September 5, 2025 • 50 mins
Running complex environmental projects isn’t just about technical expertise—it’s about leadership, communication, and trust. In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr talks with David McIntyre, founder of McIntyre Environmental, about what it takes to move from technical work to leading major projects with multiple stakeholders.
David shares lessons from his journey—from the Marine Corps to environmental consulting to running his own firm—including:
Connect with David McIntyre:
Website: http://mcintyreenvironmental.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mcintyre
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
David shares lessons from his journey—from the Marine Corps to environmental consulting to running his own firm—including:
- How shifting laws and regulations (like NEPA and the Clean Water Act) affect projects today
- Why proactive planning and communication save time, money, and headaches
- How to balance technical expertise with project management and stakeholder engagement
- The importance of building relationships with subcontractors, agencies, and the public
- Why trust and transparency lead to repeat business and better outcomes
Connect with David McIntyre:
Website: http://mcintyreenvironmental.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mcintyre
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast once again. I
am your host, David Carr. So Glad, Dabby. You're a
founder of Steward Your Business, where we bring people together
to accomplish great things, and we have another great guest here,
David McIntyre. Welcome to the podcast. David.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I appreciate it absolutely. David and I go way back,
actually through many years working on different projects, and I've
been keeping in touch with him since I've started Steward
Your Business, and I said, well, I've got to have
David here on the podcast because David is a gentleman
that has been through a lot in the environmental space
(01:08):
in particular, dealing with lots of complex projects. That's what
we got working together, and so I wanted him to
come on the podcast today, give us some background on
his journey as an owner principal with McIntire Environmental and
really get into how to run a successful business in
the environmental space in particular, and move from a technical
(01:30):
person to really a project manager principle to actually running
effective projects. And so we're going to get into it today.
So listen in, lean in, and you're going to get
some amazing insights from David here. So, David, before we
get into the meat of it, I always love to
have our guests share a bit about their journey, their history,
because you have a long history and environmental consulting space
(01:52):
before McIntyre Environmental, and I love you just to walk
us through a little bit of your history and journey
and what got you to you know, McIntire environmental.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well. I graduated from the Naval Academy in nineteen ninety
and was commissioned into the Marine Corps. And I spent
six years on active duty in the Marine Corps. And
I originally was stationed in Campbell June, North Carolina with
an infantry battalion versus Battalian eighth Marines, and then transferred
after my tour there to Naval Air Station North Island,
(02:27):
which is in Tornado, California, and was there for a
couple of years before I decided to move into the
civilian world. And I had met someone who had gotten
me interested in the environment, let's say, in a very
vague sense, and I decided to get in. I precided
(02:50):
to pursue a graduate degree because that was really the
only way that I could envision breaking into the environmental field,
not really knowing what the environmental field consisted of. So
I got into San Diego State and got a master's
in geography from San Diego State, and that was really
(03:13):
where I started to get exposure to environmental consulting and
just kind of what the environmental industry as a business
looked like. And so I got my first job while
I was actually still trying to finish running my thesis,
(03:34):
for a small company that was working at the US
Army Uma Approving Ground, which is outside of you Arizona.
One of the reasons that I got the job with
no experience in the industry was because they were heavily
focused on doing environmental assessments and those types of documents
that are part of the National Environmental Policy Act for
(03:57):
the Army at Um Approving Ground. Since I had that
background in the Marine Corps, they thought that I would
be able to understand, you know, have a better understanding
of what a project was going to look like from
from the military side, and be able to care. So
I did that for a year and I did some
other like remediation type work, just kind of helping out,
(04:21):
you know, because that company also did that type of
work as well, which is a completely different business line
so to speak, that I never really got much into
beyond that. But I was there for about a year
and then I decided I did not want to continue
to stay in Yuma, and I wanted to come back
to San Diego, which is where I've been living. And
(04:43):
so I was able to get a job with a
company called KA Environmental, which was the largest locally owned
consulting firm in the San Diego area. Got a job
with them, and then a couple months after I started there,
I learned what happens when and companies merge and acquired,
and AA Environmental got acquired by a company called EDA
(05:06):
ed a w. Which has been a very well known
landscape architecture firm for for decades. And the founders of
EDA were, you know, were extremely well known in the
landscape architecture world. They designed the Centennial Park in Atlanta
for the nineteen ninety six Olympics, that designed designed a
(05:27):
number of the venues for the Salt Lake City Olympics
in two They did that kind of work, I mean,
very up in landscape architecture work. So they acquired our company.
We became part of EDA, and we and we were
the largest UH office in the company and we were
(05:47):
really solely focused on environmental consulting. So from there, one
of the things that they that attracted me or attracted
them to me, or vice versa, was they had a
contract with Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest and so Navy
and Marine CORPN EPA, so really getting into my background
(06:08):
and that was what made me attractive to them. So
I was there for several years, got back in the
Marine Corps Reserve for a little while, did a deployment
to Iraq as part of that, and then came back
and really wanted to try to go do something more
but in the consulting firm field, and so I got
a job with another company called Ecology and Environment that
(06:31):
was wanting to start an office in San Diego. They
also had a contract with NAFAC Southwest, and so I
started their San Diego office and did that from nineteen
let me pick it back, I did it from two
thousand and six. In twenty eleven, I relocated to Tucson, Arizona,
(06:55):
which is where my wife is from. And after a
couple of years is non uncommon. You know companies EBB
and Flow and they do and they have successes and
then they start to struggle. Yes, And I kind of
felt like, Okay, we're really going to end up in
a period of struggle here, and so I decided maybe
it would be a good time to transition to something
(07:15):
quite a bit different, and so I want to work
for the eear of Land Management and I had a
job there. I worked in the Tucson Field Office, met
some really great people who really taught me a lot
about some of the inner workings about the Beeer of
Land Management that really you can't get unless you work there, right,
You can't do it on the outside without talking to someone.
(07:38):
And there were some people there I'll name one, Francisca Mendoza,
who really was an expert in recreation and every aspect
of the BLM's recreation program. And he was able to
explain to me a lot of the this is why
this is done this way, and this is why this
is done that way. He was really an expert. He
was really great working with him. But after a while
(07:58):
a couple of years, I knew that, you know, working
for the federal government and all the bureaucracy was going
to be something I probably cannot sustain for the long haul.
I did not want to go back to a company,
to a big firm or even a you know, I'm
a small company. I really wanted to do something on
my own, and so I incorporated back Entire Environmental while
(08:22):
I was there, but I really didn't do anything with
it for about a year. And then I was able
to get a couple of contracts and I was able
to convince my wife that I can make a go
of this. Yes, and so she said, okay, you can
quit your job, and so I started doing McIntire Environmental
full time and that was in August of twenty sixteen
(08:43):
and we have been progressing ever since.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yes, absolutely, no, I love that number one. Thank you
for your service, you know, And I think I hope
everybody is leaning and listening because David just give you,
you know, this background of experience varied and I have
similar experience in both the private sector and public sector,
and I think it's really valuable. David. I think you
went from the private sector to the public sectors I did.
(09:09):
I think that's a different perspective and I'm not everybody
gets that. So I agree with you from the inside out.
I happen to be at the County of Riverside for
a number of years the same kind of thing. It's
a different understanding, right, and now you know how to help.
And you've done so much work with the federal government
among other things too, and that's a whole even like
it's a Department of Defense and all of these other elements.
(09:30):
So these are not simple easy projects that you've you've
stepped into. Is you've you really found a niche you know,
in with macintar environ Mental And why one of the
things why I wanted to have you on the podcast
David too is because for those of you that have
not connected with David, we're connected on LinkedIn and David
does regularly post articles and information breaking this down because
(09:56):
it's complex how to navigate through these ever changing laws, regulations,
you know, edicts will right and so so now that
you've been doing McIntyre Environmental, David, you know, tell you know,
share if you will, like some of the things that
(10:17):
you're seeing the challenges out there that you've navigated in
the environmental project management space. You know that you know
that you've been able to successfully manage, but what are
those what are you seeing as issues roadblocks to successfully
managing running these type of projects you talked about.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, I think first and foremost, I mean I, like
I said, I started this in the full time in
August of twenty sixteen. President Trump was elected in November
of twenty sixteen, and that really changed the NEPA world,
you know, which is what most of us operate or
a lot of us if they don't either we operate
in the neighbor world, or we are doing something that
(10:58):
is going to support ANIPA type document.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It's federal. It covers all all fifty states. You know,
you have some other some environmental laws of here locally,
state or or but everybody's got that umbrella. Like you
said that, this this federal.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So if you're if you're doing work for a federal
agency and you're in the environmental arena, you know, unless
you're doing something like RICRA or something with hazardous waste,
you're probably going to be running into NEPA. And NIPA
did not change much in terms of the regulations from
nineteen seventy eight, when the CEQU issued their first guidelines,
(11:37):
until President Trump came into office in twenty sixteen, and
then they begin to change significantly. And there were other
laws like the Clean Water Act that changed significantly during
his administration. Then President Biden was elected, and so some
things reverted back to what they were, some things did not.
Some of the frankly, some of the changes that were
(11:59):
in act did under the Trump administration stayed. Now we
come to twenty twenty four, President Trump comes back into
office and there are even more changes, and so I
think keeping abreast of all these changes is probably the
biggest challenge that I see today because even the agencies
(12:20):
don't know exactly what is going to happen. And if
you go to someone who works for the Foreign Service
and say, okay, what are we going to do now
based on the executive order that was released two days ago,
they're not completely sure. And because the government is very
slow to change. The government doesn't you know, the government
(12:40):
moves like a battleship changing course. They are not a speedboat.
So that I think is the biggest thing, because when
clients come to you and they say, what is this
going to look like now in today's world, you know,
I'm not positive what it's going to what an environmental
assessment is going to look like, I don't know how
big is going to be. I don't know how much
(13:02):
long it's going to take. And that's partly because there
are new programs that have you've been that have come
out that accelerate these things significantly. Uh. And so I
think everyone in every agency as well as consultants are
trying to figure out, how is this going to actually manifest?
