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Essential Leadership Skills & Community w/Alicia Lomas · Automation Ladies

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: very.
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You have to keep that up for a little bit too long, but that was great.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I loved it.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We should.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I saw this.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: You guys, I don't know, it's probably you, ali.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: You you're the only one that sends me memes and videos.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Like everyone should start meetings this way.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: And the guy was just like dancing and everybody got in the.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: You know, they got hyped, they got hyped up.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: So welcome to automation.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Ladies live season five.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: This is well, I guess not our.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: This is our second live, because I did one last week with Frank Hurt at the AHCD fall meeting In which I got to see Allie and meet Allie's mom.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So that was really cool.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: She's an amazing cook, but today we have two Alishas with us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Finally, finally, we have snagged the Alicia Lomas on to Automation Ladies.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome, alicia.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I'm so good, I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It's like way, way overdue.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I was in a hole for the last four years and I'm ready to be here and talk to the world, all right?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Well, we were also super stoked to have you at talk to the world All right.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Well, we were also super stoked to have you at OT Skatecon earlier this year, so that was our first time meeting in person for me and you.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Process safety.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: You guys have met before, though, right have you or no?
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: We did because of Carlos.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: So we met in Reno.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Once she showed me Redwood, I signed an NDA and everything.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: And then I tried to hire her and she was like no, oh, okay, cool, that's okay.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: We find ways to work together eventually, don't we one way or another?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: This industry it's a small community, yeah, and once you get to know good people, you know, your reputation kind of precedes you, right?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: People that you know want to work with you, they recommend you.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So we've kind of been in your circles a little bit.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: In that sense, we have some people in common that we work with, josh over at Trace Route, just yeah, tons of great people in our community.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Michael, michael Weta I think I've been saying your name wrong this whole time I thought it was yeah, so did I, uh, but then we just talked to alex cool uh, the owner of mass style technologies, where michael he was cool he was super cool.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: We uh listened to that we vibed, we vibed hardcore.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: We'll probably have him on again, yeah, but yeah, sorry, k.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, kathy Rini and Michael Weta, if I'm getting it right this time, hopefully maybe giving me a thumbs up.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Alicia Lomas, we got that right, do we?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Is there?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: anything wrong, you did, okay.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, you guys say it a little weird, but I forgive you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: How do?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: You say it, it's lomas oh, you always say like low mass.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's more of an e to me.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, growing up in iceland I I tend to.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: If I don't know how to pronounce things, I usually get them wrong because I default to some side of my brain that like well, I go super hispanic.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: I'm alicia lomas.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know I know and I have no back like no, no family tie to that, like all my family's from like great britain.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So I have no idea.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: How did you get?
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: the name.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's awesome some names are the same spelling in different languages but pronounced differently, but they come from like the same root name.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Where's your dad from?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I mean his dad moved over from england and his name is lomas.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's not lomas, it's lomas, whatever you're saying like it's not.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and my dad's name is fabian.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: Like we need to say it, like okay, that's confusing, that's confusing.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I know, I don't know.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Confusing too for me, isn't it?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So you know, you just can't.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: You can't judge a book by its cover, or people by their names, or any of those things, right?
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I thought you were Mexican too, Nikki, and she's like her husband is Filipino and Spanish and Mexican's not really a part of that, even though there's a Gonzales name.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, we really can't tell anymore because we have just what.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Is it bread between all the things?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Melting pot.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: There's no way to know, and I come from Hawaii and, like everyone in Hawaii is like Filipino, japanese, hawaiian, portuguese, english, like French, you're like holy crap, but they're beautiful.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: But yeah, there are a million things.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so where are you located, alicia?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I'm living in Burbank, Glendale area, oh.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: California.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: I'm in LA.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Courtney and I go to Automation Fair in a few weeks.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely yeah, I've been meeting in the neighborhood somewhat.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: Are you going to Rockwell Fair.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I'm a Siemens girl.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I can do Rockwell and I still can whip around in Studio 5000, but I'm a Siemens girl All right.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe we'll see you at SPS next year in Atlanta.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to go to one of those shows.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: They're doing an SPS in Atlanta.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: Yes, is that the first one?
