn't have to be about work.
What is inspiring curiosity for you in your life right now?
Yeah. So, you know, your audience may or may not know I'm a huge Seahawks fan.
And so part of that is telling the story why I'm a huge Seahawks fan.
(25:13):
So, one, you know, I've lived in Tacoma most of my life and, you know, I grew up in an era where the Seahawks were not very good.
A lot of kids would pick on me and things like that in regards to why you're not going for the Rangers or the Cowboys, let the Seahawks.
And there's two stories why I love being a Seahawks fan.
One, we're always the underdog. I like being the underdog because it's a sense of competition to strive to get better.
(25:37):
Right. So that that aspect of that curiosity, always trying to strive to get better.
But then, too, when we finally won the championship and it was nice to see the celebrations of the parade,
I had the wonderful opportunity to take the day off and participate in the parade.
But I just remember the stories where folks were sitting telling me like where they where they flew from.
(26:00):
I just came from Alaska. My dad passed away. We always wanted to see this day and the opportunities for us to think about.
Well, the Seahawks don't win the Super Bowl every year. I wish they would.
But the fact that a team in Seattle that was still relatively new, not really known, but they did it.
They achieved a huge milestone, but they they they did it in a weird way.
(26:24):
And so this is where I love this being a Seahawks fan from the standpoint of curiosity,
because the first thing that Pete Carroll did is folks may not recall, but he got rid of our quarterback that we love.
This guy named Matt. I mean, let's see a talk about making change effectively without without a memo.
He just did it. And we were all just crazy as fans like, oh, man, we're going to we're going.
(26:47):
This is a big mistake. But it turned out that his vision because he kept on sharing his vision.
This is what I want the team to do. And it worked.
And so just taking those philosophies from the standpoint of being competitive and always wanting to prove one's worth from the standpoint of being an underdog to become a champion.
That's really inspired me on the curiosity side to just continuously say we can buck the trend.
(27:10):
We don't need to do what the rest of the world is doing. We could do it a little bit different.
Took a little bit of time, but he did it. Jerry, you just changed the way that I thought about the Seahawks.
I hadn't realized all of those different things that they were doing to to practice and curiosity to make themselves a winning team and also the stories around the fans, too.
(27:31):
Yes. Yeah. So, Jerry, thank you so much for sharing your insights with our audience today.
How can people get in touch with you? Yeah, the easiest thing, you know, for me, there's a there's a couple of ways.
One is since I work in the public sector, my email is disclosable.
I'm going to do is go to the city, Seattle, find me. But you can send me an email.
(27:54):
I'd love to sit down with any of your audience members, spend 30 minutes just chitchatting about what their life story is and where they are in life and how I could help them in regards to practice and curiosity or what it's like to be an engineer or project manager.
Really love to connect those dots. But as a civil servant, that's kind of my role as well.
I love having opportunities like this to explain what my team does, what I do.
(28:18):
Really like to connect individuals that are thinking about going into construction because we are in a crisis.
I am also part of another organization was called the Northwest Consumer Construction Council.
And we've got a LinkedIn page where we also have leadership opportunities for folks to understand kind of what the construction industry specifically does.
(28:39):
So those are two ways that you can reach out to me. Jerry, thank you so much for being so open and accessible to our listeners.
I hope that they do take advantage of reaching out to you and just learning more about what you do.
And thank you for your service to our community as well.
Well, thank you for that, Julie. And I just want to wish you and the audience a happy Lunar New Year.
(29:00):
Yes. Happy Year of the Snake.
I'm Dr. Julie Pham, founder of Curiosity Based.
We help people practice curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace, because that is
where we spend most of our waking hours.
Curiosity as a practice boils down to self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication.
So join us as we interview leaders to see how they use curiosity at work.
Welcome to the Curiosity at Work podcast.
(00:26):
I am Julie Pham, the CEO of Curiosity Based, and I'm super excited to have this conversation
today with Jerry Waldron, who is the Construction Management Director at Seattle Public Utilities.
He has a 35-year career starting in the military and then working in Panama as an engineer,
then going into the private sector before he started working for the city of Seattle.
(00:48):
So Jerry has this wide diversity of experience that I'm really looking forward to sharing
with our audience today.
Welcome, Jerry.
Oh, thank you, Julie.
Hello, audience.
Yes.
So Jerry, could you just share a little bit about the team that you lead at the city
(01:08):
of Seattle in the Seattle Public Utilities?