This manifest itself in the real world.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, well, so to two sides there. So you're saying,
as I hear it, you're having an agency and I
just a few weeks ago, I had another or had
another gentleman on our podcast in salesby formerly Orange County
Public Works Director, when we were talking about some of
the challenges with funding coming into agencies and other things.
And so, so I hear you here to two challenges David.
(13:43):
I feel like you're in the middle.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Here.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
You've got the agencies that don't there's some confusion there,
and now you have clients as a project proponent and saying, hey,
I've got this project that I want to go forward. David,
what's what's the what's the roadmap? And so it's not
entirely clear, and that's where you come in as a
guide kind of almost like an interpret right between the
project proponent and the agencies that they they can It
(14:06):
usually is probably more than one agency in your experience, right,
You're not just dealing with BLM. It's it's maybe it's
the Rsrry Corby Engineers, It's it's other agencies too that
are partaking. Correct.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It can be, Yeah, it can be sometimes it's just
one agency. I mean, obviously, if you're doing an EA,
there's a very good chance you'll have to deal with
the Fisial Wildlife Service. You may have to deal with
the Core. You may be in a situation where you
have two lead agencies that are because the project is
on you know, BLM land and it's on FIG Service
(14:37):
land both, so now you've got to deal with you know,
two masters for lack of a better term. Yeah, and yes,
I think a lot of the applicants out there, depending
on the nature of what they're doing, you know, they
hear about these changes that are coming, you know, from
the current administration, and they think, oh, it's going to
be a lot easier now we can just adopt another agency.
(14:59):
Is categorical exclusion, And I'm like, it's really not quite
that way. You can't just go and say we're going
to use this one. Now, there is a process, process
takes time, and that agency has to be the one
that do it. You cannot just go and do it yourself.
So it's it's educating them about that, or they'll hear
we can do an EA in fourteen days, and I'm like, no,
(15:22):
there are certain types of projects that can do that,
but they have to be at a certain point to
be able to do that. I haven't dealt with that
personally yet myself, but yeah, they just there's just I
think a lot of misinformation out there amongst people who
want to do projects of various types because they just
(15:42):
don't really know, you know, and it's not their fault,
they just don't really understand.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, you have a way about you, David that I
feel like as important as an you're there acting on
the behalf of the of the project applicant, project proponent
when they come to you as as a consultant. How
did you develop those goes? Because you told me you
gave us this where you started with the environmental consulting
firm here locally, so you're technically doing the environmental work,
(16:09):
but now you're stepping into a project management role. Cliant liaison,
which is both technical and just like you said, guiding them.
How how did you do that and and and successfully
navigate your way into that position day? Because I think
that what I find a lot in the industry and
the folks that I work with, they have great technical people,
(16:29):
and now they have to start managing projects and people
and stakeholders, and that's just different than just the pure
environmental regulations applying we need both. Did you share a
little bit about your journey there?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So when I was you know, I really learned kind
of the the basics of project management and delegation, et
cetera when I'm when I was in the Marine Corps,
because there's a lot of that. I mean, you you know,
if you're a commander, you can't do everything, and you have,
you know, a platoon sergeant, you have squad leaders, and
you know you need to be able to task them
(17:04):
with doing specific things because you cannot do at all.
And so that was something that I learned very quickly
that you know you're gonna fail if you try to
do it all yourself. So you have to develop your team,
figure out what they're good at and what they're not
good at, and then give them things to do. That
they can be successful at while you're trying to help
(17:28):
them get better at the things are that they are
not successful at. And that goes all the way up.
So when you are in the Marine Corps and you're
in an infantry company, you have a company commander who
is looking at you and delegating things down to you
and also looking at you going Okay, mcintarr's good at this,
but he needs some work on this. So I'm going
to give him this to do so because I know
he can get moving on it and be successful. But
(17:50):
on the side, I'm going to be working on him
on these areas where he's weak and try to help
him get make those areas stronger. And so that's transfers over,
you know, very nicely into the civilian side and into
business where you are managing projects, and it really becomes
to me, I think the fundamental thing is really understanding
(18:12):
your priorities and really understanding, Okay, this is this is
going to get done. This is going to get done.
What's got to get done first, What it's going to
take the most resources. What do I need to jump
on today and get the ball rolling today, even though
it's it's not due for a while. If I don't
(18:33):
get the ball rolling today, it's going to be almost
impossible to get the ball rolling in a month in
time to get that done. Yes, I'm going to get
the ball rolling today on this and once that ball
is rolling now I can go over to here and
look at this shorter term project and I can start
working on that. And that was just it was a
It was I you know, I've taken some project management classes.
(18:55):
I've had some you know, in house project management training.
I had other people, you know, who were mentors that
really worked a lot to show me how to do that,
and that was really kind of it in a nutshell
coming over to just doing a mac entire environmental you know,
(19:15):
the biggest thing is that I'm a single person, single entity.
I have subcontractors and these are people that I have
worked with for a long time. I knew from the past,
like you like yourself, So there are people that I've
had a good relationship with. And again I know what
they're good at, I know what they're not as good at,
and so I'm gonna steer work to them that I'm
(19:37):
all right, we can be successful with this, and then
I need to find someone else to to work on this,
or I need to do it myself or whatever. I don't.
There's only a handful of projects that I do entirely
by myself. I almost always have at least one person
or more. You know, who I am relying on, because hey,
you're the biologist, so I need you to do all
(19:59):
the biol work, and we're going to talk about it
a lot so that I am up to speed on
what you're doing and why you think you know this
is this way. But ultimately, you're the biologist, and I've
brought you on board because I trust that you know
what you're doing, or if you don't, you're going to say, okay,
I I we got to I'm not really sure how
(20:20):
to handle all right, great, let's talk, you know. So
it's communication, you know, it's communication and not being afraid
to understand that, hey, this is more than I can
take on, or I'm faced with something I'm not really
sure how to deal with, and having a network of
(20:40):
people who you can go to and say, have you
ever seen anything like this? And then they go, yes,
this is how you need to handle this. That's really
the key thing.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, there's a number of things you said in there
were important. I think, David, what I hopefully people here
having run MAC and Time Environmental for years now, and
is you're listening in that David said this that and
I feel the same way. We're not experts in all things,
and we can't be all things to everybody. And so
it's understanding where your strength is, like you said, David,
(21:11):
and developing that Tina, you've developed a great network of
like you said, number of areas. Because when we talk
about you know, NIPA, the environmental world, and you and
I know this. Maybe if you're listening, you're like, oh,
all environmentals will say no, there's a whole myriad of
different areas under environmental. So if you're not in this
working in the space, just hear me. Just but if
(21:32):
just usus this. If you're a contractor working on a house, right,
you have all different people that are coming in that
you need to have relationships with somebody that's electrical, somebody
is plumbing, somebody that is framing. So understanding that if
you try to do all these things, you're not going
to be successful in business. And what David is here
and I wanted to have him on here, is that
you as a business owner or even a leader. You
need to be developing those relationships with each other. And
(21:55):
that's why I wanted to do it here because we
and I collaborate, and I am introduced David to other
clients I have where they can work collaborate together, because that,
to me is a differentiator of a successful company versus
one that isn't. And I feel like your David, you
do that collaboration both with your subcontractors, but also with
like you said, we're talked about multiple stakeholders, perhaps different agencies,
(22:18):
but even the public too. Right, you're dealing with the
public input, Like, how do you relate with them? Right?
How do you, you know, build that facilitation. That's a whole
nother element, right, David.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yes, it is, it is. It is, yes, And there's
and there are organizations that there are companies that specialize
in just publication, public outreach, public engagement. And there's times
when you know you have to have that. It's because
the nature of your project and controversy or whatever. There's
(22:48):
times when you need to go out to a firm
like that and say, Okay, I know enough to know
that I need you. I know that I can't really
I can't do the best job you can. So I
need you to come on board and let's work on
this this together because this is your strong suit. It's
not I'm not strong enough. So I want you to
(23:08):
come in. And obviously, again we're gonna be talking a lot.
I'm not just gonna blindly turn it over to you
and say, all right, that's off my plate. We're gonna
be engaged through the whole process. But I'm really leaning
on you for your expertise.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, absolutely, David, Well, what would you say, because you
work with a lot of different firms, a lot of
subcontractors and prime what would you say, you know, if
you're a leader in the a let's AEC space where
they might be getting it wrong or approaching I think
one of them I heard Loud and Clay was they're
waiting too long to get started. Like you're being proactive
and you're like, hey, this is gonna this is the
(23:43):
lead time. If you have somebody that's never done this before,
they might be Take's that one to me? Just jumped
out and be like, oh man, I waited too long
to get started on this and now I'm screwed. I'm
like way behind it. But I didn't know that. What
other mistakes do you see when you know they're doing
teaming or bringing on a partner that you know they're
they're missing the mark that you're seeing, David, I.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Think the biggest thing that I see is is not communicating.
So I think the having team members that are in
the dark about what's going on, you know, and and granted,
their their peace might be very discreet, but I think
that the more they are engaged on the larger project
(24:28):
and where we are in the larger project, I think
that they can help you much more so than they
could if you were just kind of keeping them under
like a mushroom and keeping them in the dark and
saying I just need this. They're going to give you that.
But maybe if they knew a little bit more, they
they have experience, they might be able to say, Okay,
(24:49):
you do need this, but but you also need this
other thing that comes along with this, And you don't
really realize that, but I do because I've been doing
this for a long time. So I'm going to give
this to you also because you didn't know you needed it,
but you do, right, that can help you that that
can save you, you know, from from making a foolish mistake.