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: Yes, oh shit.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: First one yes, oh shit.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Wow, let's go.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, ahp's spring meeting is also in Atlanta.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Let's go.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Alicia, you have to go SPS.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: We're going, I know, let's plan it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I talked to their people at IMTS a few weeks ago.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: They actually had an SPS stage in the North Hall, I guessPS stage in the North Hall, I guess yeah, the North Hall is where more of the automation stuff was located and they had SPS representatives there and they were running some talks on a side stage.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Nice SPS means PLC.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: I just don't know how to say the full programmable logic controller in german is going to take me a while because I can speak spanish and that german shit is hard yeah because I did was a lot of like uh, machining and those sorts of um machines which obviously have a lot of automation and then the automation around it.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So machine tending and all kinds of technologies right, a lot of ro, robot arms.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: But our stuff, like control stuff, plc stuff, components that we build into our things, or your guys's stuff is well, she does robots too sps is yeah, sps is kind of the closest thing, I think, for that exact niche.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there isn't like automate also kind of quite a bit you know, introducing automation to manufacturers, and then there's different like packaging shows and this and that.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So I think SPS kind of possibly fills a little bit of a void that we had here on this side of the ocean.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: That sounds great.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be a fun.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, last year I got to go to Hanover, mesa, like the big conference.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: That was like a dream of mine and it was great because it was Phoenix Contact and Siemens like fighting for me to go on their dime.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: And I picked the best package and it was Phoenix Contact.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Sorry, Siemens.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: That's dope.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It was such a cool show.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Next year just go on the other one's dime.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: Just kidding, but seriously.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: People even had like Equal opportunity, right, let's give them a chance.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: They had special Pumas that were Siemens Pumas.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, I want that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: With like the dark blue and like the light green they have.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: It was the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally color schemed yeah.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I really like the trend it's like teal.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: It's beautiful color-schemed.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like the trend of like it's like teal, it's beautiful.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Dplan had those red and black Nikes, I think, and Harding also.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: They have shoes.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Well, we got our purple.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: We gotta get you a pair of our purple Automation Ladies.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, a shirt and everything and a hat.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: But like I want to comment that that like it costs a little bit more money to make all your plastic a blue hue like this, but it's worth it.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Like that brand, everyone knows what this is.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: It's elegant as hell.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, those are beautiful colors like and that's, and that's just a little bit of extra money to make your grey like blue.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: That's it and we love this crap yeah, I'm gonna throw in one more anecdote here.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Allie, when I was crossing the border from Seattle to Vancouver via car, at the time I didn't have my green card, but I had like a paper I could use.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: It was called a parole document.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: They really like to call immigrants, aliens and parolees.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: It's oh god, I've been on parole okay I had to go inside the office both times to get background checked and all this kind of stuff and just the stark difference between the rundown everything was brown and tan and nobody was happy to be there us side of it coming in versus the blue cherry, everyone was really nice.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Uh, canada side coming in, it changes your mindset, it matters yeah, it does.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Your environment matters.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: You know, I like natural light, like the colors that you have to endure looking at um or the lack of color I care what color my panduit is, I care what color my ethernet cables are, and people are like no one's ever gonna see that ever.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm like that's true but you care and that's what matters, and you spend a lot of time in the panels.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: It's just my art, yeah, red plastic, I believe that.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: So we accidentally so remember during the like famine of freaking supply chain.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Um, we would buy crap from mcmaster car and we're just like we just need gray terminal box, we don't care.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: And they would ship us red ones and we're like, holy, we don't have time to switch these out, so we just used them.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: We're like, well, it's technically 120 volts, so we're going to go for it.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: You had to do what you had to do.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: During that, I had to throw all my standards out the window, and so I had Schneider, I had Siemens, I had ABB, like whatever.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: And you know, thank goodness, I had an amazing controls team that could figure all that out and get all the GSD files and, you know, talk to every little thing.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: That's integration for real.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: You had to do it.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: You had to do it, you had to do it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's, and people are always like, like, yeah, when they're I had nikki sending me jumpers and then we get the wrong jumpers I mean a different jumper set and I'm like shit, not 6.2 millimeters, 8.2 millimeters people think that you know a controls engineer has to have something on their resume that said they've worked on every platform that they're going into and it's like no engineers new yeah that's just like a mean thing to require.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: Be like okay, so we want someone that's a hundred years old, like who's gonna do that?
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Be like oh yeah, I worked on plc5 and slick and uh micrologics and uh control logics and schneider we're gonna start interviewing some of these folks that were around during the early.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Oh shit, I love that that is epic.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I heard frank.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: I heard Frank was talking about working Like he was the kid right, the like kid for the guys in 1977 when he graduated college.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: He was the kid like intern working for the three guys that were like basically implementing PLC one and so they were taking all the calls.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: So that is epic shit to me, even though it's Rockwell, I don't care.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: That is historical, epic epicry.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: If that's about it absolutely.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I want to hear all the stories.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when he came to visit, we talked about that too, because I was always the youngest too, and it happened within the last like few years that I'm like the old lady now, like I was always the youngest on every team I was on.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: Me and Nikki are old now.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Let's hear about your beginnings, alicia.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: How did you get into controls engineering and you know, tell us kind of how you got to be where you are.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically I was a nerd in school.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I was like an athlete and a nerd.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I played soccer and I was like I have to have a 4.0.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And you know it was just important to me and I just was good at math and science and loved it and so I had a chemistry teacher and he like it.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: You should do chemical engineering because you make more money, because you could do chemistry, but it's going to be hard to find a job and you know you want to be comfortable in life, that's a good teacher Okay.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and so I was like, okay, cool, I'm going to do it.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So then it was like that was it?
