Navigating Government Careers, Going from Fieldwork to Leadership, and Pursuing Passions with Natalie Edwards

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Natalie Edwards, Owner at Mahogany Environmental & Associates about Navigating Government Careers, Going from Fieldwork to Leadership, and Pursuing Passions.  Read her full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes: 
2:30 - Dealing with Difficult Coworkers
9:36 - Interview with Natalie Edwards Starts
23:22 - Natalies Favorite Work Projects
28:15 - Not enough? Growing in ones Role
48:30 - Natalies #Fieldnotes story!

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Natalie Edwards at https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-edwards-245a6bba/

Guest Bio: 
Natalie Edwards spent her childhood growing up in the Pacific Northwest and then moved South to attend Tuskegee University in Tuskegee Alabama. After graduating from Tuskegee, she started her career as a Park Ranger with the US Army Corps of Engineers (Mobile District) and spent her time in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. She worked on several lake and river projects and a few hurricane relief/clean ups. After 5 years of being a Park Ranger, Natalie went to work for the Savannah District in the Atlanta Metro area. Where she got the opportunity to experience all kinds of projects and some very interesting personalities. 

In 2018, Natalie moved back to Portland Oregon and continued working with the Corps for another 2 years before leaving after 20 years of service. In 2022 Natalie founded Mahogany Environmental & Associates where it has allowed her to meet and forge new opportunities. 

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I talk about dealing with difficult coworkers. We interview Natalie Edwards about navigating government careers, going from fieldwork to leadership, and pursuing passions. And finally, Japan has over 200 flavors of Kit Kats. Just makes me want to move right now. They're exclusively created for different regions, cities, and seasons. There are some tasty sounding ones like banana, blueberry cheesecake, Oreo ice cream, as well as some very questionable ones like baked potato, melon and cheese, and everyone's favorite vegetable juice, vegetable juice. Uh, no, thank you. I don't, uh, I like half of those. I liked half of those, but I do love that. I think you can even order like a Kit Kat box, like and then ship it to you. Yeah, it's kind of trickling over here. I know like in the city sometimes you'll see some random flavors and there's a lot of Japanese little kitschy stores that have them, and I always like Kit Kat's always been one of my favorite. Yeah, oh yeah, well, I don't know what this is, if it's even remotely related, but you know, like that fountain machine where it's like, You can choose your 7500 flavors of like Coke, you know, like that's, uh, more of that please. Give me the option, load me up. I want, you know, cherry-lined coke or whatever. I'm here for it. Yes, we are the um society of choice right now. Really, I just like vanilla Coke. That's actually go. 

Hit that music. 

NAEP just completed another round of essential and advanced NEPA workshops. Our next event is scheduled in person for November 13 and 14th in Denver, Colorado. These training workshops are designed for emerging and experienced environmental professionals engaged in the preparation of environmental assessments and environmental impact statements to fulfill the federal lead agency responsibilities pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. These courses are designed to help you understand the requirements and how to fulfill the spirit and legislative intent of NEPA. That's absolutely essential in a time like this where agency policies are being updated rapidly. Please check that out at www.NEAP.org. 

Let's get to our segment. 

So I don't know, Laura, do you want to drive this one? Uh, so the question is, how do you deal with strained co-workers? Maybe it's your boss in particular, someone you may not necessarily get along with that is in charge of your day to day. Yes, this sounds like an interview question. It's an age, it's an age old question, truthfully, this is not the first time I've heard that brought up and I don't know. Yeah, go ahead, Laura, I've got thoughts you go. I have been harping on the let them theory lately. Mhm. Because it's something I wish I had read or existed when I was starting my career and maybe even before that. But the Let Them Theory is written by Mel Robbins, I think, rather recently, the last handful of years. And it basically is as simple as it sounds. So someone is doing something, you can't control other people's behavior. Most of what we put our own suffering through is trying to change things we can't change. And so the let them theory is basically Let them, let them be whoever they are. Let them say what they're going to say, let them do what they're going to do. But then there's a second part to that is let me. So let me then decide how am I going to react? How am I going to interpret this? 

What am I going to do? And in some cases that may be, then let me find my way out the door. Yeah. But you can also say, let me, for me as the role model way, my let them is, or let me is take the high road. Yeah. I'm gonna let them be their jerky self. I'm gonna let them be gossipy, I'm gonna let them be whatever they are, but I'm going to not stoop to their level. I'm not going to let them bring me down. I'm not going to let them drain my energy. So let you be you and let me stay my the version of myself I want to be. Yeah, and I'll, I'll add, I think it's funny cause no matter what, right, there's conflict, there's gonna be conflict in your working and professional life. Sometimes. There are people that you do not get along with and you are, you are opposites in every way, and it's very difficult, and I have had, I've worked with people like that where it's like we are oil and water, we do not mix, and we have to find a way to work together. It's very hard, and I remember we've had, I've had bosses where some of my coworkers are like this, he's really mean, and I'm like, well then, you know, if you know he's mean, then what does it matter what he says? It's just he's a mean person, he's saying mean things. Why are you letting it affect you? You have the ability to take what he says as a grain of salt. It's like how you react is more important than what's being said or done, unless it's really dangerous, you know, if it's bullying, if it's cruel, if it's just someone being curt in an email or very short with their comments, that's not a, it's like you're stressing over the perceived intent instead of, you know, your own reaction. But, you know, I've had people who were great and one people that I just didn't work wise, couldn't communicate well with. And one of the things that really helped me was having another mentor walk me through it and help me help this person. And so like, I think that's been invaluable, is kind of finding maybe there's a third voice in here. That can help sort through the situation. And it really worked. 