So I think communication really is fundamental and just communicating
(25:12):
you know clear, I mean, I know this is all
not this is not rocket science. No, but you're hitting
people don't always do it, and that is just let's
communicate about you know, as much as we can without
making it onerous. This is what we're doing. This is
you know where we are, and this is what I
need from you.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, to your point, David, do you see this. I've
seen this least. I don't want to see what your
trends are. Do you see your company, especially when they're
going from proing just purely doing the technical work and
they have to coordinate with you so there as actual
project management. There is coordination that's necessary. And what I
hear you saying, I'm extrapolating this, but what I'm hearing
(25:53):
you saying in the communication and not spending the time
to inform them, to guide them, which takes time and
energy write to get them up to speed. They're not
planning or incorporating enough project management time and logistics. They're
trying to cut and just I don't know, trying to
little do And I understand we got a sensitive to
costs and things like that, but we also have to
plan appropriately appropriate resources to get the job done.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yes, I think a problem that I see often is
that they put someone in charge of something who are
technically knowledgeable, but they just don't have They can't they
don't know what they don't know, for lack of a
better term, So they you know, I like to think
that I have a pretty good idea of what I
don't know, and I realize that I'm going to need
(26:40):
to go figure that out. There are often, unfortunately, people
put into positions. You know, this is on this is
other consultants, this is on the government side, or whatever,
it's all of it, and they just don't know that
there's this other stuff out here that they need to
be aware of and they need to get themselves up
to speed on and so that it just goes on.
(27:03):
They're going on just fine, thinking they're fine and not
realizing that this is gonna you know, this freight train
is coming at them and they're not aware they need
to be looking for the lights of the freight trains
so they can get across the tracks a sign. Yes,
for lack of better analogy.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, I mean that's a great analogy. David and that's
why like getting somebody like in your team, even though,
like you said, because I've worked with you in in
the case of let's just use the biology discussion and
being that much, you know, like saying like, hey, I
know the biology, but you know the BLM component of
like what it takes and what's going to be They
might be looking at and saying informed, I'm like, have
you thought about this? Have you considered this? This survey
(27:40):
might be required, or this this permit might be required,
Not that you're you know, not that you're the Like
I said, I'm not playing. I'm not being the expert,
meaning the biologist. But I can say here's the things
I've seen, Here's the things you should be considering or
thinking about when dealing with let's say this agency or
a landowner or stakeholder, right, David as on that and
(28:01):
ask those questions.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So if I'm if an applicant comes to me in
March and says I want to build a solar farm
in Riverside County and I want to be through the
environmental permitting process a year from now or in fourteen months,
you know the first thing I'm going to say is
are you ready to go do you have a biologist
(28:23):
who's ready to go to the field next month, because
your window for doing these biological surveys is super narrow,
and you need to have someone otherwise you're going to
be waiting for a year and we're not going to
be able to finish this for a year, right because
that window has passed and no one is going to
take the results of whatever you find when you go
(28:45):
out in August. That's the kind of stuff that you
need to be thinking about and identifying upfront, Like, Hey,
if you're okay, waiting for a year to do this,
that's fine, But if you want to be done a
year from now. And I have this conversation a lot
with my biologist who works as a subcontractor to me,
and she's like, Okay, I need to get out there
(29:07):
in the next month in order to do this. We
need to get out there in the next month. Otherwise
this is gonna have to go out a year from now.
And so I'm communicating that to my clients and saying, Okay,
here's here's the timeline. If you want to really do this,
then we have to be going this fast. You know,
are you are you ready to go that fast? Yeah,
I think that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Well, and I would I would say, David, well, another
observation is you as you shared that insight, is that
if you're if you have a project or an initiative,
whatever that might be environmental otherwise to your point, David,
if you're doing it in a vacuum, if you're just
do a gun on your own, and you're saying, I'm
going to figure this out, I'm gonna build it up,
(29:48):
I'm gonna get all this figured out. How many times, David,
do you have somebody that's been doing a lot of
work on the back end internally and they've come to you, David,
and they say, Okay, here's where i'm out. And you're like,
I could have saved you a whole lot more time
and energy, and you spend a lot of time and money.
You would have just come to me a year ago
and you've got your project. But they were trying to
do it all by themselves, thinking they're saving money right,
(30:10):
trying to do it internally, keeping it and waiting and
delaying when they could actually have engaged somebody like yourself
and actually saved money and gone faster.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
There's an old expression that all of us are smarter
than some of us, and that's a true expression. So
I think the more people that you can get involved
that that you know are of the right background, then yeah,
you're you're going to save money in the long run
because you aren't going to be having to redo all
(30:43):
the work. All the time and energy that you expended
trying to save money is now being redone because you
didn't do it right.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
M M.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So it's very hard, you know, it's very You can
do projects quickly, you can do them well, and you
can do them cheaply, but you cannot do all three.
You can only do two of the three. So if
you want to do something well and if you want
to do it fast, it's not going to be cheap.
If you want to do something well and cheap, it's
going to take a long time. It's going to take
a lot longer time. School relegated school and they're not able.
(31:15):
You can't sit all three legs on at the same time.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, you have to consider that, and that's why I
love having you on the podcast, David, because you do.
You may not be the cheapest, but you're definitely going
to be done well and you're going to be able
to move it along, you know, and and I think ultimately,
at the end of the day, our time is our
most valuable. You know, we don't get it. We can't
make more time, okay, yes, so it's like, how do
(31:38):
we do this? And so we're not going and redoing work,
redoing it. I mean, I'm sure you've done this, David.
I know I have gotten somebody else come to you
while I was working with this consultant and they didn't
get it done right, you know, right, speak of that
a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yes, I mean you will see that fairly often, you know,
where someone who's hired someone who's who's over promised and underdelivered.
And sometimes, to be fair, sometimes it's the expectation the
client has that they don't I mean, they're whoever they
hired was trying to meet their expectation, but it was
(32:15):
just not realistic. And maybe whoever they hired did not
want to say that to them, you know, they did
not they were afraid that that might turn the client off.
But I think you need to be frank with people
about what you can and what you cannot do and
let them know that this is just not it's not possible.
I'm sorry. To tell you that, but it's not or
(32:36):
it's not. It's possible, but it's going to be very expensive.
It's going to be a lot more expensive than what
you have told me you have in your budget. So
what can we do about that? Maybe there's not much
we can do about it, but probably there's something we
can do about it to make things go better. Again,
it's just communication. And you're right. My wife looks at
(32:57):
me all the time and says, I know you can
pant that room, but it would just be so much
less anguish and so much faster if we just hired
someone who does this for a living.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yep, yep, And absolutely yeah, And so just being aware
of that, that's why I want to have you on
the podcast. So as you're listening to this, whether you're
in the environmental space or not, look to consultants or
coaches like myself to help you go faster. It's worth
the investment overall. Again, you have to justify it, but
I believe you know you're bringing real value and influence
what I found. And i'd love to get your thoughts
(33:28):
on this, David is. I love the analogy of the
three legated stool. Oftentimes what I find is there's a
danger if trying to go on the cheap and saying
trying to do it, I know we have to be
cost conscious, don't get me wrong there, but where if
we go people are driven to the low price. And
I find that people are driven to the low price
(33:49):
and they if you suck into that, it's sometimes it
seems like it's never ending, like there's never enough, Like
if you try to like satisfy them on price only,
like that's the main driver. Are like wanting to extract
more versus people that you have high value or they
appreciate the time, they're not so much micromanaging and they
trust your expertise as you know, as that consultant. What's
(34:10):
your experience there, David, working with clients.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I have. I tried it too, Frankly, I try to
steer away from clients who are trying to do everything
on the cheap. And I was having a conversation earlier
your day with a lady who is going from who's transitioning,
who wants to transition from working for the federal government
(34:34):
to the private sector, And so I had a previous
conversation because she had only worked in the government, and
I was trying to explain to her concepts like okay,
and consulting, there's this thing called bilability, yep, And you
are going to be expected to be charging x percent
of your time to a project that they can then
charge the client for your time. And some companies are
(34:58):
more liberal with that, are not, and some companies are.
If you go a certain period and you don't meet
your goal, you're going to have a conversation with your boss,
and then if you continue and you don't meet your goal,
they are probably going to let you go because you're
not making enough money for them. And that's something that's
(35:18):
foreign to people who start in government and never have
worked in consulting. I mean, that's the facts you Obviously,
you and I both have gone from the private side
to the government side and dow that and I've had
when I've worked for the government, people would come to
me with proposals and say, why is this like this?
And I'm trying to explain to them, because you have
(35:40):
set a threshold of how much you're willing to pay
for this, they can only give you this many hours
towards that task. If that doesn't work for you, then
you either need to go find some more money, or
you can't do this project, or you need to accept
the fact that this result might not be what you
want it to be. But that's how consultants work. They
(36:01):
don't have You're not giving them an endless pot of money.
So again, go forever on this that you're only giving
them twenty dollars worth of of this.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
So yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
You know, and that's I just try to I try
to steer away from people who just are wanting to
to penny pinch all the way through, because in the end,
it's just gonna be frustrating for all of us. It's
gonna be frustrating for me, it's gonna be frustrating for them.
And I would rather, you know, work with clients who
(36:34):
understand that, hey, this is I want to do this,
and it's gonna cost that and I'm willing to pay
to get to the finish line. And I realized that
price for that. He's not overcharging me, he's not trying
to builk me, but he's out. But you know, I'm
gonna get the results I want and it's gonna cost
(36:54):
me this much money to do it your time. And
I've said this to others I've talked said this to
college students who go to work or try to get
internships or whatever. Your time is valuable. You don't need
to work for free for somebody unless this internship gives
you some kind of access or something. You should not
be working for people for free. Your time is valuable,
(37:18):
it's worthwhile, and you know you don't need to be
giving away your time unless you just decide to volunteer.
I mean, we all volunt are willing to give her
time to that's entirely different. But if you're were and
I've said this to my kids, you know, I'm like,
we need to make money. Your karate teacher is running
(37:39):
a business. He needs to He's getting paid for this
and that's fine. That is okay, And I am happy
to pay him what he's asking for you to take
karate lessons. But he's not doing it for free. Maybe
when he retires he'll do it for free, but he's
going to feed himself. This is his business, and that's fine,
that's fair. Fair, yes, So I try to say away
(38:00):
from people who just don't who just want everything for nothing.
