Isaac (00:10): Hey, what's up everybody! Isaac here, Civil Engineering Academy. Excited to be with you on another podcast episode. Today I interviewed Dr. Kimberly Martin. She is awesome geotechnical engineer that deals with sustainability in geotechnical engineering, working for Keller as a senior engineer. She's done work. It's all over the place, all over the world as a PhD, but lives in Canada now working for Keller doing some really fun projects. So I wanted to bring her on and talk about what she's working on today, her involvement on what sustainability and geotechnical engineering is, and detail her journey into this world of engineering herself. So it's a really fun interview. I really appreciate her jumping on. Definitely give her some love on LinkedIn or anywhere you're finding this podcast, but we appreciate her doing this. So our interview is going to be coming up in just a few minutes, or a few minutes, I mean a few seconds.

(01:06): But if you do indeed need help with anything on your journey to become a professional engineer, check us out at civilengineeringacademy.com. We can help out with your FE or PE exams, but it's going to be good times over there. So anyway, with that, let's get to our interview with Kimberly. You're going to like this one, all about geotechnical engineering. Here it comes. Hey, I wanted to jump on real quick and let you know about a free resource we developed for you. You can find it at civilengineeringacademy.com/peguide, and this will help you to jumpstart your studies for your PE exam. So if you're in the hunt and you're just thinking about the PE exam, this guide will help you get through the process of figuring out everything you need to do from the PE exams, prerequisites that you got to figure out, the must have materials that you're going to need for the exam, any approved calculators, what groups you should join, exam secrets, and much more.

(01:57): It's all in this guide that we've got developed for you. It's completely free. You can go check it out at civileengineeringacademy.com/peguide. Just put in your email. We'll get you that information as soon as the email comes to your inbox. So go check it out, civilengineeringacademy.com/peguide.

(02:18): All right, we are live and recording. Kimberly, thank you for jumping on the Civil Engineering Academy podcast.

Kimberly (02:24): Thanks for having me.

Isaac (02:26): Yeah, this is exciting. I wanted to bring you on and talk about a lot that you have going on that you've done and really just hear your journey into this world of engineering. So I always love to begin these things by just asking about your background, if you could describe that a little bit and how that led you into this world of engineering. All

Kimberly (02:48): Right. Well, I grew up in a smallish town in Northern Arizona where it actually snows. Most people don't believe that. But I was elected to the school board my senior year of high school, and sitting on the school board, I had previously said I'm not doing engineering. I'm going to be a doctor, like a medical doctor, don't bother with this. My mom's like, "You like math and science, you might like engineering." I'm like, "No, no, no, no." But then I was on the school board and we had a contract come through for a company to redesign basically just the parking lot of the local elementary school. And I was reading through the contract and it was actually small town family friend that owned the engineering company. And I was like, "Wow, they're helping people. They're outside building things. They're using math and science. Maybe it is kind of cool." So I went and met with them and talked about civil engineering, just what it entails, and basically signed up for civil engineering at University of Arizona and never looked back.

Isaac (03:52): Wow, that's impressive. Now you got your PhD, so what was the inspiration to, I guess, keep going to school? A lot of people stop at either a bachelor's or a master's and sometimes work pays for those things, but what was the inspiration to keep going?

Kimberly (04:09): Yeah, so after my bachelor's, I went straight to get my master's at University of Texas at Austin, and that was because I knew I wanted to do geotechnical engineering. And typically with geotechnical engineering, you need a master's degree to really move forward in that area. And so I thought about staying for my PhD after my master's, but I really wanted to get professional experience because I knew if I ever got a PhD, I wanted it to make an impact on the field and not just something going on in the ivory tower over there that no one's ever going to use in practical world. And so I went to work after my master's for ExxonMobil doing onshore and offshore geotechnical engineering for development projects around the world. And after a while, just sustainability was coming up and coming and it was kind of calling my name and I had wanted to get a PhD.

(05:04): And so I told my husband, "I think at the time, I think I'm going to go get my PhD and can we do this?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." So it took a year saving a lot of money, making sure all the bills were paid off before I took a 85% pay cut to go back to grad school. And I did. So I went and got my PhD. It was really fun. I got to go back to Arizona, which I hadn't expected to do. I was still living in Houston at the time when we decided to make this move. And my professor at Arizona State was Dr. Kavizanjian, and he had just got a huge grant from the National Science Foundation for an engineering research center. So there's only usually around 20 of those at a time across the country. And the center was focused, it was called the Center for Biomediated and Bio-Inspired Geotechnics.