We have a great relationship. We've always had an OK one, which is like when there's tension or when there's something that's gone, maybe not wrong, but you know, differently than we expect outside of the norm. That's when we were having conflict. And yeah, my one of my mentors actually genuinely helped me understand where someone I didn't understand was coming from and vice versa. It was really, really cool to see. So there's lots of ways to do it, and that's just a couple I know from where, I mean from my career. Yeah, I think what you're saying about understanding where someone else is coming from too, if someone has extremely stressful role or stress at home or something they're taking out of you, it's not fair. But you can also just let them and let me be their punching bag and I'll just go about my day and not worry about it. But I think to, like, I've talked just two days ago with someone I was coaching about how they were treated at work, and you can be working with people who don't realize, or maybe they do partially do it on purpose, but literally can gaslight you and say mean things to you and tell you things that aren't true where having that third party mentor can help you because you can see that what they're saying to me isn't true. So when you do have one of those relationships, I think also when it comes to that person being above you in the chain, they can do a lot of damage if you're not able to recognize that what they're doing to you isn't personal. Right. Yeah, and I, I think there's a very clear distinction we need to make between managing stress and putting up with cruel and unusual behavior. I think there's a really, you as a person have to understand who you are and who, you know, and what you Can accept and there are times where people are beyond the pale. They are doing too much, going too far, and if there isn't a way to rectify it, then the best thing to do is move on and truthfully, it is. And we talk a lot about offices and how we work, and most of the time people don't leave companies that leave people, right? And a bad manager eventually gets found out because the people that work for them leave and if that keeps happening over and over and over again. 

There's only one common denominator. I mean, it's not a fun answer, it's not a great answer, but I wanna make sure that that that's always an option. And if you're not able to get out of a situation or make a situation better and you've tried, cause we also have like perceived grievances, like, oh this, they won't promote me, they don't like me. Did you ask them about a promotion? No, they just didn't do it. OK, that's different, but you know what I mean? Like, sometimes the best thing to do is move on. Hopefully. You can find a way through it, and it's almost always communicating, but if it's not gonna work, and you know that, and you've tried, don't waste your time. Find a new job. Yeah, and sometimes it's just finding some kind of common ground. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people have, like you said, people have stuff coming from all over, right? Like they, you don't know what home life is like, you don't know what financial life is like, stuff happens, you know, we have, you'll randomly hear about someone who, you know, had to spend all night up at the ER for one reason or another, and you don't know, you didn't even know that they were sick or didn't know that their family members were sick, and you're like, oh, that explains a lot, you know, I had a friend of mine just Having a really tough day and I'm like, are you all right? You know, and it's like, yeah, I just didn't get much sleep last night cause the kids and she's like, it's like it's wearing on me and I'm worn out and I, I'm sorry, you know, kind of thing. Sometimes that's all it is, and sometimes it's not. Yeah, absolutely, but um, yeah, I don't know if that completely answers the question, but there's a couple of tools and things in there to try if you are a person who's having Uh, challenge or conflict with someone at work and then when you get that interview question, you can say I used to let them theory or you go or I phoned in a mentor and that's how I dealt with it. That's a good spot to end. Thanks, Laura, I appreciate it. Let's get to our interview. That's what I meant to say. 

Welcome back to EPR. 

Today we have Natalie Edwards with us. Natalie is the founder of Mahogany Environmental Associates and a former US Army Corps of Engineer Park regulator. Hi, Laura, thanks for having me on today. Uh, we're so excited to have you. Nick got caught up at the airport, so it's just me here today. He travels so much, and this is the story of his life. But, um, you know, let's start off before we talk about your company, which I'm super interested in. First off, tell us how you became a park regulator, and then what is the difference between a ranger and a regulator. So, I went to school at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. There are schools um a land grant. In the springtime Bureau of Land Management Forest Service, in this particular year particular year, US Army Corps of Engineers came down. I had spent 2 summers with the Forest Service. I had worked in New Mexico, and I spent 1 summer in Oregon. So, the deal was Dean Hill was like all the kids that were from the South had to go to, they can't say in the South, they had to go to different parts of the country. I happened to grow up in the Pacific Northwest and my family was from the South. It was kind of a mixed bag with me where to to send everybody to send me, um, and so this particular year, Mr. Day was there recruiting and I never heard of the Army Corps of Engineers, did not know they had parks, did not know they had all this stuff and He was like, well, we're gonna pay your tuition and then you come work for us for 3 years, and I'm like, well it's not a bad deal. Sounds great. Um, was the catch. So each summer or semester, I would take off and I would go work at a different Lake River projects. So one summer I was in Mississippi where my family was from, I was up in Columbus. I was Mississippi. I was on the Tennessee Tom Bigby. which had a lot of wildlife refuge area, they did a lot of dredging. It's all kinds of stuff going on up there. Uh, I was near Mississippi State. I actually kind of snuck up on campus. Next year I was West Point, Georgia, no, 2nd year I was at Allatoona Lake outside of Atlanta, Cartersville, Georgia. And then the following year I was at West Point, which was um on the border of Alabama and Georgia, so I actually stayed in my apartment complex that I was at and just drove 45 minutes every day, which was the time change, like I was on Central time in Alabama and then I was on Eastern time when I got to work, so it was. My clocks were set like an hour fast in my apartment to get to work.