And there are some people out there, are some applicants
out there that are like.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
That yeah, and I agree with you, David one hundred percent.
I hope everyoney hears this because what happens if you
get sucked in this? And I did this even though
as a business owner, even as a project manager, I've
made the mistake of costing a proposal, underpricing it too low,
hoping I'll get work or you know, and it never
doesn't work. I never seen it honestly successful where you
(38:28):
you if they just want to get the one example,
you know, they extract whatever they can from you. It's
very transactional and it's not building long term relationships. But
I've seen you do. You've built long term relationships with agencies, clients.
They come back to you time after time because they
know you're looking after their best interests and they're like, hey,
we're both at the end of the day, we both win, right,
they win, You win businesses.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
The relationship build. Consulting is relationship. It's completely based on relationships.
If you say to the Fish and Wildline Service, I
went out and surveyed this area and I didn't see
any yellow tailed skippers, and they know you. They're going
to go, Okay, we're good. We don't need to We're
going to take you at face value because we know
(39:10):
your work and we trust you.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
You know, other people they might go, well, we might
have to go out there and look at ourselves because
we think you missed something, or they might come to
you and say are you sure because we thought they
were here, and you would then say, well, I went
and looked, and the habitat has changed from when you
went out there seven years ago, and that plan is
no longer there. It's it's you know, and now they're
and now they're like, okay.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
That makes sense. Yeah, building that trust is so so important,
like you said, David, and I think once you build
that trust over time, what I found with clients is
it gives you some flexibility in a good way, meaning, hey, look,
we both have challenges some and we try to make
sure we address all the assumptions and understandings right, but
there's things that we can't account for at times, and
so it's like when that comes up and you're like,
(39:55):
inevitably and I've had to do change orders. I'm sure
you have to. Hey, look we didn't envision this happening.
I'm not trying to pull one over on you. We
both a relationship of the trust. This is what's required situation.
You know, conditions have changed than what we originally identified.
And then it's not oh, you're trying to get me,
it's just this is the reality that we're faced with.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Right Exactly. I have a project where the biologists found
Mesa Ferdy cactus on the site and she's said, we
found macerforty cactuses. They're not going to be happy about this,
and I'm like, that's not our problem though. Our job
was to go out and find them or not or
determine they're not there. And now that we found them,
(40:34):
now we need to go engage the client and the
agency about what are we going to do to get
their project developed but mitigate for any potential impacts. And
because you know, the biologist has a good relationship with
the agency biologist, they're willing and she says, hey, what
(40:55):
if we did this, they're much more willing to go, Yeah,
I think that would be a good idea. And of
course the client is not saying a whole lot. They're
just kind of they're like, client, are you willing to
do this? And they're like, yeah, we'll do that sure,
because to them that's a that's a small price to
pay as opposed to having to reroute their project completely.
They're much more well. They're like, we need to do
(41:16):
this during this time of the year. Will Yeah, we
can do that. That's so much easier than you know,
having to do you know, something more severe. And it again,
it all comes down to that relationship that people have
with one another and the trust that's developed.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yes, absolutely so, it's it's it's it's marrying the technical
skills that you need for whatever the role you have
with Like you said earlier, I think loud and clear communication,
and I realized that that is a break down. It's
one of the actually things I even do have a
whole communication go to assessment. I help people in this area
because what I found it to your point is if
(41:52):
we don't understand this about we can undermine our influence.
And that's where we don't want to be undermining our influencer. Fact,
we're actually having the opposite effect. Right, So you may
be right, but the way you're presenting or communicating it
is actually doing more damage.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Right Yes, yes, definitely, yes, definitely, absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Having somebody like you, David, to help guide them in
the messaging and how to communicate this and go about
it right.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Exactly, and that's you know when you talk about public
outreach and public engagement. I was looking we were doing
something a couple of days ago when we were looking
at slides for a public meeting and they had, you know,
for the for a visual of the construction aspect of
the project, the head guy out there jack cammering, and
I was like, you got to get rid of that picture.
(42:40):
A there's not going to be any jackhammering, we both
know that. Or there's going to be jackhammering for four
hours and then there's not any more jack hammering at all.
But if you put that picture out there, that's all
the public is going to see is there's going to
be forty days of jack cammering. So let's just get
rid of that picture because it's conveying the wrong message.
And we can say there's gonna be a brief period
(43:00):
half a day we're gonna jackhammer of the parking lot.
Then we're gonna bring in this other machine which is
pretty quiet, and we're gonna you know, hydraulic directional drill
underneath to where we want to go, and you're not
gonna see anything but that weird looking machine and it's
not gonna make a lot of noise and then it's
gonna go away. But the jackhammering they're you know you, Yeah,
(43:22):
you just have to know what trick people see something
and that's what then they can't see, they can't unsee it,
and that's all they see. So yeah, I mean, yeah,
well there's gonna be some but I don't think you
don't need to make that the focal point.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Right right, and and again if you're not aware of
these things, and and it's something learning, I like call
you said earlier, David, you had a mentor like on
you know, I think you said Francisco on recreation or
whatever the area. Actually get people to help you right
in game interns pulling them in their subcontractors, learn from them,
because I've I've seen this made the mistake where, for example,
(43:56):
we were on a big project and a biologist of
us out there they said, kind of off the cuff,
why I think I saw this federally listed bird specie okay,
And and there was a regulator oversight person there and
they're like, oh my goodness, did you Well they just
were speculated. Didn't realize by saying that they're going to
set up all these so you understand like how you
(44:19):
like you said earlier, how you're presenting that message, how
that can have a ripple effect, you know, negatively if
you're not careful, and how then all and then like
there's a lot of energy now that you weren't going
to have to spend. Now you have just been a
lot more energy following up communicating right that you weren't anticipating. Yeah,
you know that costs money.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
You go to the client, you say, I found my
severty cactuses. We need to have a meeting with the
agency and with you and let's figure out. Let's put
our heads together, because we know now from past experience.
You know, I know what says this in the rags,
But they are the agency. Sometimes they regulators willing to
let things go a little bit, like hey, if you
(45:00):
will make your area of disturbance ten feet instead of
fifty feet, I'm not as concerned about that. If you're
willing to do that. And of course the applicant is like, yes,
I can do that. I will be glad to keep
everybody in a ten foot width and we won't go
outside that for this, you know, five hundred foot stretch yes,
because again that's so much less painful than having to
(45:22):
go over here and do it and you know, have
to just you know, add a lot more money to
things than they have to.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, I know we're getting them in the podcast. I
definitely could go longer, David, and we're gonna have to
be come back because I think we could talk many
more stories, you know, but I want I'm hoping here
people hear this because David is why I haven't. David
here is you know, not only a principal, you know,
specialist in underneath an environmental but he is an expert
project manager guiding teams and and you know, in complex projects.
(45:55):
And what I heard you say, David, it's not about
being reacted like you just mentioned. Its about being pro
active and confident decisions and supported by leaders. You're you're
getting people that are like on board, like hey, we're
gonna work together, right, And that's my passion is the
people side, Like how do we get these people healthy together,
not being you know, fighting amongst each other, but like
(46:19):
let's let's work this and not grind it out, but
actually feel like we're a team elaborating. There's better way
to lead and show up how to get this work.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Let's let's give everyone an opportunity to provide input, because
they probably have input that is useful to us, and
then it's better than our input. And you know, once
once you realize that you don't know everything and no
one really expects you to know everything, and you're not
afraid to take input from someone else, your life gets
so much easier. You know, when I had I had
(46:48):
a person. We were working on a project and we
were kind of struggling, and they said, let's go back
to the other project that we were working on, because
we know what was working over there. Let's figure out
what we're doing right or wrong. And we went back
and looked at the other project and it became glaringly obvious. Okay,
this this was our mistake over here. Let's go back
(47:09):
now that we've seen Okay, yes, this is how it works.
Let's go back now we can finish it now that
we had the you know, we instead of just banging
away and just you know, beating her head in, let's
just go back and look at where it worked before
and figure out again what we did that was so
good over here and how we can transfer to this
one and that's what we did, and it made our
lives so much easier. It just made things just go
(47:32):
so much smoother. Yeah, just because we figured that out.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, we and you owned it. I hear you said, hey,
we've figured out there was a problem when I yeh,
So now we can go back and fix it. You know,
we can. We can improve upon it and just own it.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Right, it's not the end of the world. Yep, we
just need to go fix the problem. We just need
to stake people make. It's not pretending like people don't
make mistakes. They make mistakes. And it's like telling kids
all the time, you're gonna make a mistake, you just
kinda own it. If you own the mistake, you're gonna
(48:07):
get a lot more leeway than if you try to
pretend you didn't make a mistake. But if you own
the mistake, then your client is gonna work with you
a lot more. We be much more willing to work
with you. You need some more money, okay, you know
that's just it's so much easier than trying to pretend like, yeah,
I didn't do that, I didn't make a mistake. Everything's perfect,
and it's not, especially when it's clearly clear that you
made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Just own it.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Own it.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So David, as we're as we're wrapping up the podcast,
we're going to make sure everybody uh follow a McIntire
environmental look at up on environmental dot com. You can
check them out. We want to make sure we put
the links here. Connect with David on LinkedIn, just like
there's not many David McIntire's out there. Mc andentire Environmental
is the only one I know of, so go find
(48:52):
you know, connect with us. We're on LinkedIn and David again.
Follow David, connect with him because he puts up great
content you're hearing not just from the environmental side, but
just you can see how he's showing up as a
project manager, as a business owner, as a principle, because
he's wearing different hats, which I so appreciate, and David,
you do it very well. And I just want to
say thanks for coming on. Any last thoughts you want
to share with our listeners as we wrap up the podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, I think the biggest thing is getting educate
yourself on whatever you're doing. Educate yourself to the maximum
stint that you can and realize you probably don't know
you almost certainly don't know at all. And it never
hurts to ask someone else for what they think, what
their their perspective is, because they very likely have an
(49:39):
angle on something that you did not consider, and it's
it's better and you, yes, you should go with your
idea because it's probably better than yours, and that's okay.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Absolutely, absolutely, thank you David for being here. I want
to thank everybody for of course following like and subscribe.