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Like I was going to be a chemical engineer.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I ended up, you know, going off to University of Washington, graduating and getting my first job down in Texas for Schreiber Foods, which they do like off-brand cheese, private label cheese and I was like a production supervisor.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: So I just wanted a job out of school.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: And food is relatable.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: So I like food because I can talk to people.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Well, obviously, we love food, we love cookies, we can talk to our family, we can talk to our family and be like I'm making cheese for a living.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Like they know what he's talking about.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: What we actually do with that, exactly, exactly.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: But that was wild, being like 22 and like having 30 people report to you and you don't know anything about anything.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: And we were starting up a new shredded cheese production line and so you know, you're writing SOPs for the first time, you're trying to get the equipment running successfully, changeovers, all that kind of stuff.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: So then I was like, well, I need to get into engineering and I don't really like this.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So I went over to Daisy Brand.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: They recruited me and I went over to be kind of like a liaison between ops and engineering.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: But the engineers just kind of was like, oh she's good, you know, we should pull her over.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And I lucked out, I had these two guys, tom Lambert and Tom Larkowski, that took me under their wing and taught me everything.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: So I was, you know, it was Wonderware.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: It was, you know, some slick control logics.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It was Toshiba BFDs, we were still doing like control net and they, they just taught me everything from the ground up and gave me the whole cottage cheese process.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: So it was a brand new product for them then.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: And I got to run the whole dang thing like from scratch, like we were sketching out isometric drawings for sanitary piping.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, working with control panel designers to get my control panels built, overseeing all the contractors and then programming everything and commissioning it.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And I just remember, like the first we were making cottage cheese, the owner of Daisy was sitting next to me and I'm like gosh, I hope my sequences run right Like I was so nervous and everything worked great.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: So that just gave me that foundation of like controls engineers are more than just programming.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: They size heat exchangers, they size valves, they do everything.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And that's where me and Allie have a lot of similarities.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: We're process controls engineers at the end of the day, like we're chemical engineers, right.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So we have to know all of that, we have to know what works.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: So that kind of built my foundation and my love for automation.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: So then I needed to move back up to Washington because my niece was born and I wanted to be a part of her life.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So I became like a project engineer at a pancake factory and they were making brownies and pancakes and it always smelled really good, but so I was the only engineer and in charge of the capital plan for the plant, basically so installing, you know, packaging lines to increase throughput, putting in a new shortening system, those sorts of things.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: I still got to dabble in controls, although we had like integrators or vendors do a lot of it.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: But I would come in and like fix it to get it over the finish line and help maintenance, you know, anytime they needed to get in the controls or add a new recipe, that sort of thing, and then just kind of bopped around as a project engineer for a few different companies all food and Bev and then ultimately landed at Chobani in Twin Falls, idaho.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: So it's the world's largest yogurt factory in the US I, I love yogurt.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: It might be the world, yeah, so it was a brand new factory with a bunch of new production lines, so I got in early there as well.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: So it was I mean, shabani's a startup.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: At the end of the day, it's still a private company and so there were like four of us and then ultimately they were like the VP of engineering, who's been my long term mentor, was like you should be a leader, alicia.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I think you're ready.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm like no, I just want to be the kick ass controls engineer.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And one of my coworkers who actually has worked for me twice now he worked for me at Redwood as well Like we would just like race to see who was the fastest programmer.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: And like if anybody would come into the office when we had to go look for an issue in the plant, it'd be like Dan and Alicia.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: They would come to us and it was like who's the better controls engineer?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I was so competitive.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So then I they asked him if he'd be okay If I was the boss.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: He was like heck yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be the boss, like I just want to be an engineer and let Alicia do it, let Alicia deal with the BS, so that kind of story of our side I know.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So that was the leadership side and I made mistakes.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I I foolishly thought that, uh, all engineers should all be kick-ass programmers and you know, everybody should fit into this mold and come to find out that's not true and you just have to figure out what people's skills are.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: So I had somebody that was not a great programmer but he was, like, awesome at electrical.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: So I figured out how to like, utilize him and make him grow.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I was holding him back by trying to push him into this weird mold.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: So those are some of the early lessons that helped me understand.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: You have to meet people where they're at, and I love leading people.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That's amazing, yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: So then just kind of did a couple other things to get some different industries under my belt.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I did um walmart e-commerce.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I thought I was being hired by jet, but then, like, jet got bought.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: So then I'm switching bait, yeah, and I'm like freaking walmart, I've always been like, and so now I'm in bettenfell ark it's this big name I would take that job in a second, like that's a big ass name.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: So I was really surprised, like how much I liked Bentonville.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it was a really cute place to visit and they have such cool accommodations like fancy, like employee stores and gyms and really cool stuff.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: And it was cool learning the the logistics fulfillment center side, I mean the the plc part of it is actually pretty boring.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: The the complexity is warehouse management system and figuring out where everything needs to go the barcode scans and all that.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: It's a specialty skate out basically exactly so.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Did that, went to medical device startup for a while, which was cool because I got to travel to europe a lot because we were buying a bunch of equipment from Switzerland and Italy, did that diabetes testing devices and then went over to Redwood and so that's where I was for the last four years starting up a bunch of production lines for Redwood.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I was the first 50 employees, first controls person, built a team and by the time I left I had built four factories in three and a half years on my controls design so really proud of that and a team of 30 people, so really incredible team that I had there.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It was great and I miss them every day.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I have like a group text because I miss being able to collaborate with them, because now I'm back on my own.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I miss being able to like collaborate with them because now I'm back on my own.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I'm the.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Basically I got hired to do the integration and controls for Terraform which we're basically making.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: We're basically making a system that will take solar to create hydrogen via electrolysis and then direct air capture to make CO2 and then combine the two to go through a reactor and make methane, so natural green methane, and so, yeah, we're building that up.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: I was wondering where the carbon came from, so CO2.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah God, I was like how are we making fuel OK got it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to ultimately make other things as well, but that's cool, so that's really incredible.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: I'm kind of being the only engineer here and bouncing ideas off myself.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I have a great network.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: What do they do?