So I did that and then afterwards you were guaranteed a job, graduating school, and so of course I wanted to go back to Allatoona. They were actually holding a position for me, so I had some craziness happen in school, so didn't get out like I was going to. Of course, like you always feel like fail a class or something and it sets you back. And so they were holding a position for me and I ended up in Wilcox County, Alabama, Camden, which was like in the middle of nowhere. So, so wait, was this your like penalty for not graduating on time? I guess. My repentance. I was just like, um, yeah, so I handed out, and I lived in, lived in Selma, Alabama, and I tell people it was like going back in time and then going back into Wilcox. It was like going further back in time with some stuff. So it was like, I'm like, OK, that's some really good people though. I keep threatening them I'll write a book about the shenanigans some stories. So I was there for about a year and I could not take it anymore. I like being in the country, but then there's like to a point like I have to be around people. Um, at this time I, so I had picked it so you because I know in the form you asked me like secret hobbies and things. I picked up playing the violin, so typically kids that play the violin start like 2 or 3 years old. I picked it up at 25. So my violin teacher was in Montgomery, Alabama, but she had lived in Selma, and so that was kind of my way of getting out of the country. And she was just like, uh, that place is not a good place for a young lady your age, because it was like people my age left Selma and so it was like this older folks retired was like I was this was like a really weird spot and So I saw an opening at Lake Lanier, which was like the biggest, one of the busiest lakes in the country compared to that lake and another lake in Texas. So I was a park ranger, I was, so it was very active. I'm up there and so I get up there and I do shoreline management, which is all the dock permits, and so I have the southern part of the lake. I had a little bit of Forsyth County, I don't know if people are aware Forsyth County was very like, Very KKK area. 

I still sometimes had to have somebody come out with me. One of the folks I had to go to their house, their husband was one of the grand wizards of the Klu Klux Klan. So I like, so one of the guys would have to go with me, but it got to a point, uh. She was deceased and it got to the point like I, being the lady, we, we were OK, so, so I had would do doc permits, and I mean, I met some characters, uh, I, a lot of wealthy people, just some of them had just beautiful homes, and I remember my, my boss at the time, but he was the operations manager, Mr. Topper. And he was like, at the time I think I was making like $30,000 a year, like student loans, all this stuff, and he's like, oh you're doing better than most of these people on the lake, and I'm like, they got these manes, what do you mean? It's so. I got what he said, I would walk in and it would be like no furniture, like, mm. Like, OK, so it used to be when you were a park ranger, you could have any type of degree. There was at one point, like you could just have an associate's degree. So during my time, they really started cracking down on college degrees. So like you had to have one in biology, wildlife, any of the life sciences, you had to have one. So you would have like, the folks that were training me, they were like old school, they had either had time in military or they had like one guy was, he was hilarious Carl, he had a criminal justice degree. Why is it people with names Carl? Carls are always like. Just crazy. Girls are wild and Carl was crazy because Carl was a Green Beret army in Vietnam, so Carl. I got some stories about Carl. I can't tell on the podcasts, but they're pretty funny, so I'm not surprised. But he had this criminal justice degree, but he was really like into the archaeology, so it was just so, so yeah, I did that for about 5 years. The cool thing being a park ranger, they're usually the ones like when there's a natural disaster, we're the ones that actually go out and help FEMA. So I got to work on a couple of hurricane cleanups. I got to work, um, did Katrina. 

That's when they just, everybody had to like go to Katrina, um. And so, yeah, during this time, so it was about 5 years and I remember I was at, oh somebody was retiring. By the time a lot of the folks I had worked with when I was a student park ranger were starting to retire and one of them pulled me off to the side and he said, hey, don't stay at this place too long. And the thing was there was like this pecking order in being a park ranger. You could move up, you could go to the district office and be a park manager, but it was like this pecking order, so and the pecking order was like you needed to know all the programs on the lakes uh that that we used. Sometimes it was good if you moved around and I just knew it was gonna be a long time before I would even be considered in the next level and so I never heard of regulatory and one of the guys that was a park ranger. Joel, he moved on to regulatory, so I would run into him and I'm like, hey, like, what are you doing? He's like the same stuff as a park ranger, but we were dealing with they were dealing with the Clean Water Act, Rivers and Harperson Act, and regulatory folks tend to like park rangers because you didn't have to train us to deal with the public. We were already dealing with the public as park rangers. And so he's oh you, you need to come on to this office, you know, such and such would really like you, you know, da da da da da. So job opening came up and I said, well, you know, let me give it a try. And so I interviewed with Mr. Johnson and got selected. So at the time where I was living outside of Atlanta, I was kind of, I was out in the suburbs, so I was like 15 minutes from work, but 30 minutes from downtown Atlanta, and I have to, if you're living in the Atlanta area, this is like early 2000s where I could get the other side of Atlanta in about 30 minutes. 

Now you takes 2 hours. So yeah, so you had to have the college degree. They, so with regulatory, you really had the environmental science degree. Come to find out when I was doing the shoreline docks and all that stuff, that was actually a segment of regulatory. I never knew it, so. Because that staff was so busy they could not deal with the threshold and the stuff that was going on the lake. So what they did was they would give them a little bit of the program doing the docks, a little bit of the dredging, and it was after a certain amount like the permitting the marinas and. The big major dredging on any type of lakes or anything like that, that actually would come to my office. So I commuted for a little bit downtown. Actually, the office was passed downtown. It was near the Atlanta airport. A couple other one other guy was a park ranger, another guy in my office used to be game warden. And yeah, we would just get these permits. So I had a lot of stuff from Georgia Power. Typically what happens in regulatory, the people are assigned certain areas. So I had Fulton County, DeKalb, Gwinnett. And Cobb and they kept me busy and like I was working the weekends. It was just, yeah, and it would be sometimes just to read, take my stuff home, read it. The cat would sit on it and finding there's probably some old folder where the cat has chewed because of the parent attention. So I would get it like gas lines, I would get Georgia Power, I would get mom and pop projects, I would get residential housing stores like Lowe's, Home Depot, anchor stores. I wasn't doing mitigation yet, a lot of just kind of rip wrap, rip riparian, sometimes going out talking to the counties, hey, tell your folks not to do this. You know, we need to see this, a lot of back and forth with fish and wildlife, EPA people complaining. Atlanta was very like, they would go to their congressperson. It it didn't matter. I didn't ever take that personal. It would happen when I was a park ranger, like, I'm calling my congress, yeah, fine. Here's the phone number. Let me help you. Right. A little bit different and regulatory. I would get a congressional and that would just go your whole afternoon. Um, so yeah, so you'd have to hurry up. 