Leave your comments, we'll make sure that David gets them.
If you're interested in being a guest, we continue to
have new guests on week after week. Love to have
(50:08):
you again, David, Thank you for being here. Come back
and listen next time. Everybody, until next time, do well.
Thanks
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast once again. I
am your host, David Carr. So Glad, Dabby. You're a
founder of Steward Your Business, where we bring people together
to accomplish great things, and we have another great guest here,
David McIntyre. Welcome to the podcast. David.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I appreciate it absolutely. David and I go way back,
actually through many years working on different projects, and I've
been keeping in touch with him since I've started Steward
Your Business, and I said, well, I've got to have
David here on the podcast because David is a gentleman
that has been through a lot in the environmental space
(01:08):
in particular, dealing with lots of complex projects. That's what
we got working together, and so I wanted him to
come on the podcast today, give us some background on
his journey as an owner principal with McIntire Environmental and
really get into how to run a successful business in
the environmental space in particular, and move from a technical
(01:30):
person to really a project manager principle to actually running
effective projects. And so we're going to get into it today.
So listen in, lean in, and you're going to get
some amazing insights from David here. So, David, before we
get into the meat of it, I always love to
have our guests share a bit about their journey, their history,
because you have a long history and environmental consulting space
(01:52):
before McIntyre Environmental, and I love you just to walk
us through a little bit of your history and journey
and what got you to you know, McIntire environmental.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well. I graduated from the Naval Academy in nineteen ninety
and was commissioned into the Marine Corps. And I spent
six years on active duty in the Marine Corps. And
I originally was stationed in Campbell June, North Carolina with
an infantry battalion versus Battalian eighth Marines, and then transferred
after my tour there to Naval Air Station North Island,
(02:27):
which is in Tornado, California, and was there for a
couple of years before I decided to move into the
civilian world. And I had met someone who had gotten
me interested in the environment, let's say, in a very
vague sense, and I decided to get in. I precided
(02:50):
to pursue a graduate degree because that was really the
only way that I could envision breaking into the environmental field,
not really knowing what the environmental field consisted of. So
I got into San Diego State and got a master's
in geography from San Diego State, and that was really
(03:13):
where I started to get exposure to environmental consulting and
just kind of what the environmental industry as a business
looked like. And so I got my first job while
I was actually still trying to finish running my thesis,
(03:34):
for a small company that was working at the US
Army Uma Approving Ground, which is outside of you Arizona.
One of the reasons that I got the job with
no experience in the industry was because they were heavily
focused on doing environmental assessments and those types of documents
that are part of the National Environmental Policy Act for
(03:57):
the Army at Um Approving Ground. Since I had that
background in the Marine Corps, they thought that I would
be able to understand, you know, have a better understanding
of what a project was going to look like from
from the military side, and be able to care. So
I did that for a year and I did some
other like remediation type work, just kind of helping out,
(04:21):
you know, because that company also did that type of
work as well, which is a completely different business line
so to speak, that I never really got much into
beyond that. But I was there for about a year
and then I decided I did not want to continue
to stay in Yuma, and I wanted to come back
to San Diego, which is where I've been living. And
(04:43):
so I was able to get a job with a
company called KA Environmental, which was the largest locally owned
consulting firm in the San Diego area. Got a job
with them, and then a couple months after I started there,
I learned what happens when and companies merge and acquired,
and AA Environmental got acquired by a company called EDA
(05:06):
ed a w. Which has been a very well known
landscape architecture firm for for decades. And the founders of
EDA were, you know, were extremely well known in the
landscape architecture world. They designed the Centennial Park in Atlanta
for the nineteen ninety six Olympics, that designed designed a
(05:27):
number of the venues for the Salt Lake City Olympics
in two They did that kind of work, I mean,
very up in landscape architecture work. So they acquired our company.
We became part of EDA, and we and we were
the largest UH office in the company and we were
(05:47):
really solely focused on environmental consulting. So from there, one
of the things that they that attracted me or attracted
them to me, or vice versa, was they had a
contract with Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest and so Navy
and Marine CORPN EPA, so really getting into my background
(06:08):
and that was what made me attractive to them. So
I was there for several years, got back in the
Marine Corps Reserve for a little while, did a deployment
to Iraq as part of that, and then came back
and really wanted to try to go do something more
but in the consulting firm field, and so I got
a job with another company called Ecology and Environment that
(06:31):
was wanting to start an office in San Diego. They
also had a contract with NAFAC Southwest, and so I
started their San Diego office and did that from nineteen
let me pick it back, I did it from two
thousand and six. In twenty eleven, I relocated to Tucson, Arizona,
(06:55):
which is where my wife is from. And after a
couple of years is non uncommon. You know companies EBB
and Flow and they do and they have successes and
then they start to struggle. Yes, And I kind of
felt like, Okay, we're really going to end up in
a period of struggle here, and so I decided maybe
it would be a good time to transition to something
(07:15):
quite a bit different, and so I want to work
for the eear of Land Management and I had a
job there. I worked in the Tucson Field Office, met
some really great people who really taught me a lot
about some of the inner workings about the Beeer of
Land Management that really you can't get unless you work there, right,
You can't do it on the outside without talking to someone.
(07:38):
And there were some people there I'll name one, Francisca Mendoza,
who really was an expert in recreation and every aspect
of the BLM's recreation program. And he was able to
explain to me a lot of the this is why
this is done this way, and this is why this
is done that way. He was really an expert. He
was really great working with him. But after a while
(07:58):
a couple of years, I knew that, you know, working
for the federal government and all the bureaucracy was going
to be something I probably cannot sustain for the long haul.
I did not want to go back to a company,
to a big firm or even a you know, I'm
a small company. I really wanted to do something on
my own, and so I incorporated back Entire Environmental while
(08:22):
I was there, but I really didn't do anything with
it for about a year. And then I was able
to get a couple of contracts and I was able
to convince my wife that I can make a go
of this. Yes, and so she said, okay, you can
quit your job, and so I started doing McIntire Environmental
full time and that was in August of twenty sixteen
(08:43):
and we have been progressing ever since.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yes, absolutely, no, I love that number one. Thank you
for your service, you know, And I think I hope
everybody is leaning and listening because David just give you,
you know, this background of experience varied and I have
similar experience in both the private sector and public sector,
and I think it's really valuable. David. I think you
went from the private sector to the public sectors I did.
(09:09):
I think that's a different perspective and I'm not everybody
gets that. So I agree with you from the inside out.
I happen to be at the County of Riverside for
a number of years the same kind of thing. It's
a different understanding, right, and now you know how to help.
And you've done so much work with the federal government
among other things too, and that's a whole even like
it's a Department of Defense and all of these other elements.
(09:30):
So these are not simple easy projects that you've you've
stepped into. Is you've you really found a niche you know,
in with macintar environ Mental And why one of the
things why I wanted to have you on the podcast
David too is because for those of you that have
not connected with David, we're connected on LinkedIn and David
does regularly post articles and information breaking this down because
(09:56):
it's complex how to navigate through these ever changing laws, regulations,
you know, edicts will right and so so now that
you've been doing McIntyre Environmental, David, you know, tell you know,
share if you will, like some of the things that
(10:17):
you're seeing the challenges out there that you've navigated in
the environmental project management space. You know that you know
that you've been able to successfully manage, but what are
those what are you seeing as issues roadblocks to successfully
managing running these type of projects you talked about.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, I think first and foremost, I mean I, like
I said, I started this in the full time in
August of twenty sixteen. President Trump was elected in November
of twenty sixteen, and that really changed the NEPA world,
you know, which is what most of us operate or
a lot of us if they don't either we operate
in the neighbor world, or we are doing something that
(10:58):
is going to support ANIPA type document.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It's federal. It covers all all fifty states. You know,
you have some other some environmental laws of here locally,
state or or but everybody's got that umbrella. Like you
said that, this this federal.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So if you're if you're doing work for a federal
agency and you're in the environmental arena, you know, unless
you're doing something like RICRA or something with hazardous waste,
you're probably going to be running into NEPA. And NIPA
did not change much in terms of the regulations from
nineteen seventy eight, when the CEQU issued their first guidelines,
(11:37):
until President Trump came into office in twenty sixteen, and
then they begin to change significantly. And there were other
laws like the Clean Water Act that changed significantly during
his administration. Then President Biden was elected, and so some
things reverted back to what they were, some things did not.
Some of the frankly, some of the changes that were
(11:59):
in act did under the Trump administration stayed. Now we
come to twenty twenty four, President Trump comes back into
office and there are even more changes, and so I
think keeping abreast of all these changes is probably the
biggest challenge that I see today because even the agencies
(12:20):
don't know exactly what is going to happen. And if
you go to someone who works for the Foreign Service
and say, okay, what are we going to do now
based on the executive order that was released two days ago,
they're not completely sure. And because the government is very
slow to change. The government doesn't you know, the government
(12:40):
moves like a battleship changing course. They are not a speedboat.
So that I think is the biggest thing, because when
clients come to you and they say, what is this
going to look like now in today's world, you know,
I'm not positive what it's going to what an environmental
assessment is going to look like, I don't know how
big is going to be. I don't know how much
(13:02):
long it's going to take. And that's partly because there
are new programs that have you've been that have come
out that accelerate these things significantly. Uh. And so I
think everyone in every agency as well as consultants are
trying to figure out, how is this going to actually manifest?
This manifest itself in the real world.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, well, so to two sides there. So you're saying,
as I hear it, you're having an agency and I
just a few weeks ago, I had another or had
another gentleman on our podcast in salesby formerly Orange County
Public Works Director, when we were talking about some of
the challenges with funding coming into agencies and other things.
And so, so I hear you here to two challenges David.