What's, how many people, how do you work together, what do you do?
Sure.
So part of me as a role of the Construction Management Director at Seattle Public Utilities
is having opportunities to lead 49 full-time employees that are experienced in inspection,
(01:30):
resident engineering, construction management, and we deliver what we call capital improvement
projects.
So you may ask, what are those?
Well, capital improvement projects on our perspective is the folks that live in the
wonderful city of Seattle, they pay like a utility bill.
And to be clear, it's not the electric bill that we're interested in.
What funds my department is the trash bill, the storm drainage, and the sewer.
(01:56):
So a lot of our capital projects has opportunities to look at growth management acts, private
development, and we install utilities that serve essential services for like when you
flush the toilet, when you turn on your sink.
And so basically if your fire flow is not working during a fire, you contact my department.
If people aren't picking up your trash, you contact my department.
(02:20):
Or from the standpoint of if you've got an overflow of a sewer in front of your front
yard, contact my department.
That's kind of what we do at Seattle Public Utilities.
A lot of our essential services are tied to environmental things related to people's
health.
So if you can't wash your hands during the era of COVID-19, what would that have been
like for you?
(02:40):
Or if you've got a backup in the basement and you just can't enter your basement anymore
because it's full of sewage, like what do you do then?
That's the opportunity for us to kind of step in to help solve those problems.
Let me take a step back on what public work means to me and what it means to the world.
So what it's like for us is we develop a set of plans and it goes into an award book
(03:03):
and civil plans.
It gets packaged up, sent out to the advertisement side of Public Works where contractors download
the package to review it.
They only get three weeks to review it, even though it takes us a few years to design it.
They bid on it and we get the opportunity to work with the lowest qualified bidder.
It can't be the highest bidder.
(03:24):
It's got to be the lowest qualified bidder.
And my team's role is to make sure that the contractor is doing what the contract says
and us administering it.
So now going to the inspection.
So I filled frontline staff that observed the work.
So pipe being placed in the ground and excavation that's required to put in a new vault,
(03:44):
things like that.
Then we've got resident engineers.
And what the resident engineers are is basically the face of the project during construction.
So if you've got a situation where we're closing down the street and you're asking,
hey, how long is this going to take?
That's where the responsibility of my resident engineer kind of helps manage the job,
(04:06):
so to speak, and the inspectors.
And then we've got construction managers that run the program.
So if we've got several projects that are dealing with a water main extension,
that's usually a program versus just a project.
And so this group of 49 folks do a fantastic job just to make sure that we're keeping the public safe,
that we're installing the infrastructure that's required to meet up with the demands
(04:29):
that this wonderful community places on us.
And also an opportunity to just to kind of plug the industry.
It's a fun industry to be in.
Yes, it's composed of folks with engineers, project management certified individuals,
and construction management certified folks.
However, we do have the opportunity to oversee folks that are in the trades.
(04:54):
And so that's just something that the future workforce is really going to have issues with
because a lot of folks are not going into the trades.
So it's an opportunity for all of us to learn together.
So just to recap here, you've got the people who are working directly with the contractors,
choosing the contractors and working directly with the contractors.
You've got the inspectors, you've got these resident engineers,
(05:15):
and you also have construction managers.
Yes.
And then you also work with a team of consultants too, right?
It's pretty closely.
Yes, we do work with a team of consultants that help provide during the times
where we either don't have the expertise or we don't have the capacity
because we have lots of projects to deliver.
(05:35):
You know, because part of that too, and I apologize to my team up front,
I forgot my office engineering team and of course the administration staff
and my materials lab folks,
we all act as a unit to make sure that the materials that are delivered to the site meet our standards.
That's really key for us because if we really think about it,
(05:57):
even though my team's only engaged during the design and construction for a few years,
our asset owners who are the maintenance folks have to maintain it for the next 50 to 100 years.
So we're really keen on making sure that the designs are put per plan and per our standards.
And then on my office engineering side,
if you think about it as the bean counters to make sure that every dollar that you spend on your bills
(06:23):
are being spent efficiently and passes audit checks,
that keeps our monitoring controls to make sure that we're staying on task
and that we're actually spending the dollars that we've committed to you all
to make sure that's going to the appropriate fund.
What I'm taking away from this is your work is very concrete.
You are dealing with buildings, with projects that people are going to interact with every day.
(06:52):
And while you're thinking in the long term of how did these last for 50, 100 years,
there's nothing theoretical about this.
It's actually physical, the work that you do.