So, yeah, the office was really full, so I was considered a regulatory specialist, which would be like your GS 11 if people are familiar with government pay grade, and then your seniors and above would be like GS12, GS13, they would be more technical. So the folks that were the GS 12 in office were very like specialized, and what I appreciated when I got there was um Miss Magwood was very big on us mentoring and picking up things from different, different of the specialty folks in the office. So one of the, they were mostly baby boomers, so one of them, he did not like being on the computer, um. But he was fun to take out in the field, so like I took, you know, we'd go out in the field and, but you knew you was not gonna get a report from him, so I just figured I would just take the chair, my computer, my laptop, go over there and just type that was we gonna get it done. Mary would take your head off, but then she was very organized and how you were supposed to write a NEA document and would just like she just mentally had like this checklist in her head but she would sit down and like tab everything out and then explain why like you have to do such and such. So when the other one was a cowboy and you'll say. Namelessly. I feel like I want to see the TV show or the book that's like similar to Parks and Rec. Oh yeah, with some shenanigans in our office, um, but yeah, so when I came in, Ron and Cabela, if I'm saying that right, it's been so long, was the big thing. So a lot of folks were, had been in regulatory a long time, were rolling out, they were retiring. They had changed the system from RAMs to RM one, so they told me don't bother learning. Now I'm dating myself. Don't let this we get to do this one. 

Ribbetts wasn't out yet, so like all this stuff was like the early, like mid 2000s like all these changes were happening and I was like in the middle of it and so it was, it was interesting. So, yeah, like I said, the baby boomers were kind of like weren't feeling the change in my office. That tracks, that definitely tracks. So, you know, you worked all these different places and on many, many different types of projects. Do you have any favorites or things that, that stood out as like, I would like to do that again or just good memories? Each of them had a quirks, so I liked West Point because it was laid back. It was just very laid back. I wasn't like, you know, all the time. You mean Selma wasn't laid back? Oh, Selma was slow. When I said like going back in time, like they were still doing stuff like from the 40s, like the, oh God, it was at noon, an alarm would go off and I couldn't confirm what the alarm was, and that was for people to let them know to come out the fields. It was lunchtime. And then the post office was shut down at noon. So yeah, they. Yeah. Oh God. That reminds me. I drove through a town in like South Dakota during COVID, and it was just a small town and air raid sirens were going off and we're like, what, what is this? And it was a similar thing. It was just like something they'd always done, but for me an air raid siren is like an actual emergency. Oh yeah, no, it's time to take a break. Yeah, they still, they think the town my parents grew up in Mississippi. I think the post office still closes at noon. Like they're gonna take their lunch break. Lanier, I would say probably Lanier is my favorite at that time frame. We were all about the same age. We were about 24, 25. Some of the guys were starting to get married, so Mr. Topper and his wife didn't have children, so we were like his, his babies, like we were like his kids and so. Oh God, one of my coworkers, he would do something wrong. Mr. Topper would come back, scream at me, and I turn to yell at the other coworkers like, What did you do? 

Because he's yelling at me because you, so it'd be like squabbling like siblings in the office. So I think that like for me that was like my favorite time frame because He really again took on like mentoring us, making sure we were making the right steps in our career. So yeah, unfortunately, he was a Marine. He did two tours in Vietnam and so when he retired, he got brain cancer, um, so. Yeah, I got to visit with him a couple of times, and he was still like, even though he was sick, he was still on me about my retirement. When you buy a house, do this. OK, I will tell you this was a funny story, um, you said PG, so I have was purchasing my first home, dating myself again. There was a fax machine and my real estate agent was sending some paperwork because I finally was getting a clothes on the house. Sending the paperwork on a fax machine, he let me know on my, on my personal cell phone and I'm trying to get off my computer and run up there and to intercept the paperwork. And before I could get to it, Mr. Topper grabs paperwork. Now describe Mr. Topper is about 6 ft tall, 6'1, blazingly like these beautiful blue eyes, white hair, and he comes marching back there, who's by the house? And all the guys turn to look at me and they tell on me. They point to me. It just ratted me out and I thought, oh my God, I'm gonna lose my job. I'm buying I'm like I've used government equipment to get my paperwork. Oh my God, he, I'm like, oh my, the whole time. So the whole time I'm freaking out and Mr. Topper has read through my paperwork. And he goes, Young lady, let me talk to you. And this whole time I'm thinking I'm getting fired. He goes through my paperwork and he's like, Well, this is where you made a mistake on the closing, and this is where you made, and this is this, and then you need to do this next time and you need to make an extra house payment. He's giving me this information and the whole time in my head I'm like, I'm not getting fired. I mean he's like. And afterwards he's like, I am so proud of you, you know, like you're getting your first home, blah blah blah. Well, the one person in the office always kept getting in trouble because we're about the same age. Well then he turns and yells at him, look what she's doing, she's buying a house. You love her. So yeah, he would do things like that. 

