In this episode of Engineering Legends, we hear stories about finding love within the water sector. We’ll hear from couples who found love in the industry, including a pair who honored their love for wastewater by tying the knot at a treatment facility and commemorated the event by taking wedding photos on top of the anaerobic digesters, and learn how a Cleveland, Ohio organization is creatively leveraging relationships and  using #lovecleanwater across social media to spread public awareness about the wastewater treatment process.

See photos of the couples discussed in this episode.

Transcript

Tiffany Long: Welcome to today’s episode of Engineering Legends. I’m Tiffany Long here with Kelly Rogers. Each February, people around the country take a moment to celebrate the ones they love in honor of Valentine’s day. Kelly and I must have been hit by Cupid’s arrow because we feel compelled to share some really fun stories of love connections within the water sector. So sit back, grab a glass of wine and some chocolates, because we’re about to give lifetime a run for their money.

Vicky Hollingsworth: So we were concerned and we actually read the employee handbook front to back and we did not find anything about office romances.

Kelly Rogers: First, we’re going to head out to Seattle. When I think of romance in Seattle, I think of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle, or there’s the power couple of Meredith Gray and Derek Shepherd from Gray’s Anatomy. So it’s safe to say that Seattle has long been known for its romantic nature. Brown and Caldwell’s Seattle office is living up to that legend. Our Seattle office has been the catalyst for several marriages and relationships and has even resulted in several BC children. I think we’re up to five or six now. We’ll talk to several team members from the Seattle office and how their shared values around the environment blossomed into love. Also in Seattle, you’ll hear about a unique wedding that transpired, stemming again from a love for wastewater.

Tiffany Long: Lastly, we’ll head back out east to talk to the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District in Cleveland, Ohio. Their campaign around hashtag love clean water had us at H2O. From Valentine’s Day messages highlighting sustainability, to a list of ways wastewater treatment is like a romantic relationship, there’s a lot to love here. Let’s jump right in. We’ve got several guests with us today. So we’ll start with some introductions.

Kirsten Weber: I’m Kirsten Weber. I’m a civil engineer in the infrastructure group. I sit in Seattle. I’ve been with BC for about 10 years.

Kelly Rogers: Great. Patrick.

Patrick Weber: And I’m Patrick Weber, also located in Seattle office. I supervise the owner’s advisor group within IPD ( Integrated Project Delivery) and have been with BC for 15 years.

Kelly Rogers: Great. And Vicky, tell us a little bit about you.

Vicky Hollingsworth: Hi everyone. I’m Vicky Hollingsworth, and I also sit in Seattle. And I am the Washington local leader, which is a very BC title, but is the operations manager. And I’ve been at Brown and Caldwell for 14 years.

Kelly Rogers: Wow. We’ve got some long timers here. Great. Embrey, let’s go with you.

Embrey Bronstad: Embrey Bronstad, wastewater planner and I’ve been with Brown and Caldwell for about two and a half months.

Kelly Rogers: Fantastic. Thank you, Embrey. And then we do have a special guest from NEORSD. John, are you with us today?

John Gonzalez: I am indeed. Thank you very much. My name is John Gonzalez. I’m the communications manager for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District in Cleveland and the Cleveland region in Ohio. I manage our social media. I’m also an employee here and have about 20 years of service under my belt.

Kelly Rogers: Great. Thanks John. Well, I think everybody knows today our topic is about love in the water and wastewater industry. So we’re going to start with Patrick and Kirsten, who are married. Patrick and Kirsten, I don’t know who wants to take this one, but how about you tell us a little bit about how you first met.

Kirsten Weber: Yeah, I’ll go ahead and start. We met at work, I wouldn’t say working together – mostly through happy hours and office parties. We knew each other for years before we started dating.

Kelly Rogers: When you were working together or working together in the same office, so you weren’t working together on projects?

Patrick Weber: There were a few before and after we got together. Like a couple years before we started dating, we went to an all-day client meeting together. I had to pick her up in the snow. It snowed in Seattle which is unusual and makes traffic crazy. So I had to pick her up and take her to this meeting, went out to lunch and things like that. But that was a couple years before we started dating. So there were a few before we started dating and then a few after, but we’ve really tried to limit that, mostly successfully avoided working on the same projects.

Kelly Rogers: When did you realize there was a little bit of a spark between the two of you?