Yes, a lot of physical work that we observe.
We do have the contractors, we do have crews.
But what my team will share, what's one of the most difficult things working for the utility
(07:16):
is the fact that you don't see it.
So pipes in the ground, you typically are not supposed to see.
If you do, you might want to give somebody a call.
But you're not supposed to see it, whereas other departments,
like let's say the Seattle Department of Transportation,
they build bridges and fancy roads.
Kudos to them, but you see it.
You see it every day, whereas ours is more of a nuisance,
(07:39):
like, oh, when are you guys going to be gone?
So it's an interesting dynamic, but we are one city.
So that's the beauty of working with the City of Seattle.
We do collaborate with the other departments to provide the power and the roads
so everybody can basically have a standard of living that we at the City of Seattle
are very proud of is very high.
(08:00):
That's a great point, which is actually if you're doing your work well,
you don't see it.
It just runs smoothly.
And then I think you also said to me earlier that about 70% are in the field.
They have to come in every day, and then 30% can work remotely if they want.
Yes, that is correct.
(08:21):
I mean, because if you can imagine, even though that there's robotics
and drones and things like that, there's nothing like having eyes on the ground,
seeing the work get installed.
So that's the 70% that are pretty much out in the field all the time.
The 30%, there are opportunities for individuals, like I mentioned,
my office engineering group that does the number crunching to make sure
(08:41):
that we're following our financial policies and standards.
They're allowed to work remotely as well.
And then the mayor just recently encouraged us to return three days a week
in the office, and that's what we're currently doing.
So the split is still about the same.
If you were to poll my staff that have the opportunities to work remotely,
(09:01):
they enjoy it, they would love to stay working remotely.
But one of the things that I enjoy having them come in the office
is the interaction between the field staff and them,
so that we're building a team that's very collaborative and partnered.
It's much easier versus trying to do it over a phone call or a Zoom call.
We think of curiosity as a practice, and it's something that we sometimes do
(09:26):
and we sometimes don't do, and we sometimes don't do it
because it's really hard.
Could you share when is practicing curiosity difficult for you in the workplace?
Yeah, great question, Julie.
And I need to provide framework before I answer it.
So it is basically – there is a misnomer of public sector folks.
(09:47):
We're basically branded as civil servants that don't care.
We're not efficient. We're lazy, things like that.
What I would like to declare is that's not who we are.
The values of most civil servants are very passionate about what they do.
They care about the environment.
We're thinking about future generations.
We're providing the level of service.
(10:08):
We're looking at the demographics of our aging infrastructure
as compared to the aging growth population.
But the inefficiencies that are developed within the public sector,
believe it or not, is like we all are in an assembly line.
We're siloed.
And so when folks are working on their widgets,
sometimes it's hard for folks to understand, like,
a decision that's made during the assembly line,
(10:29):
how that impacts both the downstream and upstream folks.
And that's what's hard about working in the public sector
because if you can believe the aspects of using our design-bid-build approaches,
you've got policies and standards that contradict each other a lot.
And then if you can picture now you've got to work in a sandbox
(10:51):
where you're working with other agencies
that may have different standards and policies.
So who's got better standards and policies
and who's got the prioritizations?
That's where a lot of the inefficiencies kind of come from.
And so going back to the question about the curiosity,
you know, one of the things that's really hard in the public sector
is the institution of, like, hey, these policies and standards
(11:14):
have been around for a very long time.
And why should we change?
Well, what I inform folks is that, you know, as we learn,
we have opportunities for continuous improvement.
Also, the demand of our service providers, you know,
the wonderful customers that pay their bills, that changes too.
(11:35):
And so the curiosity for us is always thinking about an opportunity to say,
well, yes, we may be successful doing what we're doing
for the last 50 to 100 years.
However, what are we going to do to get better?
And so I'm very enthused of finding out approaches of,
hey, how can we be curious at work?
(11:57):
And so some folks have asked me, like, what are some of my approaches
to getting curiosity at work?
So I could tell you what doesn't work.
What doesn't work is somebody coming in and says,
effective immediately, we want to make change in a memo.
I sent that one email.
Why isn't the group doing what I'm telling them to do, right?
Not a very good practice because in the city of Seattle,
(12:21):
we're a matrix organization, and it goes back to that assembly line
that I'm talking about.
So if you can picture yourself leading a project and you're saying,
hey, I've got this project, but I've got different workforces,
I've got collective bargaining agreements that I'm working with,
but you're not their boss and you're telling a group of people to do XYZ.