(05:57): And so the research was all just kind of new novel ways to approach geotechnical engineering, hopefully being more sustainable. And so through that, I learned how to do lifecycle assessments and really innovation, interdisciplinary type of research that I think can take things forward. And also I met my boss now through that program. He was an industry sponsor. And when I left my PhD, or I was getting ready to graduate, he reached out and said we need someone to do sustainability at Keller and wrote my job description together. So that was pretty cool. That's nice. Sealed the deal. Yeah. So that was kind of a long journey, but PhD was something I wanted to do. People had always said, "If you go to work and you go to industry, you'll never get your PhD." And I always just felt like, well, if I wouldn't go back to get it, then I probably shouldn't get it.

(07:01): You have to really want it. It's never going to pay off probably. So anyway, I was glad that I did it. It was a really good experience.

Isaac (07:08): That's awesome. So you mentioned sustainability and geotechnical engineering. For those that may not know what that might mean, what does that mean? What is sustainability for geotechnical engineers?

Kimberly (07:22): Yeah, so I mean, in my job, I do all parts of sustainability, so the social side as well as the environmental side. But Keller, my company is listed on the London Stock Exchange, so I think they're a little bit ahead just because of requirements being a listed company over there. So they've been reporting on carbon emissions for a while now, but it's growing and expanding. And in Europe, we always are like, "Oh, Europe's ahead. They're doing all this." And it's true, but America's catching up quickly. And so basically I get to put Keller's sustainability strategy forward in North America. So it includes things like decarbonizing construction, no big deal. So looking at the materials we use, equipment

Isaac (08:10): We use. Concrete.

Kimberly (08:12): Concrete, steel. How do we move our clients to lower carbon solutions, particularly a lot of clients who only care about price, because now we have goals. As a company, we're trying to meet our own goals, but we still have to stay competitive. So a lot to do with carbon on the environmental side. I think it's soon to expand into water, biodiversity, more circular economy, pollution in our communities. And then on the social side, I do a lot of work with our DEI committee, our women in construction resource group, helping to set policies and make it a better workplace for everyone. And then also externally who we support as a company charity-wise. We just had sustainability week for the first time in July and my group, my sustainability team at Keller is called Team Planet, our CEO named it. So we're like little superheroes. So Team Planet, we designed Sustainability Week for North America and we chose Bridges to Prosperity as the charity that we were going to fundraise for.

(09:26): So I think it ended up being seven or $8,000 we raised for Bridges to Prosperity across North America. So it was really exciting. So that's the gamut. There's a

Isaac (09:37): Lot.

Kimberly (09:38): Yeah.

Isaac (09:38): There's a lot there to unpack. Yeah. That's awesome.

Kimberly (09:43): And do you want me to explain what geotechnical engineering is or do you feel like everyone.

Isaac (09:49): Yeah, maybe at a high level. There's so many disciplines within geotechnical engineering, but what have you maybe gravitated to or have experienced?

Kimberly (10:01): Yeah, so at ExxonMobil, I started with site investigation. So basically that's going out to the site, taking soil samples, testing them, and deciding how we're going to put foundations in the ground to support the superstructure infrastructure that we need to build. So that's kind of fun because I started in Northern Alberta and it was winter only access, so we had to build ice roads to get our rigs out there. Minus 55, I think was the coldest I got to experience up there. And we were paying a million dollars a borehole, so we're paying the same price up there for a borehole as you would offshore West Africa. So it was pretty cool being a 24-year-old out there doing that. But collecting the data, making sure you're getting good data. Obviously we can't see into the earth, and so we have these really small samples and we have to extrapolate a lot of information from them.

(10:59): And then also going into the foundation design, what type of foundation to use? Is it steel pipe piles? Is it drill shaft foundations? Is it a densification method? And ultimately constructing it. So at Keller, we're a specialty geotechnical contractor, so we work a lot of times under the general contractor or for the client directly, putting the foundations into the ground. 50% of what we do is designed as well, which is where we can make a big impact on carbon. But yeah, it's a whole specialty contracting thing I think a lot of people don't even know about. So it's supportive excavation, repairing foundations under a dam when things start to fail underneath the dam going out there and repairing that or buildings start to sink. We're not doing the Millennium Tower repair, but I'm sure many of you have seen that in San Francisco. What happens when geotech goes wrong?

(11:58): It's not good. Yeah, so it's a high risk, I would say high reward job. And my companies, they used to have a saying basically along the lines of, "You'll never see our best work, but you'll be happy to know that we were there."

Isaac (12:19): That is a good thing.