And so um yeah, things like from him and certain people in office, I still carry to this day. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. It's always good to hear of a good working environment, especially in government. And I think that's one of the great things about working in this field is like these different characters and the I worked with a boomer who like we would go out in the field and he had slow reflexes. So instead of like driving towards the red light, if we were towing a boat, he would honk the horn and keep on driving and I'm like, oh dear Lord. We won't, we won't talk about how I was learning to trailer a boat and back it up, and I proceeded to destroy the office fence a boat. But I can trailer a boat and get it down the launch. No problems. Don't ask me to park it back in the boat yard. Love it. I think we had a boat go rogue in the middle of downtown Tampa one time. Yeah, fun times, but let's get on to, um, love all of this and have a million more questions for you, but how did you, OK, at what point you bought a house, you are enjoying your co-workers and the work that you do, but then at some point you said this isn't enough, I'm going to do something else. It was when my Supervisor when I was interning at West Point, pulled me off to the side. He's like, hey, you can't stay at that lake too long. Like, you gotta make a move. And I was just like, OK, and that would happen throughout my career, especially when I go to the district office in Mobile, the personnel people would, hey, the ladies would be like, come here, I tell you something. And I would heat it, you know, most of the times I would heed it. So when this person told me, you gotta make a move and it was just like, OK, so I started, you know, looking, you know, I looked downtown cause there was other, you know, it was EPA there was fish and wildlife, there was other, you know, I didn't think I did most of my time cause that, like I said, I had a 3 year. 

Commitment to the core and now I was like, OK, I can leave but so yeah, let me try regulatory and so again it was like same age group. It was all of us about the same age. My first foray and Mr. Johnson was like, oh, here's the regulations, figure it out. It was like. Sink or swim, which was not everybody likes to learn that way, but I learned by doing, and so I um read the regulations and then like, again, we were going through these changes. So everybody was kind of like on this, this learning curve, it wasn't just me, and so it was just trial by fire and, you know, once I got my handle on some stuff, then it was like, you know, Mr. Johnson told me, OK, like, we um I want you to be a One of the senior people here, I'm like, I need you to like start picking up stuff. So they start throwing me some, some projects complex like right off the bat, like once I got the handle of everything and so I was getting the standard IPs. I was starting to get the mitigation banks. I was starting to get the crazy projects where people are yelling at me and I'm just Like, OK. So yeah, I would get like, God, what was one, Atlanta had 1 year, we had like a 500 year flooding event. I can't remember which year. And so there was somebody wanted to build like a residential, I see the area we were like on the going like we were on. I20 going to Alabama. It was myself, Fish and Wildlife, my EPA counterpart, and I don't remember if my the state representative showed up. And we were arguing whether to let this development go because the creek was a major creek, but it had been polluted so bad and so the fishing. counterpart. She's like, I just nuke it. Who cares? You know, I was like, I was like, dang, usually you're not like that. Um, and then EPA, you know, we were going back and forth and you know, it says in the regulations, the core has the final say, so I, you know, because I got along with my IRT counterparts. I was really like, what does the group want to do? And the IRC counterpart. 

So interagency review team, and so, you know, you get these big projects, it's usually EPA, your state environmental department, fish and wildlife, sometimes a tribe, and I think maybe sometimes one other group will pop in, but Yeah, that was my core, and we were together all the time and we would get to bickering and yelling at each other behind closed doors and then like, what are we doing for lunch? Like. But my, my counterpart at Fish and Wala, she was like, just nuke it. And I was like, Oh, I'm like, come on, we can't do that. And so we finally just came in agreement like, you can't build here. I think I had to go over to FEMA and be like, Hey, what's the deal over here? And they were like, uh, so. We, before I could even, I think before I could even tell him, like, the guy pulled it back, so I had a lot of water reservoir projects at that time, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida were really getting into it and so, I mean, I put a public notice out on a reservoir project and my, I could spend all day just talking to people, just not happy with it, could not get anything done all day like. And I would call Mr. Johnson like because by this time I had moved up back up to Lake Lanier and was in a satellite office and you know our deal was on Friday and let him know what got done and I'm like, it's got done. They would be so controversial like, um, then I would put public notices out and like I said, the baby boomers and above would be lonely and sometimes, yeah, time to talk and I just have to put my phone on speaker and they just want to talk to somebody so I'd be working with somebody's permit talking to somebody to have some crazy stories. 

That one too. So, yeah, um, somebody wanted to talk. He was so tired of the politics that year and Prince had died, and we had a whole 30 minute conversation about Prince. Listen, we could pop off this podcast right now and have a 45 minutes conversation about Prince too. I see you're purple. Yeah, so we, um, I had one project where once a month we would have IRT meetings and it would be going over the mitigation banks and the, um, yeah, it was once a month the consultants would come in and bring in their projects. So sometimes mitigation banks, sometimes a big development. And my counterpart at EPA, he could get really emotional and so my office husband, I my office husband, I do get along with him, yeah, I do get along. I do in real life getting along with his, his real wife because sometimes we conspire to keep him keep him straight, um. And so we were having to commute back down past the airport and counterpart at EPA he was getting emotional, you know, I put my ear to the door. I'm like, uh, he's he was getting there, and I thought like that Thursday, I said, oh man, he gonna pop off, like he's just, this is not gonna be good, and he lost it. In the meaning, completely lost it on me, lost it on everybody. I had never seen him act like that before. That particular day, I deny my contacts and I had my glasses on. This consultant slash lawyer, and I don't want to say pretty infamous, um, it was a very controversial project. 