Kirsten Weber: So, I think I was oblivious for a while. I think the reason we were working together, and we had projects together and spending time together and that was great, but he was so serious and focused about work that it just didn’t cross my mind that this person would be fun, that fun outside of work. And now he does these totally ridiculous puppet shows. He’s like a totally different person. And I still have a hard time reconciling when I hear him in his client contract voice. He’s a different Patrick than when he’s doing like goofy voices at story time. So I was a little oblivious I think. What would you say, Patrick?

Patrick Weber: Yeah. I mean, in hindsight, I think there was an attraction for a long time, at least on my end, but no one acted on it for a long time. A little bit of a risk.

Kelly Rogers: What were your concerns about an office romance?

Kirsten Weber: So, when we realized maybe we’re interested in each other, we went on, I’m not even going to call it a date. It was like a meeting. I brought a notebook full of questions to sit down to go over – like deal breakers. I didn’t want to do this if it wasn’t going to work at least the upfront, if there were some obvious no gos. So, I had a bunch of questions that I asked him. They were things from, what is your favorite music? Do you have any weird tattoos? Do you want kids? What are your religious directions? All sorts of very serious, for me, serious things to get at the meat of it to know whether it was worth it.

Kelly Rogers: You also mentioned you had a code name for him around the office?

Kirsten Weber: Yes. Because I have my best buddies in the office, and I need to be able to talk about my dating life, but I can’t talk about Patrick when other people know who Patrick is. So, we called him Rupert and he was Rupert in my phone in case he texted me like in a meeting or something. And so I could talk to my girlfriends in the office about Rupert this and Rupert that. And I mean, and maybe it was obvious it was Patrick. I have no idea, but for me it was a comfort.

Kelly Rogers: Patrick, did you know you were Rupert?

Patrick Weber: I think I did. I think I did. And I wasn’t talking to people at work about it, so I didn’t have to take the same precautions.

Kirsten Weber: Because he’s serious and focused at work.

Kelly Rogers: Now you guys took your first trip together before you were married, but while at work, right?

Kirsten Weber: Yeah. I was telling my supervisor, asking him for the days off and I was saying, “Yeah, I’m going to go to Maui for a couple weeks.” And my supervisor at the time was working with Patrick. He was like, “Oh, Patrick Weber is going to be in Maui the same time.” And that’s when I was like, “Okay, yeah. We’re going together.” And he was very sweet and very supportive, but like totally shocked. So that was reassuring to me that we were doing okay of not mixing too much work and dating personal life. Yeah.

Kelly Rogers: So who proposed and how did it happen?

Patrick Weber: Well, I did it. We took a four-month sabbatical together before we got married and went on a road trip and camped our way across the country going to national parks. So, I proposed on the first stop of that trip backpacking in North Cascades National Park out in the woods.

Kirsten Weber: It was beautiful, but he gave me a big hug right before he asked the question and I could feel his heart racing as he was. So in my mind I was like, “We are in immediate danger.” He sees a bear or we just drank poison water, something terrible is going to happen. I couldn’t have been more wrong, but that’s what I was thinking.

Kelly Rogers: That’s awesome. So do you feel like your shared love for what you do because you’re in the same industry, was a factor in bringing you together?

Kirsten Weber: Definitely. Obviously that’s how we met, but I also think there’s like some shared values in that we’re trying to make the world better, at least not ruin it and also help people have some community orientation and environmental proclivities. I also think it helped to be able to talk about the same people. It’s way more fun to do office gossip about other people and office romances when you know the same people.

Kelly Rogers: Oh, for sure. Yeah. My husband and I worked together at the same company for a while and you couldn’t go home and vent about your coworkers because your spouse was your coworker. So now that everybody knows and it’s all out there, do you feel like it’s made things difficult for you at the office or you feel like everybody’s pretty positive about it?

Patrick Weber: I don’t think there’s been any negativity at all and we’re in different enough groups, we can avoid working on the same things and we’re totally in different lines of reporting. But actually I’d give kudos to BC for the level of flexibility and work life balance that we’ve been able to have as a couple and as parents now. So we’ve got two kids and a third on the way. And I mentioned, we took a leave. I’ve taken two extended leaves from BC in my 15 years and been able to come back and rejoin my same job. And that’s made a huge difference for me in terms of happiness and balance. And with the kids, BC’s parental leave program, which is four weeks paid time off for all parents has been a huge benefit for us in terms of being both parents and professionals. And Kristen’s working a flexible work schedule three and a half days a week to spend more time with the kids. So I think we feel really supported in that way. I don’t think there’s anything I’d point to in terms of downsides.