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: I got a tour of that place.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: That was cool.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: She might be frozen.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: We have joining the party.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Courtney Bernadette, sorry I'm late.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: You froze a little.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Alicia.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Courtney Fernandez.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Hey, courtney, sorry I'm late.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: You froze a little, Alicia, but now let's get you back.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, cool, yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: So I was asking with Terraform, like what you're doing is incredible if it succeeds on a mass scale.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and Redwood Materials is also.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I was going to say you've been referring to it as Redwood.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I'm sure many people know what it is, but what they do, what did those factories and those lines that you started up do?
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we were taking in lithium ion batteries and of any form, so laptop batteries cell phones brushes, yeah, up to big Tesla battery packs and battery packs from lots of cars, disassembling and recycling those materials and then creating new battery materials as well, like copper foil, cathode active material.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: So basically trying to create that circular supply chain, because we were also taking in production scrap from like Panasonic and then delivering them copper foil.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, really, really cool industry to be in because we have to figure out how to deal with all these end-of-life batteries melting batteries oh yeah there were some crazy things giant, giant kilns, lots of batteries so cool, but it also sounds like so much like toxic stuff going on.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: I'm sure there's like safety.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you didn't ask your burner for that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I know it's a very toxic process to like make it in the first place and to recycle it and all that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: So I'm curious actually about like all the I mean just chemical safety that you have to participate in over there.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Something that I was really proud of is that you know, if you looked at our stacks, we were cleaning that exhaust.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we had various pieces of process equipment to make sure what we're sending you know you have to.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: You know there's air permits and things like that.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Depends on where you are right.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: It, it totally does.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: You're in the south, I may not care.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of businesses go to go to places that don't care.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: We're in some, yeah, if you're in california, you're going to do it.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Right, you have to.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: I remember the coffee industry.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: Different places needed an afterburner, other places we would just let the coffee dust just out into the atmosphere.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: I think new hampshire doesn't care, but you go to boston or massachusetts and they're like you absolutely need to burn all that.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So it really is like state, local government dependent on how much they care about, like, your emissions dude, this is kind of unrelated, but I read an article once about like the people that live by the sriracha factory and how like your eyes burn.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: I bet that's rough in the air or whatever.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Have you ever been?
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: I went to the tabasco factory.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: What is that?
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: Like some island in in, uh, louisiana, and in the parking lot you're like damn, just to get in there.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: You're like like damn, just to get in there.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: You're like they don't necessarily regulate how much like capsaicin you put in the air.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: It's a lot because I'm putting it in barrels.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: It's delicious but like it is a spicy parking lot.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It is a spicy parking lot so, courtney, I know you relate because I think you've been out um you want to tell us what you've been up to today.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, putting out fires in some cases that I started myself.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So a day in the life of a people's integrator.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I think trying to play business owner and engineer in the same day is not something I would recommend anybody do.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: I've had several moments where I've opened a panel on a low voltage control system that I'm doing.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: It's full of 16 gauge wire.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I'm going to fire myself as the electrician on this project.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I've just been troubleshooting a system that should be done by now and it just keeps rearing its head.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Well, we're sorry.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Sorry to hear that, but welcome to the support group.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say I'm very happy to be here, but I'm a terrible programmer.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Or I said programmer I meant electrician, because my mind got all jumbled.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I'm a terrible electrician, I'm a good programmer I actually I'm a bad programmer and a pretty good electrician.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: That that's nice.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: I feel that way yeah.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure which one I'm good at anymore.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I have glasses that I dropped and, like I can't see where I dropped them now because they're my glasses, so that's having an effect on all of it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Another, another Hispanic last name.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: That is not hispanic person.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny oh, we got married in also while I was at red gold, we made a seafood sauce and the horse rats are in your eyes from the parking lot.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I bet, like, what about a wasabi factory, you know?
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: Or a horseradish sauce factory?
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, um, I mean onions are bad enough, I thought.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: But like that doesn't go into the parking lot from what I could bear, mace that's a factory like, and regular mace capsaicin spray is a factory like someone's got to put that pepper spray.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: Where do you make pepper spray?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: somebody's doing that on a scale or they're just like oops, they're actually the worst thing I've ever experienced was, um, there was actually a factory behind the one that I was working for but they were doing, uh, dog food like packaging dog food, but it smelled horrific and I was in the rodding meet.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: I was in my first trimester with my first kid actually, and I the company I was working for like put text on the garbage can lids and then like inspected the text on it and everything.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: But when they were, the factory behind him was doing the dog food.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, do you guys actually deal with the trash too, because this is terrible?
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: All right, they informed me that no, the other factory is processing dog food and it doesn't smell good.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: But when you're pregnant like that's.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: That's gotta be rough, that was rough extra sensitive very kimchi unfriendly.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: Like very quickly yeah, so much good what's your favorite food?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Alicia, our guest today, my favorite food.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I like Indian curry of any sort is my favorite.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I love spicy so all this spicy stuff just makes me hungry.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I don't want it.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: In my eyes, though, because we hadn't gotten a hold on scheduling at all and we were just pre-recording.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Um, we ate in probably like half of the first season episodes, at least the one that never aired.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that, like one of us was eating dinner mostly me, yep.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: So we've stopped.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: Like what is that?
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Chicken wings.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Like what is that?