It's very difficult to do.
(12:42):
And so in order to mitigate that, what I encourage everybody to do
that enters, like, from an onboarding perspective,
follow the processes first.
Just don't want to make change immediately.
But once that project is done, celebrate, get together,
eat some pizza, and say, hey, what worked well with the project?
But more importantly, what I want is on the curiosity side,
(13:06):
what can we do to improve?
Now, I found when I do this with my staff,
they're very anxious in regards to telling me what went well
because there's so many things that they want to change immediately.
And so to help mitigate that anxiety is what I tell folks.
It's like, hey, it's great that we want to make change.
(13:26):
So if we're going to make a single change,
then we're going to have to take off two business practices
that are not working off.
Because you can't overload just adding more processes
on top of processes.
You're going to run into what our forefathers, if you will, came into.
You're going to develop policies and agendas that will contradict each other.
And folks are going to be like, what are we supposed to do with this?
There are lots of in a matrix organization.
(13:48):
And so what creates efficiency is when people are doing their own work efficiently.
But then at the same time, there could be a lot of overlap.
And sometimes people are actually doing similar things.
And it's so big that that messaging can be confusing.
Yeah, in fairness, yes, it can be confusing.
Because even though we all have the same mission,
(14:11):
you've got a fantastic video on YouTube, Julie,
that talks about how when you send out a message, folks interpret it differently.
And that's what happens in a matrix organization.
Folks, this is what Julie said.
No, she didn't, right?
And that's where the vision is really important to be clear and reinforce.
This is the vision.
This is where we're going.
And just double checking and pausing.
(14:31):
What did we all commit to?
Are we following what we're saying?
And what you were saying about just sending out a memo
and trying to create change right away.
And it's just, well, maybe then what you're also saying,
hey, maybe we need to get together and talk about this so that we can.
And also agreeing to or having, when you said learn about those processes
(14:55):
before you just say change things,
what I'm also interpreting is have some empathy for what the current process is
before you just try to change things.
So, Jerry, talk to us about what do you do to help foster the practice
of curiosity at work with your team?
(15:16):
Yeah.
So, as my family knows, as a director,
I wake up at 5 o'clock every morning without an alarm.
It drives my family nuts, but that's okay.
But I do ask these three questions as a director.
So, the first question I ask is who do I need to sponsor today
so that my employees feel empowered to resolve issues
and take strategic risks at lowest levels?
(15:39):
And what I mean by this is I want to make sure my staff builds the confidence
and get trained up to the point where they can make decisions
without informing their supervisors
because that's just building the culture and building their strengths, right?
Figure out the strengths and weaknesses and really expanding on that.
And the second question that I ask is which peer team do I need to check in today
(16:01):
so that our organizational business practices
and change management initiatives are being performed with high quality?
And what I mean by this is following procedures in my world
is very, very important because if you stray from it,
that means you could be up against a potential claim
that could be a million dollars that you're going to lose.
So, you have to be very, very clear following those policies and procedures.
(16:23):
However, but when you do make a change, you need to follow up and reinforce it
because what you don't want to do is create a culture
where folks should be like, oh, this is just a flavor of the month.
You know, so and so will be gone in a couple of months.
Don't worry about it. This will go away.
You don't want to develop that culture either.
So, it allows me to check in with my peers to see how is the core functions going along,
(16:44):
but how are the changes coming along as well?
And then the last question that I do ask myself is
when is it my next external stakeholder engagement?
Because in my public works world, there are times where I am in a claims
and it's reheated to negotiate.
Just keep in mind, I'm negotiating with a low bid contractor
(17:05):
that probably didn't want to be the low bid contractor.
They probably left a lot of money on the table
and they're trying to find ways to try to make that up.
And what we'll share, Julie, is like, you know,
at the City of Seattle, we are fair and equitable.
It's like, hey, if there's entitlement because there is a true change to the contract,
we will compensate.
However, if a contractor is asking for something that's in the contract,
(17:25):
we're going to say, no, it's in the contract.
You just do it because you signed the contract.
And the second half of that is really,
I'm really trying to foster partnering the change of the safety culture.
And I kind of started off by saying, you know,
from the standpoint of the workforce, you know,
because, you know, folks are not really entering the trades as often,
(17:47):
folks are being rushed into it.
And so what I mean by this is, you know,
if you could picture starting your first job in construction
and I sit there walking around
and when I see a new person, I sit there and observe,
and then I'll walk up to them if they're doing an unsafe thing.