Kelly Rogers: That’s fantastic.

Kirsten Weber: I’d want to add that I have felt management support through this whole thing at all levels. I’ve been able to take extended maternity leaves with each pregnancy, and that has been a true gift without any huffing or puffing or sniffling or feeling like I’m getting worse assignments. People have been really supportive. And I feel like my career has continued to grow with these leaves and my flexible work schedule. And I feel like I’m valued and the responsibilities are equivalent to where I should be, which I know isn’t always the case for people in these situations.

Kelly Rogers: That is great to hear. So your two children, do you feel like they have a proclivity towards engineering?

Kirsten Weber: Science at the very least. They love space and planets and excavators, both of them. But I have started to explain to the older one who’s learning about the pipes underground and how it works when you flush the toilet or where the shower water goes. And so now when we’re walking around the neighborhood to and from preschool, she says, “Mama, tell me about the clean and dirty pipes underground. Tell me about gravity pipes.” We’ve also come a long way. She used to really want to put things into catch basins. And so now we like rally behind clearing out catch basins when it’s raining and watching the water run in. So who knows,? We’ll see where they end up going. They also love dancing and painting.

Kelly Rogers: Well, hopefully they will be a future BCer someday. That would be awesome.

Kirsten Weber: That would be a cool legacy. Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly Rogers: All right. Thank you, Patrick and Kirsten. I appreciate it. Tiffany, I’m going to turn it over to you.

Tiffany Long: Vicky, let us hear your origin story. How did your relationship start?

Vicky Hollingsworth: Well, Jeremy is my husband. He has been at Brown and Caldwell before my time. He was actually in the Portland office though. And then he actually moved to Seattle for a new job and then was recruited back to Brown and Caldwell in Seattle when I had already started. So one of our coworkers that knew him and we were friends just kept telling me all the time, like, “I can’t wait for you to meet Jeremy. I really think you guys are going to hit it off. You guys have pretty similar worldviews.” It’s what he kept saying and our political views and just our views in general. And then I thought that that was super unlikely because I grew up in Nicaragua and he grew up in Colorado. But he invited him to a happy hour when we knew he was coming back to Brown and Caldwell and it was before he started.

And yeah, I remember the moment he walked through the gate at  Von’s, which was a happy hour spot for us in the Seattle office. It’s kind of cheesy, but I don’t remember the first time I saw a lot of people, but I do remember exactly the moment I first saw Jeremy. We have very similar world views and we became friends. We did not date for like another year after we first met. But yeah, I don’t want to get too cheesy, but it’s true that when you know, you know. It’s my experience.

Tiffany Long: And were you concerned about having an office romance?

Vicky Hollingsworth: We knew people that had office romances that were older than us, previous generations and had retired and maybe moved on. But we were still concerned. I don’t know. Sounds crazy to think about it, but obviously there was the stigma. So we were concerned and we actually read the employee handbook front to back and we did not find anything about office romance. And so we were moving in together and we thought, oh my God, our addresses are now going to be the same. That’s weird. And so we need to come clean. So I remember we went to our HR rep that was in the office and we were so nervous and just standing in front of, well in front of her door and I just, I blacked out.

I don’t remember what we said, but we just blurted it out. We made it super weird and she was so nice though. She really was nice. And she told us, “It’s not a big deal as long as you guys are not reporting to each other.” And then she also said, “And also you guys don’t need to go around telling people. It’s fine.” So yeah. And then we were one of the first couples in our generation to get serious, but we knew of other couples that were forming. And so we made sure that we passed the advice that they don’t need to stress and you don’t need to go around telling people if you don’t want to.

Tiffany Long: Oh, nice. Some friendly advice. When did you make your relationship public to others then in the office and were people surprised?

Vicky Hollingsworth: I think I don’t remember exactly how we went about making it public. I think it was actually during like a holiday party and we were going to hit the dance floor. I remember I was like telling my supervisor and my mentor. It felt weird because it’s not like they were asking, I was just offering it in case things got weird on the dance floor or something. So I was just like, “Hey, I don’t know if you heard, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m dating Jeremy.” And they were like, “Okay.” But then I heard from other people that it wasn’t a surprise because I think one of the things, it was Jeremy’s supervisor that said, “Well, you were giving him pretty direct feedback during meeting and presentation preps.” And so I think that because I was giving him very direct feedback, it’s not very common, right? Engineers, we don’t give each other direct feedback as much. So yeah, I think people were not as surprised as I thought they’d be.