We were not happy about it was constantly having to ask questions. I'm constantly having to, hey, I need you to abide by the section 44B1 guidelines. You're not your alternative analysis it's not great, like this is always something constant with this project. So EPA person popped off. I pulled my glasses off and I said, look, I know what you're mad about. I said, and I can kick everybody out of here. We can have this discussion right now, but I'm like, I need you to chill. We gotta get to this meeting. And, you know, everybody had never, you know, I'm pretty quiet in meeting cause I'm taking everything in. They'd never seen me act like that before. He got straight. We came out the meeting, no scars. Afterwards, he apologized and I said, no, I, I'm. What you're mad about? I said, I can't think about it. I'm like, I was giving my marching orders. I also know what you're mad about. Can't do that, can't help you with that either. The consultant that could be a handful, actually called our division chief and was like, Hey, she did a really good job handling that meeting. That was the first thing that man ever gave me a compliment because we would be at it between me and his lawyers, we'd always be at it and I was just like, OK. Yeah, and then that same project, cause the commanders change every 3 years. I had the one, the previous commander, I'm still in contact with today, he tried to fire me. He's a University of Florida Gators fan, and I did do a little bit of time at Auburn University and I did know some guys that play. 

On the football team. So this particular year, Auburn beat Florida and I decided, probably not my best judgment to email him, tell him War Eagle over email. And that's how I got fired. And he said he was going to fire me. Um, he ran down to Miss Magle's office and told him she was, he, he was going to fire me. She goes, I will not do such things. Um, apparently I was not the only one that did that to him that day. Um, so, oh good, can't fire everybody. Yeah, so this particular, we got a new, we got a new colonel. He wanted to see all the controversial projects, and so me, my immediate supervisor and then the branch chief, Mr. Johnson, we went out and we drove out to the uh my most controversial one that was off of the Chattahoochee River, and I remember how to get there, didn't walk down to the site the day, I think like the day before I took a test drive to make sure I remember I was going to the right spot, but I didn't walk down there. So I've been around this particular colonel before. He goes, yeah, my wife's got me trained. I gotta get her Michael Kors purse every time I mess up, you know, da da da. So we get out there and I gotta take him to where the intake pipe is gonna go for this reservoir. It's gonna have supposedly happen, and he's like, how long is it? Whying down here now I'm like, oh, I don't know, maybe 1 mile or so. Um, so we get down there, he's counting. We get down there and this is grass. Everything's, I cannot remember where the intake is gonna be spotted and I'm like, oh, this is not good. So we're like wandering, whatever, and I'm like, oh my God. He goes, Natalie, if I get bit by a snake, I said, I know, sir, sir, I'm gonna buy your wife a mors. So my immediate supervisor, he, he's like, can I help you? I'm like, yeah, so we found where it was spotted. It came to my and I had, you know, when I was out before I tied a ribbon around a doggone tree or something, so we got it. So, you know, at the time he was new coming into Savannah district, so he, you know, all the controversial projects.

So what the way that the core is, you know, your higher ups are colonels and then the division is a general, and so they have to report up to the general. This particular general I will name Semonite, if you remember COVID and he was doing all the hospital stuff that was actually my commanding over our division and so he have this list, we had some projects that had been out for a really long time, I forget the name of it, and he wanted those projects, like, he wanted updates and so, you know, he used the stop sign, like red light, yellow, green. So we had to tell him, you know, where they were. So, you know, sometimes writing, I'm writing white papers like, hey, this is where this is going. Um, so yeah, the commander before this one I took almost get snake bitten. The other one was real big on mentoring and so I got to do congressional. Visits with him and so that was like what I appreciated was both him and General Simonite they would tell you I'm not the smartest person in the room and they had the smart people in the room, so sometimes we just see them operate as that person. I'm just here, you know. But I watched this particular kind of just kind of, you know, relationship wise really like relationships fix things. He was very people person. So yeah, that was like, you know, a good experience just to see what happens up top. Like, I'm working on this project, I'm getting yelled at. I'm getting, you know, all this stuff. Does the senior management know what's going on? And then, and then I'm like having to see how they discuss with Congress folks because they fund our program, like, this is the big picture, you know, so. Yeah. That's really cool. And then at what point did you decide to, you know, start your own company? 

Was that like, I know I'm leaving, or someone said you'd be good at this, or how'd that happen? So, I tell all the business cause it's not really, it's not quiet, but Yeah some stuff happened in Savannah district. It just, it just wasn't good. I tried to come back to the Forest Service. I actually had some college classmates from Tuskegee work for the Forest Service, so I was trying to get in that way. I was actually trying to go to the office that they were at in Gainesville, Georgia, and uh it be like a mini reunion. It didn't happen and then it was like, well, in my bio my my parents are from Mississippi, but they still live out in Seattle and I was like, well, you know, maybe I just move home and just Transfer to Seattle district, cause that's the cool thing with the core and being in government was like, you transferred to another office, all your benefits, everything comes with you. So I told my parents, I said, you know, Seattle is so expensive, cause like I knew for an apartment, you know, I said, hey, can I live with you guys for 2 years? Let me get myself situated to see what I wanna do next. 

And parents like, yeah, fine, you know. I put in for, couldn't get transferred over to Seattle. I put in for stuff in Portland, California. I was not gonna do that. I have some family in Chicago. I did try to get to Chicago. So when I interviewed for Portland, I didn't get the one position, but they called me back and they said, hey, we got this. By the time I'm doing transportation project and I was a transportation liaison. Hey, do you wanna just come and just transfer lateral over? Well, it wasn't what like what I wanted to do, but And when I kind of researched what Portland District had, I'm like, oh, they got a really big environmental program. Hey, let's just do this for 24 months and go to the next floor or, you know, downtown Portland's got all the regional office. And so, yeah, so I packed the car up, put the cat in the car. That was a fun experience driving the car in the car. One of my good friends, Amy, came with me. She's like 6'1, 6'2. Mr. Johnson was really worried about us driving across country because we are some fools when we get together. So he would like call and check on us. And so yeah, we, we got here and yeah, so I was like doing the transportation stuff. I honestly, I was tired of it. It was, you know. I wouldn't say it was just, it wasn't wrote, like every project was the same thing, but each DOT, they got their personality, so it was just I wanted to, and, you know, when you get in the course, you sometimes can get pigeonholed into the same thing, and then when you try to apply for other jobs within the core, because you've been doing something for so long, you miss out on other opportunities. Um, to expand your resume and everything. So I said, but I thought, you know, I could do, they had so much stuff going on in the Portland district. I could get out. Let's just say I, basically, I burned out. I was some other stuff going on. And so right before, I mean, literally right before COVID happened, I'm gonna say maybe 4 months before COVID, I was, I was out. I was done with the core, and then COVID happened. COVID gave me a lot of time to think. Then I went back to try to finish up my master's, I was doing like, you know, different jobs and stuff. I was doing, uh, teaching after school science. 9 year olds will keep you humble, um. Kids will keep you humble, so I did that for about 2 years. And then I went to work for another firm and a woman owned and yeah, I just, you know, I was like, uh, I think I could do this. I wasn't really into some of the stuff that they were into, so she said, hey, you know, we gotta let you. Go, but she's like, she's like, you're really good with people. Have you thought about going on your own? And I was like, no. Um, she said, you should really think about it. I said, OK. She said, here's Nikki's information. 