(13:43):
I feel like you're in the middle.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Here.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
You've got the agencies that don't there's some confusion there,
and now you have clients as a project proponent and saying, hey,
I've got this project that I want to go forward. David,
what's what's the what's the roadmap? And so it's not
entirely clear, and that's where you come in as a
guide kind of almost like an interpret right between the
project proponent and the agencies that they they can It
(14:06):
usually is probably more than one agency in your experience, right,
You're not just dealing with BLM. It's it's maybe it's
the Rsrry Corby Engineers, It's it's other agencies too that
are partaking. Correct.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It can be, Yeah, it can be sometimes it's just
one agency. I mean, obviously, if you're doing an EA,
there's a very good chance you'll have to deal with
the Fisial Wildlife Service. You may have to deal with
the Core. You may be in a situation where you
have two lead agencies that are because the project is
on you know, BLM land and it's on FIG Service
(14:37):
land both, so now you've got to deal with you know,
two masters for lack of a better term. Yeah, and yes,
I think a lot of the applicants out there, depending
on the nature of what they're doing, you know, they
hear about these changes that are coming, you know, from
the current administration, and they think, oh, it's going to
be a lot easier now we can just adopt another agency.
(14:59):
Is categorical exclusion, And I'm like, it's really not quite
that way. You can't just go and say we're going
to use this one. Now, there is a process, process
takes time, and that agency has to be the one
that do it. You cannot just go and do it yourself.
So it's it's educating them about that, or they'll hear
we can do an EA in fourteen days, and I'm like, no,
(15:22):
there are certain types of projects that can do that,
but they have to be at a certain point to
be able to do that. I haven't dealt with that
personally yet myself, but yeah, they just there's just I
think a lot of misinformation out there amongst people who
want to do projects of various types because they just
(15:42):
don't really know, you know, and it's not their fault,
they just don't really understand.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, you have a way about you, David that I
feel like as important as an you're there acting on
the behalf of the of the project applicant, project proponent
when they come to you as as a consultant. How
did you develop those goes? Because you told me you
gave us this where you started with the environmental consulting
firm here locally, so you're technically doing the environmental work,
(16:09):
but now you're stepping into a project management role. Cliant liaison,
which is both technical and just like you said, guiding them.
How how did you do that and and and successfully
navigate your way into that position day? Because I think
that what I find a lot in the industry and
the folks that I work with, they have great technical people,
(16:29):
and now they have to start managing projects and people
and stakeholders, and that's just different than just the pure
environmental regulations applying we need both. Did you share a
little bit about your journey there?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So when I was you know, I really learned kind
of the the basics of project management and delegation, et
cetera when I'm when I was in the Marine Corps,
because there's a lot of that. I mean, you you know,
if you're a commander, you can't do everything, and you have,
you know, a platoon sergeant, you have squad leaders, and
you know you need to be able to task them
(17:04):
with doing specific things because you cannot do at all.
And so that was something that I learned very quickly
that you know you're gonna fail if you try to
do it all yourself. So you have to develop your team,
figure out what they're good at and what they're not
good at, and then give them things to do. That
they can be successful at while you're trying to help
(17:28):
them get better at the things are that they are
not successful at. And that goes all the way up.
So when you are in the Marine Corps and you're
in an infantry company, you have a company commander who
is looking at you and delegating things down to you
and also looking at you going Okay, mcintarr's good at this,
but he needs some work on this. So I'm going
to give him this to do so because I know
he can get moving on it and be successful. But
(17:50):
on the side, I'm going to be working on him
on these areas where he's weak and try to help
him get make those areas stronger. And so that's transfers over,
you know, very nicely into the civilian side and into
business where you are managing projects, and it really becomes
to me, I think the fundamental thing is really understanding
(18:12):
your priorities and really understanding, Okay, this is this is
going to get done. This is going to get done.
What's got to get done first, What it's going to
take the most resources. What do I need to jump
on today and get the ball rolling today, even though
it's it's not due for a while. If I don't
(18:33):
get the ball rolling today, it's going to be almost
impossible to get the ball rolling in a month in
time to get that done. Yes, I'm going to get
the ball rolling today on this and once that ball
is rolling now I can go over to here and
look at this shorter term project and I can start
working on that. And that was just it was a
It was I you know, I've taken some project management classes.
(18:55):
I've had some you know, in house project management training.
I had other people, you know, who were mentors that
really worked a lot to show me how to do that,
and that was really kind of it in a nutshell
coming over to just doing a mac entire environmental you know,
(19:15):
the biggest thing is that I'm a single person, single entity.
I have subcontractors and these are people that I have
worked with for a long time. I knew from the past,
like you like yourself, So there are people that I've
had a good relationship with. And again I know what
they're good at, I know what they're not as good at,
and so I'm gonna steer work to them that I'm
(19:37):
all right, we can be successful with this, and then
I need to find someone else to to work on this,
or I need to do it myself or whatever. I don't.
There's only a handful of projects that I do entirely
by myself. I almost always have at least one person
or more. You know, who I am relying on, because hey,
you're the biologist, so I need you to do all
(19:59):
the biol work, and we're going to talk about it
a lot so that I am up to speed on
what you're doing and why you think you know this
is this way. But ultimately, you're the biologist, and I've
brought you on board because I trust that you know
what you're doing, or if you don't, you're going to say, okay,
I I we got to I'm not really sure how
(20:20):
to handle all right, great, let's talk, you know. So
it's communication, you know, it's communication and not being afraid
to understand that, hey, this is more than I can
take on, or I'm faced with something I'm not really
sure how to deal with, and having a network of
(20:40):
people who you can go to and say, have you
ever seen anything like this? And then they go, yes,
this is how you need to handle this. That's really
the key thing.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, there's a number of things you said in there
were important. I think, David, what I hopefully people here
having run MAC and Time Environmental for years now, and
is you're listening in that David said this that and
I feel the same way. We're not experts in all things,
and we can't be all things to everybody. And so
it's understanding where your strength is, like you said, David,
(21:11):
and developing that Tina, you've developed a great network of
like you said, number of areas. Because when we talk
about you know, NIPA, the environmental world, and you and
I know this. Maybe if you're listening, you're like, oh,
all environmentals will say no, there's a whole myriad of
different areas under environmental. So if you're not in this
working in the space, just hear me. Just but if
(21:32):
just usus this. If you're a contractor working on a house, right,
you have all different people that are coming in that
you need to have relationships with somebody that's electrical, somebody
is plumbing, somebody that is framing. So understanding that if
you try to do all these things, you're not going
to be successful in business. And what David is here
and I wanted to have him on here, is that
you as a business owner or even a leader. You
need to be developing those relationships with each other. And
(21:55):
that's why I wanted to do it here because we
and I collaborate, and I am introduced David to other
clients I have where they can work collaborate together, because that,
to me is a differentiator of a successful company versus
one that isn't. And I feel like your David, you
do that collaboration both with your subcontractors, but also with
like you said, we're talked about multiple stakeholders, perhaps different agencies,
(22:18):
but even the public too. Right, you're dealing with the
public input, Like, how do you relate with them? Right?
How do you, you know, build that facilitation. That's a whole
nother element, right, David.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yes, it is, it is. It is, yes, And there's
and there are organizations that there are companies that specialize
in just publication, public outreach, public engagement. And there's times
when you know you have to have that. It's because
the nature of your project and controversy or whatever. There's
(22:48):
times when you need to go out to a firm
like that and say, Okay, I know enough to know
that I need you. I know that I can't really
I can't do the best job you can. So I
need you to come on board and let's work on
this this together because this is your strong suit. It's
not I'm not strong enough. So I want you to
(23:08):
come in. And obviously, again we're gonna be talking a lot.
I'm not just gonna blindly turn it over to you
and say, all right, that's off my plate. We're gonna
be engaged through the whole process. But I'm really leaning
on you for your expertise.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, absolutely, David, Well, what would you say, because you
work with a lot of different firms, a lot of
subcontractors and prime what would you say, you know, if
you're a leader in the a let's AEC space where
they might be getting it wrong or approaching I think
one of them I heard Loud and Clay was they're
waiting too long to get started. Like you're being proactive
and you're like, hey, this is gonna this is the
(23:43):
lead time. If you have somebody that's never done this before,
they might be Take's that one to me? Just jumped
out and be like, oh man, I waited too long
to get started on this and now I'm screwed. I'm
like way behind it. But I didn't know that. What
other mistakes do you see when you know they're doing
teaming or bringing on a partner that you know they're
they're missing the mark that you're seeing, David, I.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Think the biggest thing that I see is is not communicating.
So I think the having team members that are in
the dark about what's going on, you know, and and granted,
their their peace might be very discreet, but I think
that the more they are engaged on the larger project
(24:28):
and where we are in the larger project, I think
that they can help you much more so than they
could if you were just kind of keeping them under
like a mushroom and keeping them in the dark and
saying I just need this. They're going to give you that.
But maybe if they knew a little bit more, they
they have experience, they might be able to say, Okay,
(24:49):
you do need this, but but you also need this
other thing that comes along with this, And you don't
really realize that, but I do because I've been doing
this for a long time. So I'm going to give
this to you also because you didn't know you needed it,
but you do, right, that can help you that that
can save you, you know, from from making a foolish mistake.
So I think communication really is fundamental and just communicating
(25:12):
you know clear, I mean, I know this is all
not this is not rocket science. No, but you're hitting
people don't always do it, and that is just let's
communicate about you know, as much as we can without
making it onerous. This is what we're doing. This is
you know where we are, and this is what I
need from you.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, to your point, David, do you see this. I've
seen this least. I don't want to see what your
trends are. Do you see your company, especially when they're
going from proing just purely doing the technical work and
they have to coordinate with you so there as actual
project management. There is coordination that's necessary. And what I
hear you saying, I'm extrapolating this, but what I'm hearing
(25:53):
you saying in the communication and not spending the time
to inform them, to guide them, which takes time and
energy write to get them up to speed. They're not
planning or incorporating enough project management time and logistics. They're
trying to cut and just I don't know, trying to
little do And I understand we got a sensitive to
costs and things like that, but we also have to
plan appropriately appropriate resources to get the job done.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yes, I think a problem that I see often is
that they put someone in charge of something who are
technically knowledgeable, but they just don't have They can't they
don't know what they don't know, for lack of a
better term, So they you know, I like to think
that I have a pretty good idea of what I
don't know, and I realize that I'm going to need
(26:40):
to go figure that out. There are often, unfortunately, people
put into positions. You know, this is on this is
other consultants, this is on the government side, or whatever,
it's all of it, and they just don't know that
there's this other stuff out here that they need to
be aware of and they need to get themselves up
to speed on and so that it just goes on.