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I was honestly gonna bring a big bag onto this one, but I didn't well, you would be welcome to it, would?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: it would be on brand it would be on brand.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: We have to live like yeah right and like yeah we're busy how many, yeah, how many people like really do have these extra hours every week.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: We have to make the hour or whatever, and it helps that, it's fun, because I think otherwise we would have quit by now.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Have all of you guys had a run with sales engineering already?
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I've never, because I feel like that was.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I'm constantly just eating while I drive to the next place.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't remember it was the last time I sat down and ate but yeah, like as a manager of a department, I definitely felt like I wasn't gonna leave, so I was gonna eat there and just, yeah, not.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: But that was as probably one of the few healthy like leaders in our, in this group of four here, in terms of somebody that's grown a team mentored people.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Uh, how do you try to have like a good culture from the top down as a leader like that for things, for instance, like taking your lunch right or like because we all know, like this, this job has a lot of pressures and time.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You know it's just constant so I I didn't do a good job of showing my people how you should act, because I was literally on call online at late at night.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: You know I'd go home from work and still be working until midnight and then be the one to answer the phone like in the middle of the night.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: So, but my team, very much like, would encourage me Alicia, take a break.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: They try to take things off my plate because they cared about me and trusted me.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: So that's really what it is is like building that transparency and trust, and I will say that I've been told from various leaders that they don't like my leadership style, but it's very effective if you look at the proof.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: And so I get told all the time like you have the most highly effective team, the most collaborative team, but it's like intimidating to other leaders.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: It's really really, really, really weird and I would love to unpack that.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: But to me it's like you've got to give.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: They don't want to do the work that you just showed them they're going to have to do.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Probably I'm motivated to be good, do good, work, work, and what I do is make sure they feel heard.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: They I know what their barriers are try to like, shelter them from all the BS from the upper management and just let them go do what they're good at.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And so I want it to be where they can come up to me and tell me anything, even if it's like oh, I'm late or oh, I screwed up.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And that's the culture I admit when I'm wrong.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I want them to admit when they're wrong, you know.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: And so then they want to work hard for me and.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: I care about them outside of work and I want to just make sure they grow, and that's the biggest thing.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And engineers need to know what they're working on.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: For some reason, some leaders like to just give them little bits and pieces and say go have at it and, plus, you have to do it really fast and really, really cheap.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And if you know like, okay, well, we have to come in under this target to make money and that's why these pressures are here and they're going to ask you to do this really challenging thing, that doesn't make sense.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: But then they explain why.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Then it's like okay, I can get behind this, I can do this really weird thing, but it's for the business and, for whatever reason, some leaders don't like to share all that context and background information.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: That's incredible to hear.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I, one of my favorite and best leaders when I was in sales was a gentleman named Craig Tamita.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: He's he's retired now, but he's down in SoCal.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: He I've worked with Craig actually, yeah, purposely like this was amazing to me.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I think he was like my third manager of my career, maybe, and like he would do things like hey, I want everybody, or we got mandated to read some book.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: He's like I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you the notes that I think are really important so that if you don't have time to read some book, he's like I'm going to give you the notes that I think are really important so that if you don't have time to read it, like here it is.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Or he would fill out reports for us.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: He would take care of busy work.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: And then he was like super clear with his action items to us and like what he was asking and why.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: And it was just like it was so refreshing and his rationale was like yeah, I want you to be empowered to do your job, not doing a bunch of BS that like hinders you, and my job is to facilitate and exactly know what the blockers are, how to help them be successful, make sure they're clear on what they're supposed to be doing and then get the training that's required.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: If you're lacking somewhere, right Like that's to me is leadership.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: And the other thing is like I don't ask people to do something that I've not done or won't do.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Now, as I get, you know, as I get older, there's, you know, as, as things change and we're moving more towards scripts, script-based programming, things like that, I don't have time to stay up on everything, obviously.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: So you know, I have to be okay with not being able to do it, but they know that I could do it, like if I had the time and I wanted to go be an engineer not be the leader anymore like I could go figure it out, and they know that.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: So it's hard to get a technical leader in this space.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I I've only worked for maybe like two in my entire career that actually did patrols and automation.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: So you work for mechanical engineers or chemical engineers and they don't really understand your world.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: We're just like this weird black box.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: So you know, I think one of the reasons why I was successful as a leader is because I am technical and I can really understand the challenges.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: I think it's important to be willing to do the work that you're asking other people to do yeah, and give them that confidence.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: You know that, like you're not just telling them to do something that you think is going to work, like you already know how this stuff works.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: You've been there, you've done it.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Now you're handing off, you know, the next generation that knowledge.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: I actually used to.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: I was a Sparky no, I still am a Sparky, but like I was a Sparky doing like a mechanical engineering type job and like it's not what I studied but I can figure things out really quick.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: So I was out turning wrenches, you know, with the mechanics and that to your point, you know.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I had other leaders telling me I don't really like this leadership style because you're that's the those are the most expensive bolts that are turned out.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: They're like this leadership style because those are the most expensive bolts that are turned out there, the ones that you're turning.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: And my stance was always I can't understand what I'm telling them to do if I'm not out here breaking it and doing it myself.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: I'm just basically throwing hopes and dreams out into the ether and praying for a machine to come out.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Without micromanaging you truly, without micromanagingaging, you truly don't know how hard the task is that they're going through, unless you have some semblance of understanding.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: So what's the largest team you've ever had working under you?