So Nikki Provost here in Portland helps women do their own business. Like she's got a whole sheet. She walks you through it, and so I called her and it was like, bam, we were just clicking everything. So here I am, 3 years later. That's amazing. You never thought about it before and you just said, OK, I'm just going to do it. Mhm. And before one lady in Atlanta had tried to talk me into it, but it was like, I was at that weird spot in my career. It was like, I got maybe less than 10 years, I could retire because I started so young. That was the thing. I started so young with the core that, yeah, I think like if I would have stayed, like if I'd been like 59.5, I'd probably have like 35 years. Like that was the crazy. Part of it. So I left that 20 years, but yeah, it's been interesting is that the same skill set of dealing with people, talking to people is like I transfer that over. The only thing is like trying to do numbers, quick books, the bookkeeping. It's like Same. I love running my companies, but I do not want to look at the numbers. I know that you have to when it's part of it, and I make myself, but it is not the fun part. No, I, Mount Hood was really good. I would take the QuickBooks class just so I can understand. I do have a bookkeeper. She does do my QuickBooks and so, but I still try to go into QuickBooks to, to do it myself sometimes. I just did a finished doing a Chase mentoring program. She's like, Oh, we gotta do your forecast. I'm like, What? Like, what is that? You start off just taking numbers on what you're doing, and then you start doing numbers on what you could be doing. And then you have to actually predict. That's like advance. Stuff. So, so what's it been like? 3 years in and uh what kind of work are you doing? I did last year, I did a multi-use trail in Washington County for those like Beaverton area. It was a defunct rail line, uh, so that was pretty cool. So I was like reading all of the materials and stuff of reports. I used to have to hang out a lot with the archaeologists when I was with the Corps, so I know my way around section 106 and all that stuff, but like, I know that's not my degree, but I understand it, so I really enjoy like reading the archaeology report. So it's my nerd part coming out. Gosh, this year, see what else. I am on a long term project in Washington state. The interesting thing with that I've not started work, but I've been battling back and forth my contract. So that was another skill like I Of having to quickly learn and the writing proposals, um, I, you know you just mostly going after RFPs and things. Yeah, writing proposals really just getting better at it. 

I do have somebody that will look at my stuff or sometimes she'll send me things that I need to get on and each between Oregon and Washington, each state's kind of different. If I bid on something and Washington State on one of their services, they just have the forms and you just fill it out. So it's not a whole lot of really writing, you just fill out the forms, put your resume in, but here in Oregon, I'm like I'm having to really put a proposal together. There's been a couple of boo boos where I've, you know, I've looked at something for so long and I forget to add something in there, and I was like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. I've had it drafted and everything ready to go, and it didn't make it in there. See what else, networking, just trying to go to all the events. Using LinkedIn a lot, my website, anytime somebody's offering a class on accounting, taking it, um, yes, all of this sounds so much aside from like peopleing and of course, clearly you know how to write reports, but you know. You've had to learn a lot of new skills, which is a skill in itself really. Yeah, so doing the actual work is very easy to me. It's the, it's the other things of networking and, and then, you know, I'm dealing with engineering firms and the engineers don't really talk and it's They're very introverted. And it's like, I, I gotta go up. And so like one group that I'm a part of, I, I slander the engineers in the more every time I introduce myself, um, and they laugh because they know it's true. I do this because you engineers screw up stuff and they laugh, and then they go and they come over to me and they talk to me. It works. Yeah, you got to find what works. So that's awesome. We are running out of time. This has been so much fun. You've already told us a couple of stories, but I got to hear some more. So we have a segment called #eel notes. It's a part of the show where we talk to our guests about your memorable moments during the work in the field. And, uh, you know, we're looking for funny, scary, awkward, love awkward things, um.