Like, what safety trainings have you performed in order for you to do this work?
And they're like, well, I just started today.
(18:08):
And so it's like, okay, then we've got a problem.
And so really, really trying to change that safety complacency to say, yes,
scope schedule budgets mean a ton,
but we do need to emphasize on safety so nobody gets hurt.
The first thing that you brought up was empowering your team.
And I can imagine that is something that's really important in a big organization,
(18:29):
because you can't do, you can't have tell them exactly what to do.
You actually have to empower them.
And then they have to go off and lead their own teams.
And I think that's actually something that's really applicable to all organizations.
The other thing that you said about just the importance of following procedure,
because there are consequences in your sector to not.
(18:53):
So in the construction side, to get things done,
you usually need more resources if you're behind schedule.
And so that leads into skipping steps in regards to standard operating procedures.
Like, we need more people out here today.
And what I meant by the safety aspects is because when you do take safety trainings,
(19:13):
you quickly learn where to stand next to heavy equipment.
And that's the eye test that I immediately put out there when I'm out in the field.
I'm like, oh, this person has not had the training,
because they're standing in the wrong place.
They're going to get killed.
So that's my first litmus test.
And I don't wait for it.
It's not like I wait out there for five minutes and just observe one person
and wait until something happens.
(19:34):
It's like within seconds, it's like this person does not know where to stand.
And do you think that they feel safe asking, hey, where am I supposed to stand?
Is that the environment for that kind of communication,
open communication when you're seeing safety issues pop up?
Yeah.
I wish I could tell you, Julie, that every contractor is A-plus
(19:54):
and they're on top of their game.
But, you know, you see news reports.
People get hurt, unfortunately, quite often in construction.
And the thing that I would like to communicate to the audience is the fact that
most of them could have been preventable.
And so how do we get better to just prevent it?
Because can you imagine, Julie, that I'm working on an initiative to say that
(20:17):
I'm trying to push us to a level where there are no metrics.
Nobody gets hurt.
Well, there's a lot of effort that goes into that.
So we'll see.
We'll see how that plays out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can.
I think that one of the challenges of curiosity is when people feel that
there's so much work, that there's so much to do,
(20:38):
that we maybe have to skip steps so that we can get it done.
And yet, there's also practicing curiosity actually requires slowing down
and asking questions.
And so I can see how that would be a challenge.
And yet, in your work, there's so many.
It's so high stakes that there are actually lives at stake here.
(21:05):
So moving on to the next question, Jerry, I know that with the city,
there are people who stay for a long time,
and yet you're also constantly recruiting.
How do you recruit, interview for curiosity on people who join your team?
(21:26):
Yeah.
What I would say from the standpoint of the power of the Internet is
fantastic because most organizations have their values posted on the Internet.
And so one of the benefits of working at the Seattle Public Utilities,
going back to the premise that we care, we've got the CARES principle.
(21:47):
And the CARES principle is basically an acronym that covers customers,
affordability, risk, equity, and services.
And so going back to the curiosity side,
what I like focusing on is the equity and the empowerment.
So what does this mean to me?
So one of the things that we realize within the utilities is we've got a very interesting system
(22:10):
and how we prioritize fixing things.
And what I mean by this, Julie, is from the aspects of where we're a team full of engineers,
PhDs, planners, we can look at models and determine where things need to be fixed.
It's engineering.
However, on the people side, how do we get informed when something's not working?
(22:34):
So the things I've described early in the interview, the sewers that's overflowing or my sink's not working.
Well, if you look at the demographics, you can easily look at the city of Seattle
and we track this information of how often folks in, I'll say, more privileged communities
complain more than the ones that don't.
And so we need to put in aspects of, hey, let's be curious on why that is.
(22:58):
Why are folks in certain regions of Seattle constantly complaining and others are not?
Is it due to the demographics of them not having cell phones?
Or maybe there's multiple languages.
Maybe there's a fear of somebody reaching out to the government.
So part of our roles of asking those types of questions is like, hey, what's been your experience?
(23:20):
Is there anything that your current organization does that might be different than ours?
Or on the flip side, what are we doing great and what can we enhance?
And we'd love for somebody to kind of walk in and take an opportunity to look at our current system to say,
hey, this is what you're currently doing, but you can tweak it by just doing this to make it better.
(23:40):
That's what I like encouraging staff when they're onboarded on our organization.