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: it was the recent one of 30 people, so that that was.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: That was new previously.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Previously it was like 12.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: Those are both huge Like what is?
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: what is your approach to managing that many engineers out of curiosity Like do you just meet with everybody frequently or do you have like really large group discussions?
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: What we ended up having to do is basically take the engineers that wanted to grow into people leaders and promote them, because there's no way I was going to be able to 100% meet with everybody.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: And then even engineers that didn't want to be managers but they could at least look after another engineer, there would be like pairings like that.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: So, you know, I kind of had an informal mentoring program, so everybody that was below, like a senior engineer, was paired up with a mentor, so they had somebody to go to.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, I mean, my leadership style is also to like know what's going on in the day to day.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: So that one on ones.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, we need to do them because some people only like to really talk about things that are going on in those spaces, but I always kind of know what's going on day-to-day, but not in a micromanaging way Like oh cool, like look at that win or hey, tell me what's going on, you know, trying to uncover those problems or issues or blockers.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's you.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Just you get close to your team, you have those conversations.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: So do the engineers stepping into mentor roles?
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: do they usually do so voluntarily or so when it was just like mentorship, I just kind of talked to them and people were really excited about it, Cause we just had new, you know green engineers that were excited to learn.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: And I found that not all individual contributors want to be a manager because they don't want to deal with the meetings and the BS, but they like to mentor a lot.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So that was not a problem getting people to sign up for mentorship.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: One of the first times I ever did a review on another person, because I haven't done that very much in my life, but I was a manager at one point and I had two people under me and, like one of them, uh, it was like the first time I'm doing a review ever in my life.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: And this guy cries oh no.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Did you feel like it was warranted, or was he just sensitive?
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: It kind of just turned into like my dad was really hard on me and I'm like I am not a psychologist, I am not qualified, I'm not qualified, oh no, allie.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: So I've always been traumatized.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: I don't really want to be a manager for like a million reasons, and that's part of it.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: It's just like I have so much of my own baggage that, like I don't know how to be a therapist.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like a therapist?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: sometimes yeah, I mean some of it is listening and and being there for your team when they're going through some struggles.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: But you do have to get comfortable delivering bad news and delivering tough feedback and in fact, when you have good engineers, they're going to ask for it.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I had some incredible engineers that I didn't really have anything negative other than just some really chintzy stuff, and they're like no, give me more feedback.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I want feedback and I'm like well, we're talking about how you can go to the next level, but as far as like where you're at, you're doing great, all right.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: We heard a little quick or I don't know story the other day from one of our other ladies she's got some younger employees from the newer generation younger generation and she was giving some constructive feedback and I was like oh no, I think I'm doing fine.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Gen Z and she like continued to kind of press the point and he said that he felt like this conversation was demoralizing.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And so clearly like the delivery needs to be adjusted.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: Oh God.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Delivery when the message is just like no, I actually disagree with you.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: A little cringe and that's yeah, that's not going to work.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: How are we going to do that?
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how are we going to do that with them?
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: They're just like no, I don't feel good.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not making any judgments, but I am also feel wholly unprepared to manage.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: anybody like that isn't a millennial, I would say.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: Feeling super warm and fuzzy was never part of controls engineering when we were coming up, so that's the part that we're just struggling with.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: For them, it's just like I'm not going to make this super nice because that's not what's actually going to get you where you're supposed to go.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: That's not this kind of job.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I actually made a guy cry too, and it was one of those where he shouldn't have cried Like I didn't do anything wrong.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: He was just really upset and he went off and told everybody that I'm such a mean manager and this, that and the other and he needed a couple days off to heal from me making him cry oh, we're live.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna make the comments, but he's healing from something else.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: A case of something else.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: This was a good one, where I had a, there was a man that decided to tell me that the reason why he cried and the reason why we're having such issues is probably my leadership style, like it's probably my fault that I'm not approaching him in the right way.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: So he moved over to somebody else's team and that guy got to to lead him and in one of the performance review meetings he was like that is one of the most difficult people I've ever had to work for me and I felt so vindicated.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: Validated Hell.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: Mansplained to me oh my gosh Like nope, he's impossible for everyone.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Like no, he's just a problem.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: We've got some really cool comments, so I'm going to throw a few up on the screen here.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I really like this Empowerment is the greatest motivator.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can wholeheartedly nod to that one, thank you.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you, jackie.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: We really appreciate that we're having fun with this.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Look, vlad is here from Manufaktur.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Hi Vlad.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Hey, Vlad, You've been a guest there, right?