Tiffany Long: That’s really funny that they saw that. So I know that your husband now works at another consulting firm. Does that present any complications?

Vicky Hollingsworth: I mean, we do have to be a little careful when we’re talking about sales intel or opportunities, because we both work with the same clients. But I think that for the most part, it kind of has been an advantage. Like I view it as an advantage and I think he does too because we are competitors, but we are also teaming partners. And so I think it’s been nice to have an in with this teaming partner/ competitor, just because you’re able to understand the organizational structure. You really understand like who you need to call if you want to talk about an opportunity. You also get a sense of, a real sense of what their culture is. You can dig a little deeper about what their culture really is like before you get into a teaming agreement. So I think because I’ve been at BC for life, I’ve been at BC since I graduated from college, I think it’s given me the perspective at least of like what it’s like to work for other consultants.

Tiffany Long: Well, that makes sense. Well, earlier you mentioned that there were other additional couples that were forming in the office around the same time that you were starting to date Jeremy. Are those couples still together or still with BC?

Vicky Hollingsworth: Every couple that was kind of forming around the same time are still together, and some are married. And I mean, again, like I always say that the Brown and Caldwell Seattle office has a better success rate than the bachelor because really there’s Patrick and Kirsten and there’s Sam and Brian, Heidi and Seth. And we have, I think now five BC babies. Oh, with one on the way. So I think six BC babies.

Tiffany Long: Wow.

Vicky Hollingsworth: And that’s only our generation. Like even when I first started, I knew of other couples that had been together for a long time and working in our office.

Tiffany Long: Well, I think that’s great. So love is in the water in the BC Seattle office.

Vicky Hollingsworth: Yeah.

Kelly Rogers: Embrey, so you have a very fascinating story. Tell us about your wedding location.

Embrey Bronstad: I think anybody who knows me or meets me will very quickly get sucked into a conversation about how awesome wastewater treatment is, which is why maybe I’m not as invited to as many parties as other people. And so I had just, I decided I wanted to get married at a wastewater treatment plant and we were living in Seattle at the time. And so I wanted to get married at West Point, which is the wastewater treatment plant that took care of me. And so I called the King County Wastewater Treatment Plant Division. And after convincing them that it wasn’t a prank caller, I ended up with… I mean, they passed me around from person to person because there’s no one at King County to take that kind of call with any seriousness.

So I finally got to a woman who, after several minutes of explaining why I thought wastewater treatment was so awesome and why I wanted to get married at the plant, she got really excited. She had been a wedding planner in her previous life. And so she got very excited and kind of helped the process along.

Kelly Rogers: So describe the ceremony at the West Point plant.

Embrey Bronstad: Yeah. Well, let me just preface this by saying, if it’s not evident by now, we’re not very traditional people. So well, I had to get the plant manager on board who didn’t take a lot of convincing for her. She was all for it, but it is an industrial facility. So she said, we need to keep the party small, the wedding party small, which was not a problem. And so she took me out back of the administration building, which is beautiful. It’s Japanese Maples and it’s this little kind of garden area behind the admin building where people would sometimes eat their lunch. And so she said, “Why don’t we just have the ceremony here? And then we’ll take you on top of the anaerobic digesters.” Awesome. So there’s no music, right?

There wasn’t like a PA system or anything. So I asked all the women who, all the women guests to ululate as I walked out of the admin building, which was my processional, right? Was to just kind of emerge from the West Point administration building out into the back of this patio. And so all the women were ululating as I got to, as I walked up to my husband to be, and a family friend of ours is a shaman. So he married us. And then we all went up, 10 of us went up on the anaerobic digesters and took wedding pictures up there while the rest of my party decamped to the party, which was not at the wastewater treatment plant, which was at a very nice restaurant nearby.

Kelly Rogers: Can you tell me exactly what ululating is?

Embrey Bronstad: Oh, sure. I could try to do it, but I’m not very good at it. Have you seen Lawrence of Arabia?

Kelly Rogers: Yes.

Embrey Bronstad: Okay. Do you remember when they’re all going off to war and all the women come out onto the mountain and they go… That’s ululating. Because I didn’t have any music. And so I just said, “Well, just ululate.” And they all, they were very, very… I have to say my guests were troopers. They thought whatever. Sure.

Kelly Rogers: That is awesome. So you guys wore like King County hard hats and everything, right?

Embrey Bronstad: We did to go up on the digesters. Yeah. Yeah. We had to have King County hard hats and ear plugs and so just the select group of us got pictures taken up there and walking around on the digesters.