Is there a particular story that comes to mind for you? Tara is 11 of my other favorite bosses. Mr. Johnson does not swear. He just doesn't swear. If people are familiar with Atlanta, um, Alpharet is kind of a very High medium income area and I had been getting phone calls about this retaining wall that went in and so I go out there and it was supposed to be for a 100 year blood. Well they build this monstrosity of a thing with itty bitty holes and just itty bitty like not enough water can get through it, and I go out there and I'm like, oh my God, and I know this is a PG show, so I'm swearing. I gotta go call my counterpart. She gets out there. She's cussing. We're. And then we're hearing it from the neighbors, uh, you know, like, oh my God, and so this was a particular week. It was not a good week for Mr. Johnson. He's got a wrangle, pull somebody in, get them squared away in the office because they cutting up. So I take him out there. I said this like I said, this man does not swear. We get out there, he's telling me what the issue was because he had to go to the district office in Savannah, come back. We get to this monstrosity of the wall, the man stops and just cuss words come out of his mouth. Like I said, I was so shocked and I'm on the by the time I just fall on the ground. I'm laughing because I'm like, I'm so stunned. I can't do nothing but laughing. He goes, Oh my God, after he calms down, so we, we, we yanked the culprit, everybody into the office and so we were able to compromise. Like we didn't, the wall didn't come down, but they had to do some other things, but it was just like, oh Mandy, you know like. He's, and if I, if I trade, he's an engineer and he's very cool, calm, collected, and just to see him just losing in the field. That's good stuff. Um, yeah, I can just picture everybody now like, What is this monstrosity? Yeah, just like, Oh my God. Yeah. So I would get I would just stuff like that. But yeah, I liked with regulatory, you know, I was in the field some days, and then the other days I'm at my desk and then some days I'm just, you know, and then I will say, I wouldn't say I won't nag, the transportation was completely boring.

I would sometimes go out when they were doing construction, and that was really cool, you know, to look at the engineering plans and to go out there to see them actually put it together and then having whoever the field person, the, I forget what they call it, oh, there's a term for when the on the construction site, and they haven't explained to me, like, taking that and explaining and they're drilling down and Putting the cement in or they're gonna put the beams on. So that was, you know, that was always like cool to see that take. Take place in in person. So yeah, it just sounds like you've gotten so many amazing different experiences in that role. So that's really awesome. What would you say to somebody today who's like, you know, clearly there's some changes happening in government, but if someone is, you know, so I think some people may have started their college career thinking, oh, I would like to work for EPA or Army Corps, and now they're probably graduating, going, uh. Maybe I need to rethink my plan, but any thoughts or anything on that for them? I mean, even though it's kind of cuckoo right now, I would say don't give up on that dream. I would say, you know, try to follow somebody for a day or two in the field, if that's possible. Yeah, I would, if they got an internship, I would try to grab it, see, I would even just even with a firm like a Environmental firm just to see what they do. At this point, I just had somebody recently just tell me you're probably gonna need to come back to the core because there's so much. And that was someone very high up in the core, you know, after you, you know, like there's information gap that's missing right now. And so I've, I've had this very serious chit chat with this person that used to be very high up within the core, like, hey, those of us that left at that 20 year mark, we Might need to come back, because it's just that the knowledge transfer is not happening right now. But yeah, I remember one of my colonels, he had somebody that wanted to be a park ranger and he was like a GS-14 or something. And right before he retired, he made him a park ranger and he was just happy as all get out. So yeah, there's always something out there. I would look at the Forest Service too, um, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife. I will say fish and wildlife. Typically want masters and PhDs, so you like being in school, then yeah. Great advice. And then you mentioned piano, or you actually, you didn't mention piano, you mentioned violin, but you also play the piano. Did that also come later, or was that something you had before?

 No, that was my mom's doing, so that was at 5 years old. I started playing the piano, and then because I didn't practice, she would not purchase the violin, the violin on my. Uh, yeah, so me and my, me, I have a younger sister, so we both play instruments. And so, yeah. So that was like my sometimes my stress relief, but that violin will stress me out. OK. And then you have an opposite stress relief of bodybuilding. Yeah, I once I tried once a year to do a show. It's, it's the dining part because everything gets taken away. I have a really bad sweet tooth, so, um. Yeah, so it's like my, I still kind of eat healthy, but it's like, yeah, when you get ready for a show, it's like the fruit disappears. This your refilling meal, the pizza, the, the drinking a little bit of alcohol and all of that and then you're just crazy. It's like the nicest person to be around and then like the final week of the show, you're dehydrated because like then they take the water away and so it's like, yeah, when you see people like on magazines or certain folks like that is you're actually dehydrated and then you honestly you're not supposed to be dehydrated that long so. Oh wow, that's fascinating. Yeah. How did you, when was the first time you did this? Like, how did you get into that? I blame my track coach in college. Um, he actually used to do bodybuilding shows and he's like, he's like, You got the physique, you need to do it. So when I moved to Alabama, I was just, I was just working out. When I got to Georgia, I finally found a trainer, and it's, it's a whole different world, but yeah, I would. Get on stage and you know you have your outfits and stuff. My mom hates it. She's like, Oh, you're showing your business. I'm like, oh trust me, the judges don't want to see your personal parts because I have seen personal parts pop out on stage and the judges are not happy. I have seen the look of disgust. They don't, and they, they're looking at certain things and so it can be really hard because like you're so hard on yourself and then there's certain things, packages, the things you have to bring and so and the suits get expensive and the trainer gets expensive and you travel somewhere. So I think, yeah, just the like my last. The lady that made my last suit was retiring. She had been in the business for 40 years, and so I paid about $1000 for that last posing suit. 

So, um, yeah, it'll never go anywhere because my mom asked, what are you going to do with them? I said, I will cut the grass in that posing. You ever see somebody in Portland cutting grass in Poland? That's just me. I'm just trying to get my money out. Listen, Portland, you could do whatever you like, so no one's going to bat an eye. They'd be like, Girl, where'd you get that from? Well, that is amazing. I've had so much fun talking to you. Um, we're over time. Um, is there anything else that you'd like to add that we didn't touch on? No, just not out of blue Nicky, Mr. C. That's perfect. Absolutely perfect. Um, if any of you would like to continue this amazing conversation with Natalie, where can they get in touch with you? So, my email address is Natalie, N A T A L I E@mahoganyenvironmental.com, and then my website is www.mahoganyenvironmental.com. And then I'm also on LinkedIn, just uh Natalie Edwards. So yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and we'll talk offline. Thank you so much. That's our show. Thank you, Natalie, for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Bye. See you, everybody.