Kimberly (12:20): Yeah.

Isaac (12:22): What's been a favorite project you've worked on? It sounds like you've done a lot. Has there been any standouts that come to mind?

Kimberly (12:31): Yeah, so one project at ExxonMobil that I really enjoyed was offshore. It was my first offshore project. It was called Scarborough LNG, and it was offshore in the northwest shelf of Australia. It was a really challenging project because they have carbonate soils and actually the surface they called carbonate ooze geologically. So you can imagine any executive at Keller is very frightened when they see that we're tying this multi-billion dollar floating LNG rig to ooze. But anyway, the carbonates are basically just broken up shells and they are very fascinating. They can have a lot of strength, and then when you disturb them, they can lose all the strength. So you have to be really careful. But we were going to do a huge offshore site investigation, and we had done all the planning, worked with our geophysicist to do the planning ahead of time and the oil price drop.

(13:37): And the project wasn't totally canceled. They still gave me money to do an extensive lab program on samples we had saved from five years before when we were out there. And so I got to go down to Perth and work with the engineers there and set up a lab testing program and get some really valuable information to help keep moving the project forward, even though the budget was thin. So that was a really cool experience. Great engineers just learned so much. It was a lot of fun.

Isaac (14:06): Wow. Are you doing work globally? Are you still doing work globally?

Kimberly (14:12): Yeah, not the same way of ExxonMobil because our projects were all over the world and not typically in Houston where we sat. Keller does a lot of local work. We have a lot of local offices, but I do get in my capacity of sustainability innovation, get to work with my colleagues in Europe. And I was just in Australia last year meeting with all of them down there. It was a lot of fun. So yeah, I think it's yes and no. Not all the time, but a bit of the time, which is nice.

Isaac (14:44): Yeah. To me, it seems like, I think when most people think of geotech engineers, they think that they may be doing local work or they're working for a soil sample company or something that does a lot of testing and such, but it seems like the field is wide open for a geotech to go in a lot of different areas that they want to get on. Well, I want to backtrack a little bit. You mentioned you're on the DEI committee making world a better workplace. So as a woman, I guess in this world of engineers, it seems pretty male dominated. What's been, I guess, your experience or your journey or what advice would you share with women that want to jump into this engineering world?

Kimberly (15:30): Yeah. Well, it can be hard, that's for sure. But you know what? I have just made a lot of friends along the way in engineering, just excellent people, men and women who are there for me when it's like, I'm not sure what's going on here. Is this happening because I'm a woman? Is this just happening? Is this normal? What's happening? And being able to talk that through with mentors to recenter and have a different perspective is really helpful. So I still talk to my friends from grad school from University of Texas and of course grad school in Tempe, but just keeping those friends along the way as you're both your friends from grad school or undergrad, you'll be growing your careers at the same time and sharing your experiences and really leaning on each other has been really helpful.

(16:28): Finding good mentors is really important. It's been nice in my careers to have, or the different places I worked in my career to have resource groups for women in particular. So that allows you to find the women out there in your company to lean on and again, get advice even if it's just, "Hey, what's maternity leave look like? How do I do that? How do I come back? What's happening?" It's nice to hear from people who've been there. And I'm so thankful for all the women I've worked with that have put in the time to set up those networks and run those networks. That's usually just in your free time to do, but it pays off. I think it really helps keep women in the workplace and keep women in the industry. Also, joining industry groups has been great for me, the American Society of Civil Engineers and under that umbrella, the GEO Institute, to really help keep you connected, join a committee, be on one of the technical committees.

(17:26): You don't have to know everything to be on the committee, and once you get on, you're going to learn a lot. And I've heard advice just apply to get on the committee and if there's a chance to volunteer and it's something you can do, take it and get your name out there and show people what you're willing to do, and it'll really help you make contact in the future.

(17:45): Just participate. In grad school, going to the conferences, doing a poster competition, I made a geo video, which is pretty awesome place. Showing up my rep skills about landfills.

Isaac (18:03): You post that on YouTube or?

Kimberly (18:05): Yeah, it's on YouTube under the Geo Institute.

Isaac (18:08): Okay. Got to go

Kimberly (18:09): Find it. Yeah, you got to go find it. But you just have to do that. You just have to get involved and get out there and make those connections. And you don't have to be a superstar to do that. Every committee needs people. We all just want people who will help out and volunteer and make the commitment and put the time in. And I think that'll really help you go a long way.