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Alicia, I'm going on in November, but we've caught up when I'm one before.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Exciting, that was my first podcast.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jason Jones says Allie going off would probably make me cry too.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: I've heard that Because back in the day I was the nicest person and now today I'm like told multiple times that I do make people cry and that, like my energy is so intense that they don't want it's not because I'm mean, it's because they don't want to let me down and they truly like, like, like what I, what I, what I stand for, and so if I do give them like any kind of negative feedback, they think that that's really bad and like I don't want to hurt anybody and I don't even feel that kind of negative stuff towards people, but like I get it now, like I'm not my, my, my, uh, my moods, and like my ability to control my emotions is, like, really important because I can hurt others in ways that I never thought about and I don't want that, because people look up to you, yeah, look up to you, and that's yeah, that's a responsibility I need to accept and just be like I can't be right, how I used to be, and just freak out about anything, because that's people are gonna get really damaged by that and that that's not fair.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Um which is crazy.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: They're going to feel it, yeah.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Your stress, your people feel your cortisol Yep.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I was uh, I was recommending to everyone earlier today to watch this like two hour YouTube video on neuroscience.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I'll make a post about it on LinkedIn.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I put my summary together so it's like most people probably will not watch this, but you have to make your TLDR.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, I have a TLDR list, but one of those is exactly that that your cortisol is contagious, Both from just kind of like being around people that are really stressed.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: If you have any kind of EQ, you will pick up on that.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: But secondly, it's a hormone that leaks.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: It goes from your skin to people that are in proximity with you and it will be absorbed by their skin.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: So even if you're a leader that's very good at hiding your stress from your people, or you think that you're doing that, may still very much be on committing like pheromones, yep yeah, and I think you're really guilty when you're running late for school.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: You feel stressed out that you're late for school I always feel like I could.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: Since I was a little kid, I could feel what others felt and so I always was like, well, I'm gonna say what is going to make them not sad, cause, like I can tell and that was when I was really little I was like why did that kid say such a mean thing when it's really obvious that, like this other kid is in pain?
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: And so I could just notice that when I was really small, like less than 10 and like other kids just don't see it.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: And even when grow up they don't see that shit.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: So I don't know, it's just a eq and some kids like is kind of high and mine for some reason haunts me it seems like now they're doing a lot of uh like mindfulness stuff.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: That's good, it's like way more than when I was going through school and, uh, if there was any skill I could give my kids that I don't feel like I was taught at their age was like emotional regulation, because if you try to analyze something before you've emotionally regulated, you'll never get to actually yeah, you got to go be mad somewhere, keep analyzing and never actually calm down.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: So you have to regulate first and I hope I hope the next generation has learned that like way earlier than me.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I'm almost 40 and I just figured it out like I think honestly also our profession does have some, if you're not conscious about it health hazards oh yeah obviously there's safety hazards, but then just general kind of health.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I remember so I, you know, started my career in the sales engineering and I just remember looking at a lot of the people that I was looking up to professionally and when I looked at them like health-wise, I was like I'm not looking up to that, like that's not what I'm looking forward to.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I don't, uh, I don't want that for myself.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I, michael we made another great comment here something about sitting on a bucket laptop, balanced on a trash can, troubleshooting a down machine at 3am.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: It toughens you up quickly, it does, and if you're not careful it will also run you down pretty quickly.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, at least I'm gonna go ahead.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say I'm on like the recovery of being that person for 20 years.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: To be very honest, like my friends would always be like what in the heck?
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Because I'm getting calls fixing the yogurt plant.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: You know, know all the time it took me until maybe a few years ago to even start shutting off things when I go on vacation.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: This is just who I am.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm majorly defined by work, but I need to work on that.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: So now in my current role, we have really good work-life balance.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: I'm loving LA, like it's just beautiful and I'm learning who I am.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: But that's weird too.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Like what do I like outside of work?
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: So I started like junk journaling and I'm having a blast.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: But it's just, it's really strange.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: I just put my whole soul into it for so long and I was worried about my health very much.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Like way too stressed out and you get like a little a weird heart palpitation.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: You're like, oh god, I'm having a heart attack and it's hard to find in women, you know, it's just uh, yeah I started that at age 30 working on the mindfulness, yeah or I thought I was having a heart attack every day until a doctor said that's not what that is, it was panic attacks, right, yeah?
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: He was like can you just make a less stressful life?
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: And I was like no, no.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: No, my therapist and my psychiatrist try that on me every time.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Why don't you just not stress?
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: Can't you just have a chill life?
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: And with explicit detail, paint me a picture of what that even looks like, so that I can copy it.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Or like can you come into my life and start doing a lot of things for me so that I could copy it?
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Or like can you come into my life and start doing a lot of things for me so that I can now Can you change all my childhood.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Can you take care of all my dependents?
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: That would be great, so funny.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I also am kind of currently entering a recovery for my last three years of sprinting and lots kind of like lots of associated things.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: And yeah especially early on, when I had just had kids and they were really young, right, I had a baby and a toddler and people are like oh, make sure to take some time for you.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: It's super easy said than done and people are like oh, make sure to take some time for you.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Can you come babysit for me then?
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: and like buy me a gift card and go somewhere or do something, or just let me take a bath like one of the funniest things I ever heard.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: Somebody said, hey, I keep hearing sleep when the baby sleeps and it's like sure, and I'll do laundry when the baby does.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: And it's like sure and I'll do laundry when the baby does washes, dishes oh, will you pay the bills when the baby pays the bill?
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: yeah, I'll pay the bills in the baby.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: My baby's first male was a bill from the hospital in which she was born.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Of course, course it's so fucked up Like oh, I got to frame this your first piece of mail.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, multi-thousand dollar bill to a few-day-old baby.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: Like I feel like that's so but she was a preemie, right.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: That was why it cost money.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: That's stupid.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Big NICU bill yeah.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: So what do you guys do when you know that's happening?