Kelly Rogers: So how did the staff there at the plant react when they saw y’all on top of the digesters taking your photos?

Embrey Bronstad: To be honest, we didn’t see a lot of staff and I wonder if the plant manager told them to lay low. Like to me it didn’t matter. I would’ve been happy to have staff in my wedding pictures. That would’ve been awesome. The plant manager was in my wedding pictures and she actually came to the dinner afterwards as a thank you because I was really grateful to her that she would let me do that, but we didn’t see a lot of staff.

Kelly Rogers: How did your friends and family react? Was everybody cool with it?

Embrey Bronstad: I got positive feedback. I mean, there were certainly some, there was some trepidation among some of them prior to getting to the treatment plant that they were like going to be potentially exposed to something. And I said, “No, no, no, no. We’re just getting married behind the admin building.” And so that kind of assuaged any fears. But then one of my godmothers is a wastewater treatment engineer and she was absolute, she had her foot in a boot, she’d broken her foot and she didn’t care. She was climbing that ladder to the top of the digester come hell or high water. So we had kind of a mix.

Kelly Rogers: That is fantastic. Now I know King County, maybe they took a cue from you, but now at the Brightwater Center you can get married. And Kirsten and Patrick, you guys considered getting married at Brightwater, my understanding is.

Kirsten Weber: Yeah. Yeah. We went and toured it and talked to the people and I really wanted to make it work because they have a beautiful facility and they have gorgeous flowers. It didn’t end up working out because of wedding party size. Patrick and I both have pretty large families and they also want you to keep it small because it is an active wastewater treatment plant. So makes sense. But I love your story Embrey. That is amazing and I want to see pictures.

Patrick Weber: We thought it would’ve been really cool.

Kelly Rogers: Embrey, please send a photo. We’d love to post it up with the podcast. I think people would love to see the… And can’t you kind of see the city from the plant or from the digesters?

Embrey Bronstad: Well, you know what was so nice is when I tell people I got married at West Point, they say, “Oh, you got married in Discovery Park,” because I mean, West Point was my choice again because that was my wastewater treatment plant. But I mean, it’s in a gorgeous setting, it’s at the tip of Discovery Park. And when you climb up onto the digesters, you just have these sweeping views of Puget sound. And so it’s just beautiful up there. So that was part of the reason that the plant manager wanted us to go up there, was just so that she was… I think she got a kick out of it to like celebrate her plant. But it’s also just gorgeous. It’s gorgeous.

Kelly Rogers: Well, I mean, it’s just an ode to what they do that you love their plant so much and what they do that you chose to get married there.

Embrey Bronstad: Well, what we do is awesome.

Kelly Rogers: Well, Embrey, we appreciate you being willing to tell your story. And so for a future anniversary, maybe a remarriage ceremony, you think you’d go back?

Embrey Bronstad: Sure. Absolutely.

Tiffany Long: John. NEORSD (Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District in Cleveland, Ohio) has a robust social media strategy that does a fantastic job of engaging the community. Valentine’s day is no exception. And over the years you’ve done several campaigns with the hashtag love clean water. So what makes you think about love when you think about wastewater?

John Gonzalez: The reality is that when we are tweeting, we’re often thinking about relationships with our customers, but more emotionally, all of us are in some form of relationship with people that we love or people that we respect. And Twitter just allows us to kind of make some of those connections that people might not think about every day. The fact that they’re using our services and benefiting from the service that we provide as a utility is something that they don’t think about. And so the more that we can use creativity to help them think about the relationships that often go unnoticed, it helps them to realize the value of our utility. We definitely found out that just trying to relate those kind of loves stories to the love that we have for the work that we do, it revealed that people do appreciate the often unseen work of wastewater treatment and the reality of the impact that our work has on their lives.

Tiffany Long: Now that makes sense. So do you think the district will ever start hosting weddings at any of your facilities?

John Gonzalez: We definitely have some facilities that we would be happy to welcome guests to. It has not come up in conversation yet, but it’s a lovely idea.

Tiffany Long: Yeah, I do too. Like along Lake Erie. It’d be nice.

John Gonzalez: Yeah. We’ve got places that would be very picturesque, got some garden areas and we’re actually been working on increasing some of the green space at one of our largest facilities. So there may be some opportunities to consider.

Tiffany Long: That’s fantastic. So one year you provided printable Valentines to help your readers share your love of clean, safe, reliable water. Can you tell us about those?