Isaac (18:32): That's great advice. Well, I wanted to better understand that journey for you, and I think that's great advice for anybody really looking to jump into this career. So we'll have to link some of those resources you mentioned. Was there any of these groups in particular we could link to?

Kimberly (18:52): Yeah. Yeah, for sure. One that's really great is the Deep Foundation Institute has the Women in Deep Foundations committee, and they're very committed to it. Every conference, they have a happy hour hosted by the Women in Deep Foundations, and they do a really good job. They have mentoring pods that we can put that up for

Isaac (19:11): Everyone. Okay.

Kimberly (19:12): Yeah.

Isaac (19:12): We'll go ahead and link that. During your whole career journey, because I mean, you've had quite a few opportunities for success and different job opportunities. Where have there been, I guess in your career, resistance and how did you break through any of those barriers? Have you had any moments of resistance and how did you move up?

Kimberly (19:38): Yeah, for sure. I mean, everyone does, whether you're own or not. But I think as a woman, one interesting experience I had was when I joined ExxonMobil, it was most of my colleagues were older than me, quite a bit older than me. And so I was a young person joining the group and I was almost like a daughter to them. I was kind of the age of their daughters and they could see their daughters in me, which is fine, which is great. So we all get along. But then as I moved up and particularly became more technically competent and was earning, got my PE and was moving up and could really run programs because of the experience I had,

(20:20): That was a hard point for a lot of the men I worked for because they had kind of looked at me like their daughter, but then now I was kind of running. And so that was a hard transition. And so for me, I just really had to stick to my gun and be prepared and say, "Hey, I do have this experience. We saw this on this previous project. This is why I'm saying this," and being able to reference back to that. But that was interesting. I hadn't expected that to happen, but I guess when I look back, I'm like, "Oh, I can see how that ended up playing out in that way." But it was hard. It was hard.

Isaac (21:01): You

Kimberly (21:01): Just got to keep pushing.

Isaac (21:04): That brings up a good point. I'm curious what your thoughts are, but what tips would you have for somebody that moves into management where they have been coworkers with other people? And typically when you're a coworker, you're friends, but then all of a sudden you become in a management role. Sometimes that lens changes on how you work with each other and how they see you now, maybe vice versa. But do you have any tips about that?

Kimberly (21:30): Yeah. I mean, in my experience, I would say being clear on roles and responsibilities and expectations and being transparent. I think that works best for everyone, staying tied in, weekly meetings, making sure people know what they're supposed to be doing and what the expectations are, because then it's more about these are the expectations. We said we were going to do this. You said this would be done. It's less about the personal relationship and also really celebrating the wins. You're not always going to win, you're not always going to have success, but if people know that when they're doing great work, you're going to celebrate it and you're going to tell them that they're doing great work and provide that feedback. Then when maybe something's not going so well, it's a little bit easier to talk about. It's like, okay, we know that went really well.

(22:24): This is not going quite as well. What can we do? How can I support you to get you to where you need to be? So I think it's just a lot of communication, but I love setting up those roles and responsibilities early.

Isaac (22:36): Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Great advice. So I'm curious, not a lot of people, I would say when people go into civil engineering, I don't know if geotech is the most popular. If you look at the PE pass rates, it's usually water resources, transportation, others, and then geotech's usually somewhere in the bottom. If you were to sell geotech to future engineers, what things would you tell them?

Kimberly (23:10): I tell them if you like to be outside, this is probably the job for you. If you want to sit inside and do more computer work, this is not the job for you. So I think there's something fun about geotechnical engineers when we get together because it's not like we're all crazy fit. Some people are, of course, but it's like, I just like to be outside. I like nature. I like to dig into the ground. I like to feel the dirt. If that interests you, then geotechnical engineering might be the way to go. I also think it can be a little scary. It's technical, but there's so many unknowns. The material just can vary across a single site, and that's risky and a little bit scary, but recognizing no one knows everything, it's really a lot about managing the risk and managing what you know and don't know, and that requires really good mentorship.

(24:02): Those are experiences that you have to learn along the way. So it's challenging, challenging. You can't just order up the soil for your site. You can steel or concrete, you get what you get, but that can also be really exciting and challenging. I think it could be intimidating. I think not everyone wants to be outside. If they're from the south, the southern part of the United States can be a little hot. From the northern part of the United States, it can be a little cold in the winter.

(24:34): Yeah, exactly. I've done both. But it's really fun to see young engineers come, especially to come work at Keller and be out with huge heavy equipment and learning about the soils and the foundations we're putting in and just see the excitement on their faces when they build something. It's like, wow, we put this into the ground and now the structure's going up and that's a lot of fun. So I think it's a little bit of a niche and it's not for everyone.