So what I'm hearing you say is actually in that interview, you want candidates to talk about ways that they can see things can be improved
for them to actually bring that up in the conversation as well.
(24:01):
Yes, because with the power of information, you need to do a little bit of planning on your side to make sure that what you're saying is what they're doing.
But that should not be a huge effort.
And I think if you were to take a reflection of what it would be like on the interview panel,
if you had a candidate that did the research to say, hey, this is kind of what I do and this is what I could make it better,
(24:22):
that would draw your interest more to that candidate versus the ones that don't do that.
I mean, you know, by the end of the day, if we were to hire the same person that has the same skill sets over and over again,
then it'd be very difficult to have continuous improvement.
And so that's why I'm working in the city of Seattle where we're really pushing diversity and inclusiveness.
And the fact that the city of Seattle's demographics is that way already, it makes it very, very easy to start incorporating ideas that are just,
(24:49):
hey, there's just better ways of doing things now.
OK, Jerry, last question. And this one doesn't have to be about work.
What is inspiring curiosity for you in your life right now?
Yeah. So, you know, your audience may or may not know I'm a huge Seahawks fan.
And so part of that is telling the story why I'm a huge Seahawks fan.
(25:13):
So, one, you know, I've lived in Tacoma most of my life and, you know, I grew up in an era where the Seahawks were not very good.
A lot of kids would pick on me and things like that in regards to why you're not going for the Rangers or the Cowboys, let the Seahawks.
And there's two stories why I love being a Seahawks fan.
One, we're always the underdog. I like being the underdog because it's a sense of competition to strive to get better.
(25:37):
Right. So that that aspect of that curiosity, always trying to strive to get better.
But then, too, when we finally won the championship and it was nice to see the celebrations of the parade,
I had the wonderful opportunity to take the day off and participate in the parade.
But I just remember the stories where folks were sitting telling me like where they where they flew from.
(26:00):
I just came from Alaska. My dad passed away. We always wanted to see this day and the opportunities for us to think about.
Well, the Seahawks don't win the Super Bowl every year. I wish they would.
But the fact that a team in Seattle that was still relatively new, not really known, but they did it.
They achieved a huge milestone, but they they they did it in a weird way.
(26:24):
And so this is where I love this being a Seahawks fan from the standpoint of curiosity,
because the first thing that Pete Carroll did is folks may not recall, but he got rid of our quarterback that we love.
This guy named Matt. I mean, let's see a talk about making change effectively without without a memo.
He just did it. And we were all just crazy as fans like, oh, man, we're going to we're going.
(26:47):
This is a big mistake. But it turned out that his vision because he kept on sharing his vision.
This is what I want the team to do. And it worked.
And so just taking those philosophies from the standpoint of being competitive and always wanting to prove one's worth from the standpoint of being an underdog to become a champion.
That's really inspired me on the curiosity side to just continuously say we can buck the trend.
(27:10):
We don't need to do what the rest of the world is doing. We could do it a little bit different.
Took a little bit of time, but he did it. Jerry, you just changed the way that I thought about the Seahawks.
I hadn't realized all of those different things that they were doing to to practice and curiosity to make themselves a winning team and also the stories around the fans, too.
(27:31):
Yes. Yeah. So, Jerry, thank you so much for sharing your insights with our audience today.
How can people get in touch with you? Yeah, the easiest thing, you know, for me, there's a there's a couple of ways.
One is since I work in the public sector, my email is disclosable.
I'm going to do is go to the city, Seattle, find me. But you can send me an email.
(27:54):
I'd love to sit down with any of your audience members, spend 30 minutes just chitchatting about what their life story is and where they are in life and how I could help them in regards to practice and curiosity or what it's like to be an engineer or project manager.
Really love to connect those dots. But as a civil servant, that's kind of my role as well.
I love having opportunities like this to explain what my team does, what I do.
(28:18):
Really like to connect individuals that are thinking about going into construction because we are in a crisis.
I am also part of another organization was called the Northwest Consumer Construction Council.
And we've got a LinkedIn page where we also have leadership opportunities for folks to understand kind of what the construction industry specifically does.
(28:39):
So those are two ways that you can reach out to me. Jerry, thank you so much for being so open and accessible to our listeners.
I hope that they do take advantage of reaching out to you and just learning more about what you do.
And thank you for your service to our community as well.
Well, thank you for that, Julie. And I just want to wish you and the audience a happy Lunar New Year.
(29:00):
Yes. Happy Year of the Snake.
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