John Gonzalez: What we wanted to do was using that love clean water hashtag, just give something printable that they could  give to somebody else who might appreciate the industry or appreciate the service in a particular way and make them laugh a little bit. And so we did post them for our employees and we also posted them on our website for anyone who followed us on Twitter and was interested. So we did find out that a lot of people did print them for colleagues or family members. Some parents gave them to their kids to use in their classrooms. And I still just got a request today actually for an employee who was looking for some of those from a past campaign to share with a colleague of hers. And so the humor works on a couple different levels. It certainly does help to communicate our message and again, just to appreciate the work that goes on.

Tiffany Long: I think that’s great. Like Kirsten said earlier, her kids are interested in the pipes under the ground and such. I know mine are too, so it makes sense to help get them interested early. Another campaign talks about how love and beauty are all around us and offered images from your facilities. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

John Gonzalez: Yeah. The reality is we have moments of beauty, moments of insight that reveal something about the beauty of the world that we live in, the beauty of what we’re surrounded by that is so often taken for granted and just not recognized. Our utility is the same way. And so if we could make a connection between the work that people are benefiting from as a utility, make a connection to something that they think is beautiful, make a connection to the beauty of the facilities that we have, and just give them a more of an artistic feel and recognize that we’re surrounded by infrastructure that really is beautiful. And the work that we do is important to their daily lives, whether they realize it or not.

Tiffany Long: Yeah. Important and beautiful. So do you have anything new prepared for this year?

John Gonzalez: What we’re trying to do is to again, make those connections for people. It’s been such a rough couple of years, and we have really found that people just like to make the connection with us on Twitter. They do have a sense of relationship with just our accounts. I think so many of us follow social media and we follow accounts that give us a sense of connectedness. And what I found is people have really come to appreciate the creativity that we use on our Twitter account. And so in one of the past years, I opened up the forum and just simply let people send me the names of somebody that they appreciate. And then we would respond with some type of a brief poem or verse that was personalized from our account with a little bit of wastewater treatment insight dropped in. And so that was very successful.

We might open those doors up again, but really it is just about helping people recognize the relationships that they recognize are important. The guests on today’s podcast are certainly great examples of the relationships that lead to something beautiful. And so we can make the connection with people as well. It might be a funny way to help them show their appreciation for somebody else.

Tiffany Long: I think that’s great. If there are any listeners out there that are not following NEORSD on the various social media platforms, you really should because you guys do a great job and have definitely made me laugh and think about different things many times, just in going through your social media pages.

John Gonzalez: Well, that’s what we try to do, help people just to see this critical work in a new light. Infrastructure is expensive and infrastructure is critical. It’s essential and there’s people who are behind the scenes doing that work every single day. And the more that we can give that insight and just kind of shed that, shine that light on that hidden work, it’s a great thing. And we love the fact that people are tuning in to see more about what that looks like.

Tiffany Long: That’s right. There’s a lot to love about clean water.

Kelly Rogers: Yeah. I was trying to think of a nice Valentine’s day podcast topic and I thought there was no way we were going to find a topic around wastewater and love and you guys have absolutely proved everybody wrong. I think you can find love connections within the wastewater industry. You’ve heard of muskrat love. You’ve heard of love shack. Now we’ve got wastewater love. Maybe you guys at NEORSD can create a little song on that one?

John Gonzalez: I’m open to it. We’ve got some creative team members here. And we actually, when we have our annual open house for members of the public, we had a couple who have been married for 35 years actually come to join us at our treatment plant open house on their 35th anniversary. It was funny to see. I was able to talk to them for a few moments at the gate and that story was someone that I remember certainly from years gone by. But we’re open to some creativity. And if I can get one of our team members to sing along, I’ll do what we can.

Kelly Rogers: Awesome.

Tiffany Long: We want to thank all of you for being here with us today and sharing these fun stories. It just goes to show that engineers have a lot more game than anyone gives them credit for. In all seriousness though, our folks are so passionate and committed to bettering the environment that there’s bound to be connection while working so closely together to accomplish these goals. If you’re looking for a great career and love connection, you might consider joining our Seattle office.

Kelly Rogers: We know that many of our listeners out there have your own engineering legend stories. We’d love to hear from you. Please send us your feedback, stories and ideas for future episodes. You can reach us at info@brwncald.com. This podcast was brought to you by Brown and Caldwell. It’s our purpose and passion to safeguard water, maintain infrastructure and restore habitats to keep our communities thriving. Until next time.