Isaac (25:05): I want to see if you could plug geotags out there.

Kimberly (25:10): It's exciting, I promise.

Isaac (25:13): I know you're in Canada. Do you have to get your PNs, your professional engineering? I

Kimberly (25:18): Should. I think I can. I just moved here or back here, I guess. I think now I'm close to 10 years with my PE. I have to remember. Yeah, actually, right on up and I think it's easier to get your PE

Isaac (25:34): If

Kimberly (25:34): You have 10 years with your PE.

Isaac (25:37): So you've done a lot of international work. I'm curious, have you had any issues with units or unit conversions because you've bounced in US, Australia?

Kimberly (25:49): Yeah, it's funny. I really came up ExxonMobil working internationally, so everything was metric. So it was funny to come to Keller and be like, oh, PSI. Those are not easy conversions to do. Yeah. So the unit conversion apps are my friend, but yeah, you can't forget, right? You've got to do those unit conversions. And then once you get used to metric, it's pretty hard to go back to.

Isaac (26:19): Yeah, I imagine. I'm just curious. Well, you mentioned the PE. We've talked about the PNs with professional engineering in Canada. What tips or advice would you give for anybody trying to pass the PE exam or maybe even struggling to pass?

Kimberly (26:37): Take a course. Honestly, I took a course and it was so helpful. It committed me to study, going, getting the binder pulling everything. This is what you need to do. Come on Tuesday, come on Thursday, whatever the schedule was. That helped me a lot. I'm not one that can just set aside that time on my own. I needed that structure to get me through. Also, I know that PE's changed a bit since I took it. I think now it's on the computer or something like this, but when I took it, you learn your references so well going to the course and the teachers are so smart and they tell you, "You need to know this. Put a tab here. Don't forget this."

Isaac (27:27): Do it.

Kimberly (27:28): Yeah. So I like to be told what to do. That worked really well, particularly because everyone's working full-time when they're taking their PE, right?

Isaac (27:37): Yeah.

Kimberly (27:37): Mostly. And so having that structure, really making sure I set aside the time, I don't think I could have passed if I hadn't taken a course and had the structure that I needed.

Isaac (27:49): Good. I think that's great advice. We offer a course, you can check them out.

(27:55): Go check those out. We can help you. Do that. Yeah. We definitely are on the same page there. I wanted to ask you, you've worked for some really cool companies, and I'm curious, what advice would you give to someone that would like to work for an ExxonMobil or Keller or other companies that are these big companies? Sometimes it's hard for people to imagine working for them or even getting a resume in there and working their way to work for them. Do you have any tips for somebody that wants to apply for a company like that and how you did that?

Kimberly (28:32): Yeah. Career fairs. Those big companies are usually at career fairs and usually the big career fairs at the universities. And I think there's ways to go to other universities' career fairs if you're at a small university and they don't host that, that's something to look into. Another way to do it, a company like Keller has local offices, so getting involved even as a student at the local professional society. So in Phoenix, there's a Geo Institute. In Ottawa, there's a Canadian Geotechnical Society chapter. Go to those meetings, kind of put yourself out there and you'll be surprised who you'll meet. And if you go enough, then when it's time to look for a job, you'll have the contacts you need. And usually people who work for big companies, you say, "Hey, I know you work in Phoenix, for example, but I want to work in Florida." I'm like, "Okay, we'll put you in contact with them." So I think once you build that relationship, it's a lot easier to then say, "Hey, I'm graduating.

(29:40): I'm looking for a job." But for some of the major corporations, you got to have a great resume. You have to show a lot of leadership on your resume. You have to have that down for your extracurriculars, and you got to go to those big career fairs.

Isaac (29:56): Good tips. Well, this has been fun, Kimberly. I appreciate you jumping on and sharing tips with us, what you do for a living, and hopefully we've inspired some excitement to go the geotech route out there.

Kimberly (30:08): Yeah, I hope so. At least go check out Keller's website and see what you think.

Isaac (30:13): Good. Is there any other tips or advice you'd like to share with anybody? And if anybody had questions, could they reach out to you in some way?

Kimberly (30:22): Yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn for sure. Any other tips? Stick with it. I know these exams can be hard and getting your degree can be hard or going back to grad school, but it'll pay off. It'll pay off in the end.

Isaac (30:36): Good, good. All right, Kimberly, thanks for doing this and we'll chat with you later.

Kimberly (30:41): Awesome. Thank you.

Isaac (30:42): Thanks, bye.