(27:03):
They're going on just fine, thinking they're fine and not
realizing that this is gonna you know, this freight train
is coming at them and they're not aware they need
to be looking for the lights of the freight trains
so they can get across the tracks a sign. Yes,
for lack of better analogy.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, I mean that's a great analogy. David and that's
why like getting somebody like in your team, even though,
like you said, because I've worked with you in in
the case of let's just use the biology discussion and
being that much, you know, like saying like, hey, I
know the biology, but you know the BLM component of
like what it takes and what's going to be They
might be looking at and saying informed, I'm like, have
you thought about this? Have you considered this? This survey
(27:40):
might be required, or this this permit might be required,
Not that you're you know, not that you're the Like
I said, I'm not playing. I'm not being the expert,
meaning the biologist. But I can say here's the things
I've seen, Here's the things you should be considering or
thinking about when dealing with let's say this agency or
a landowner or stakeholder, right, David as on that and
(28:01):
ask those questions.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So if I'm if an applicant comes to me in
March and says I want to build a solar farm
in Riverside County and I want to be through the
environmental permitting process a year from now or in fourteen months,
you know the first thing I'm going to say is
are you ready to go do you have a biologist
(28:23):
who's ready to go to the field next month, because
your window for doing these biological surveys is super narrow,
and you need to have someone otherwise you're going to
be waiting for a year and we're not going to
be able to finish this for a year, right because
that window has passed and no one is going to
take the results of whatever you find when you go
(28:45):
out in August. That's the kind of stuff that you
need to be thinking about and identifying upfront, Like, Hey,
if you're okay, waiting for a year to do this,
that's fine, But if you want to be done a
year from now. And I have this conversation a lot
with my biologist who works as a subcontractor to me,
and she's like, Okay, I need to get out there
(29:07):
in the next month in order to do this. We
need to get out there in the next month. Otherwise
this is gonna have to go out a year from now.
And so I'm communicating that to my clients and saying, Okay,
here's here's the timeline. If you want to really do this,
then we have to be going this fast. You know,
are you are you ready to go that fast? Yeah,
I think that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Well, and I would I would say, David, well, another
observation is you as you shared that insight, is that
if you're if you have a project or an initiative,
whatever that might be environmental otherwise to your point, David,
if you're doing it in a vacuum, if you're just
do a gun on your own, and you're saying, I'm
going to figure this out, I'm gonna build it up,
(29:48):
I'm gonna get all this figured out. How many times, David,
do you have somebody that's been doing a lot of
work on the back end internally and they've come to you, David,
and they say, Okay, here's where i'm out. And you're like,
I could have saved you a whole lot more time
and energy, and you spend a lot of time and money.
You would have just come to me a year ago
and you've got your project. But they were trying to
do it all by themselves, thinking they're saving money right,
(30:10):
trying to do it internally, keeping it and waiting and
delaying when they could actually have engaged somebody like yourself
and actually saved money and gone faster.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
There's an old expression that all of us are smarter
than some of us, and that's a true expression. So
I think the more people that you can get involved
that that you know are of the right background, then yeah,
you're you're going to save money in the long run
because you aren't going to be having to redo all
(30:43):
the work. All the time and energy that you expended
trying to save money is now being redone because you
didn't do it right.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
M M.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So it's very hard, you know, it's very You can
do projects quickly, you can do them well, and you
can do them cheaply, but you cannot do all three.
You can only do two of the three. So if
you want to do something well and if you want
to do it fast, it's not going to be cheap.
If you want to do something well and cheap, it's
going to take a long time. It's going to take
a lot longer time. School relegated school and they're not able.
(31:15):
You can't sit all three legs on at the same time.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, you have to consider that, and that's why I
love having you on the podcast, David, because you do.
You may not be the cheapest, but you're definitely going
to be done well and you're going to be able
to move it along, you know, and and I think ultimately,
at the end of the day, our time is our
most valuable. You know, we don't get it. We can't
make more time, okay, yes, so it's like, how do
(31:38):
we do this? And so we're not going and redoing work,
redoing it. I mean, I'm sure you've done this, David.
I know I have gotten somebody else come to you
while I was working with this consultant and they didn't
get it done right, you know, right, speak of that
a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yes, I mean you will see that fairly often, you know,
where someone who's hired someone who's who's over promised and underdelivered.
And sometimes, to be fair, sometimes it's the expectation the
client has that they don't I mean, they're whoever they
hired was trying to meet their expectation, but it was
(32:15):
just not realistic. And maybe whoever they hired did not
want to say that to them, you know, they did
not they were afraid that that might turn the client off.
But I think you need to be frank with people
about what you can and what you cannot do and
let them know that this is just not it's not possible.
I'm sorry. To tell you that, but it's not or
(32:36):
it's not. It's possible, but it's going to be very expensive.
It's going to be a lot more expensive than what
you have told me you have in your budget. So
what can we do about that? Maybe there's not much
we can do about it, but probably there's something we
can do about it to make things go better. Again,
it's just communication. And you're right. My wife looks at
(32:57):
me all the time and says, I know you can
pant that room, but it would just be so much
less anguish and so much faster if we just hired
someone who does this for a living.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yep, yep, And absolutely yeah, And so just being aware
of that, that's why I want to have you on
the podcast. So as you're listening to this, whether you're
in the environmental space or not, look to consultants or
coaches like myself to help you go faster. It's worth
the investment overall. Again, you have to justify it, but
I believe you know you're bringing real value and influence
what I found. And i'd love to get your thoughts
(33:28):
on this, David is. I love the analogy of the
three legated stool. Oftentimes what I find is there's a
danger if trying to go on the cheap and saying
trying to do it, I know we have to be
cost conscious, don't get me wrong there, but where if
we go people are driven to the low price. And
I find that people are driven to the low price
(33:49):
and they if you suck into that, it's sometimes it
seems like it's never ending, like there's never enough, Like
if you try to like satisfy them on price only,
like that's the main driver. Are like wanting to extract
more versus people that you have high value or they
appreciate the time, they're not so much micromanaging and they
trust your expertise as you know, as that consultant. What's
(34:10):
your experience there, David, working with clients.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I have. I tried it too, Frankly, I try to
steer away from clients who are trying to do everything
on the cheap. And I was having a conversation earlier
your day with a lady who is going from who's transitioning,
who wants to transition from working for the federal government
(34:34):
to the private sector, And so I had a previous
conversation because she had only worked in the government, and
I was trying to explain to her concepts like okay,
and consulting, there's this thing called bilability, yep, And you
are going to be expected to be charging x percent
of your time to a project that they can then
charge the client for your time. And some companies are
(34:58):
more liberal with that, are not, and some companies are.
If you go a certain period and you don't meet
your goal, you're going to have a conversation with your boss,
and then if you continue and you don't meet your goal,
they are probably going to let you go because you're
not making enough money for them. And that's something that's
(35:18):
foreign to people who start in government and never have
worked in consulting. I mean, that's the facts you Obviously,
you and I both have gone from the private side
to the government side and dow that and I've had
when I've worked for the government, people would come to
me with proposals and say, why is this like this?
And I'm trying to explain to them, because you have
(35:40):
set a threshold of how much you're willing to pay
for this, they can only give you this many hours
towards that task. If that doesn't work for you, then
you either need to go find some more money, or
you can't do this project, or you need to accept
the fact that this result might not be what you
want it to be. But that's how consultants work. They
(36:01):
don't have You're not giving them an endless pot of money.
So again, go forever on this that you're only giving
them twenty dollars worth of of this.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
So yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
You know, and that's I just try to I try
to steer away from people who just are wanting to
to penny pinch all the way through, because in the end,
it's just gonna be frustrating for all of us. It's
gonna be frustrating for me, it's gonna be frustrating for them.
And I would rather, you know, work with clients who
(36:34):
understand that, hey, this is I want to do this,
and it's gonna cost that and I'm willing to pay
to get to the finish line. And I realized that
price for that. He's not overcharging me, he's not trying
to builk me, but he's out. But you know, I'm
gonna get the results I want and it's gonna cost
(36:54):
me this much money to do it your time. And
I've said this to others I've talked said this to
college students who go to work or try to get
internships or whatever. Your time is valuable. You don't need
to work for free for somebody unless this internship gives
you some kind of access or something. You should not
be working for people for free. Your time is valuable,
(37:18):
it's worthwhile, and you know you don't need to be
giving away your time unless you just decide to volunteer.
I mean, we all volunt are willing to give her
time to that's entirely different. But if you're were and
I've said this to my kids, you know, I'm like,
we need to make money. Your karate teacher is running
(37:39):
a business. He needs to He's getting paid for this
and that's fine. That is okay, And I am happy
to pay him what he's asking for you to take
karate lessons. But he's not doing it for free. Maybe
when he retires he'll do it for free, but he's
going to feed himself. This is his business, and that's fine,
that's fair. Fair, yes, So I try to say away
(38:00):
from people who just don't who just want everything for nothing.
And there are some people out there, are some applicants
out there that are like.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
That yeah, and I agree with you, David one hundred percent.
I hope everyoney hears this because what happens if you
get sucked in this? And I did this even though
as a business owner, even as a project manager, I've
made the mistake of costing a proposal, underpricing it too low,
hoping I'll get work or you know, and it never
doesn't work. I never seen it honestly successful where you
(38:28):
you if they just want to get the one example,
you know, they extract whatever they can from you. It's
very transactional and it's not building long term relationships. But
I've seen you do. You've built long term relationships with agencies, clients.
They come back to you time after time because they
know you're looking after their best interests and they're like, hey,
we're both at the end of the day, we both win, right,
they win, You win businesses.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
The relationship build. Consulting is relationship. It's completely based on relationships.
If you say to the Fish and Wildline Service, I
went out and surveyed this area and I didn't see
any yellow tailed skippers, and they know you. They're going
to go, Okay, we're good. We don't need to We're
going to take you at face value because we know
(39:10):
your work and we trust you.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
You know, other people they might go, well, we might
have to go out there and look at ourselves because
we think you missed something, or they might come to
you and say are you sure because we thought they
were here, and you would then say, well, I went
and looked, and the habitat has changed from when you
went out there seven years ago, and that plan is
no longer there. It's it's you know, and now they're
and now they're like, okay.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
That makes sense. Yeah, building that trust is so so important,
like you said, David, and I think once you build
that trust over time, what I found with clients is
it gives you some flexibility in a good way, meaning, hey, look,
we both have challenges some and we try to make
sure we address all the assumptions and understandings right, but
there's things that we can't account for at times, and
so it's like when that comes up and you're like,
(39:55):
inevitably and I've had to do change orders. I'm sure
you have to. Hey, look we didn't envision this happening.
I'm not trying to pull one over on you. We
both a relationship of the trust. This is what's required situation.
You know, conditions have changed than what we originally identified.
And then it's not oh, you're trying to get me,
it's just this is the reality that we're faced with.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Right Exactly. I have a project where the biologists found
Mesa Ferdy cactus on the site and she's said, we
found macerforty cactuses. They're not going to be happy about this,
and I'm like, that's not our problem though. Our job
was to go out and find them or not or
determine they're not there. And now that we found them,
(40:34):
now we need to go engage the client and the
agency about what are we going to do to get
their project developed but mitigate for any potential impacts. And
because you know, the biologist has a good relationship with
the agency biologist, they're willing and she says, hey, what
(40:55):
if we did this, they're much more willing to go, Yeah,
I think that would be a good idea. And of
course the client is not saying a whole lot. They're
just kind of they're like, client, are you willing to
do this? And they're like, yeah, we'll do that sure,
because to them that's a that's a small price to
pay as opposed to having to reroute their project completely.
They're much more well. They're like, we need to do
(41:16):
this during this time of the year. Will Yeah, we
can do that. That's so much easier than you know,
having to do you know, something more severe. And it again,
it all comes down to that relationship that people have
with one another and the trust that's developed.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yes, absolutely so, it's it's it's it's marrying the technical
skills that you need for whatever the role you have
with Like you said earlier, I think loud and clear communication,
and I realized that that is a break down. It's
one of the actually things I even do have a
whole communication go to assessment. I help people in this area
because what I found it to your point is if
(41:52):
we don't understand this about we can undermine our influence.
And that's where we don't want to be undermining our influencer. Fact,
we're actually having the opposite effect. Right, So you may
be right, but the way you're presenting or communicating it
is actually doing more damage.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Right Yes, yes, definitely, yes, definitely, absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Having somebody like you, David, to help guide them in
the messaging and how to communicate this and go about
it right.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Exactly, and that's you know when you talk about public
outreach and public engagement. I was looking we were doing
something a couple of days ago when we were looking
at slides for a public meeting and they had, you know,
for the for a visual of the construction aspect of
the project, the head guy out there jack cammering, and
I was like, you got to get rid of that picture.
(42:40):
A there's not going to be any jackhammering, we both
know that. Or there's going to be jackhammering for four
hours and then there's not any more jack hammering at all.
But if you put that picture out there, that's all
the public is going to see is there's going to
be forty days of jack cammering. So let's just get
rid of that picture because it's conveying the wrong message.
And we can say there's gonna be a brief period
(43:00):
half a day we're gonna jackhammer of the parking lot.
Then we're gonna bring in this other machine which is
pretty quiet, and we're gonna you know, hydraulic directional drill
underneath to where we want to go, and you're not
gonna see anything but that weird looking machine and it's
not gonna make a lot of noise and then it's
gonna go away. But the jackhammering they're you know you, Yeah,
(43:22):
you just have to know what trick people see something
and that's what then they can't see, they can't unsee it,
and that's all they see. So yeah, I mean, yeah,
well there's gonna be some but I don't think you
don't need to make that the focal point.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Right right, and and again if you're not aware of
these things, and and it's something learning, I like call
you said earlier, David, you had a mentor like on
you know, I think you said Francisco on recreation or
whatever the area. Actually get people to help you right
in game interns pulling them in their subcontractors, learn from them,
because I've I've seen this made the mistake where, for example,
(43:56):
we were on a big project and a biologist of
us out there they said, kind of off the cuff,
why I think I saw this federally listed bird specie okay,
And and there was a regulator oversight person there and
they're like, oh my goodness, did you Well they just
were speculated. Didn't realize by saying that they're going to
set up all these so you understand like how you
(44:19):
like you said earlier, how you're presenting that message, how
that can have a ripple effect, you know, negatively if
you're not careful, and how then all and then like
there's a lot of energy now that you weren't going
to have to spend. Now you have just been a
lot more energy following up communicating right that you weren't anticipating. Yeah,
you know that costs money.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
You go to the client, you say, I found my
severty cactuses. We need to have a meeting with the
agency and with you and let's figure out. Let's put
our heads together, because we know now from past experience.
You know, I know what says this in the rags,
But they are the agency. Sometimes they regulators willing to
let things go a little bit, like hey, if you
(45:00):
will make your area of disturbance ten feet instead of
fifty feet, I'm not as concerned about that. If you're
willing to do that. And of course the applicant is like, yes,
I can do that. I will be glad to keep
everybody in a ten foot width and we won't go
outside that for this, you know, five hundred foot stretch yes,
because again that's so much less painful than having to
(45:22):
go over here and do it and you know, have
to just you know, add a lot more money to
things than they have to.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, I know we're getting them in the podcast. I
definitely could go longer, David, and we're gonna have to
be come back because I think we could talk many
more stories, you know, but I want I'm hoping here
people hear this because David is why I haven't. David
here is you know, not only a principal, you know,
specialist in underneath an environmental but he is an expert
project manager guiding teams and and you know, in complex projects.
(45:55):
And what I heard you say, David, it's not about
being reacted like you just mentioned. Its about being pro
active and confident decisions and supported by leaders. You're you're
getting people that are like on board, like hey, we're
gonna work together, right, And that's my passion is the
people side, Like how do we get these people healthy together,
not being you know, fighting amongst each other, but like
(46:19):
let's let's work this and not grind it out, but
actually feel like we're a team elaborating. There's better way
to lead and show up how to get this work.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Let's let's give everyone an opportunity to provide input, because
they probably have input that is useful to us, and
then it's better than our input. And you know, once
once you realize that you don't know everything and no
one really expects you to know everything, and you're not
afraid to take input from someone else, your life gets
so much easier. You know, when I had I had
(46:48):
a person. We were working on a project and we
were kind of struggling, and they said, let's go back
to the other project that we were working on, because
we know what was working over there. Let's figure out
what we're doing right or wrong. And we went back
and looked at the other project and it became glaringly obvious. Okay,
this this was our mistake over here. Let's go back
(47:09):
now that we've seen Okay, yes, this is how it works.
Let's go back now we can finish it now that
we had the you know, we instead of just banging
away and just you know, beating her head in, let's
just go back and look at where it worked before
and figure out again what we did that was so
good over here and how we can transfer to this
one and that's what we did, and it made our
lives so much easier. It just made things just go
(47:32):
so much smoother. Yeah, just because we figured that out.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, we and you owned it. I hear you said, hey,
we've figured out there was a problem when I yeh,
So now we can go back and fix it. You know,
we can. We can improve upon it and just own it.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Right, it's not the end of the world. Yep, we
just need to go fix the problem. We just need
to stake people make. It's not pretending like people don't
make mistakes. They make mistakes. And it's like telling kids
all the time, you're gonna make a mistake, you just
kinda own it. If you own the mistake, you're gonna
(48:07):
get a lot more leeway than if you try to
pretend you didn't make a mistake. But if you own
the mistake, then your client is gonna work with you
a lot more. We be much more willing to work
with you. You need some more money, okay, you know
that's just it's so much easier than trying to pretend like, yeah,
I didn't do that, I didn't make a mistake. Everything's perfect,
and it's not, especially when it's clearly clear that you
made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Just own it.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Own it.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So David, as we're as we're wrapping up the podcast,
we're going to make sure everybody uh follow a McIntire
environmental look at up on environmental dot com. You can
check them out. We want to make sure we put
the links here. Connect with David on LinkedIn, just like
there's not many David McIntire's out there. Mc andentire Environmental
is the only one I know of, so go find
(48:52):
you know, connect with us. We're on LinkedIn and David again.
Follow David, connect with him because he puts up great
content you're hearing not just from the environmental side, but
just you can see how he's showing up as a
project manager, as a business owner, as a principle, because
he's wearing different hats, which I so appreciate, and David,
you do it very well. And I just want to
say thanks for coming on. Any last thoughts you want
to share with our listeners as we wrap up the podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, I think the biggest thing is getting educate
yourself on whatever you're doing. Educate yourself to the maximum
stint that you can and realize you probably don't know
you almost certainly don't know at all. And it never
hurts to ask someone else for what they think, what
their their perspective is, because they very likely have an
(49:39):
angle on something that you did not consider, and it's
it's better and you, yes, you should go with your
idea because it's probably better than yours, and that's okay.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Absolutely, absolutely, thank you David for being here. I want
to thank everybody for of course following like and subscribe.
Leave your comments, we'll make sure that David gets them.
If you're interested in being a guest, we continue to
have new guests on week after week. Love to have
(50:08):
you again, David, Thank you for being here. Come back
and listen next time. Everybody, until next time, do well.
Thanks
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