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Like I've just been going to eat food or take a shower or something, If I know I'm getting to that music crying music.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: So else my daughter has this book, um, uh, parker's big feelings, it's called and this girl, parker, has a terrible day at school.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: She like falls on the playground and she spills juice on herself and she's new at the school and she misses her friend and, uh, she's upset when she gets home and her mom advises her to breathe, exercise and then read.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I think was her like activity to calm down her big feelings.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: And I was like you know what I?
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I can get on board with this manual.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: It's very short, it's very easy to read, it's practical, fairly easy to implement.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: She went to go ride her bike for like 15 minutes, so I've been trying to do that Breathe, get a little bit of exercise and then try to do something.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: Breathing is huge, it will go away, but when it's there like it's big.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: So you got to walk away Deliberately and just so you gotta walk away deliberately.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Did you ever have to make one of your 30?
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: engineers go out and breathe.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: Yes, there were a lot of breakdowns.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: You just gotta get them out, get them away, yeah, like so team building stuff.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I have a colleague at quobeam, um his he used to be he did improv theater or something and when we have our off sites, uh, he led this exercise once that like improv verse do before they practice or something.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it was just about this like whooshing like good energy to people in a circle and it took maybe five minutes, um, but it really brought like it just brought a whole new bright, positive energy to the whole room.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: It was impossible not to feel better after doing that and it was also like a team camaraderie, team building type um activity.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Have you done any kind of off like team building activities that you had to put together for your team um off-site at any of your jobs or anything like that?
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: yeah, yeah, my, my favorite one is sending the team.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: When I was at Chobani to the escape room and they got stuck basically trying to recalibrate, there was this little tabletop scale and they tried to recalibrate it and that wasn't even part of the journey at all.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: Like it was wild that that's hilarious, because you put different things on there and be like I know what this weighs, like wow, I know this is the four grand.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: It's really important yeah, I feel like karaoke is a good way of doing it.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Uh, we did a lot of trivia.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: We did a lot of trivia.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I like karaoke too, yeah karaoke we like, or I mean, we only started trying it recently, but it just forces you to be really uncomfortable with people and you get to like laugh at it together and have fun, and as long as I think you're with people that have the capacity to like be kind and have fun, um, you'll break down a lot of barriers that way capacity to like be kind and have fun.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: Um, you'll break down a lot of barriers that way.
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: People told me, like when I was singing, like when I opened, you know, for like Traceroute cons, like night, that that after they saw me suck, that they felt like.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: They felt like we nobody had to take anything seriously anymore.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: So it's just like this isn't serious Because it's not, it's freaking karaoke.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: It's not serious.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: I feel like people miss the point of karaoke when they go up and they're really good.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: Stop that You're going to suck.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: That's the point of this whole thing.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: Is that like you sound like crap?
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but David is good, david is not allowed to open everything.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: No, he's not allowed to open everything.
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: David is way too good for karaoke.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: He's really good though.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: He puts on a good show.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: He himself says amazing karaoke singer Dave.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: It is kind of intimidating If you have a published album.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: You don't qualify as a karaoke singer.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: You're a real singer.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: But we need both.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: We're going to all be like like oh my god, this person's amazing.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: And everyone else?
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: We're just like well, what did you expect?
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: like, and you just clap anywhere, you're good job you suck like it's amazing to have an amazing singer at karaoke.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying don't open, because you're like you have to go after.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Nobody will want to go.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, touché, as the closer or as the middle, like just any other position other than like the first one.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: That's so much fun, we should tell everybody that they should come to OT Skate-a-Con next year so they can do karaoke with us.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, I already bought my ticket.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: Boop, boop.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Aw yeah, it really like that was a level of also because I we had kind of no idea what to expect, like how it would actually play out with the attendees, like just the group of people that we had was really across the board, like all different positions, all different levels, um, kind of different corners of our little world in the industry, and I thought it was really incredible, like how the room came together, even those that didn't end up going out to karaoke with us or whatever.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit, just, alicia, from like your side of things, what was that like?
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Like, did you get?
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: What were you expecting, and what was it that you found there that made you want to come back?
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know what to expect and you know, I, I, I didn't like I had no clue and I was kind of, yeah, I didn't plan on going Cause I just, you know, didn't have time or whatever.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: But then Josh is like Alicia, you need to go, I'm going, I'm speaking, you should go.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: And so then he convinced me to message you guys and be like do you have a spot?
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I want to come.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: So I mean, it was so incredible, and Dave Grills, one of my people that worked for me at Redwood, also came and we just had the greatest time it was.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: It was everybody just came together.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Everybody was so supportive and you know we talked about it a lot at the conference.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: There were people that had never spoken before but they have lots of cool things to say because they've been in this industry and they have a lot of knowledge.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: And they got up there and everybody was just like woo yeah, cheering them on, like nobody felt bad.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: It kind of helped people grow and it was just such a good community that I felt like you guys built up and everybody brought their a game to like network and care about each other and I just I want to do that all the time.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: It was so cool, such good energy.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: Thank you, it was good energy.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you, allie, for coming up with that Like that.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: It is really Allie's brainchild.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: I know operations wise like some of us, kind of boots on the ground were a little bit more visible, but this was like entirely Allie's brainchild.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I know operations wise like some of us kind of boots on the ground were a little bit more visible, but this was like entirely Allie's concept from start to finish and it could grow into anything.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've been kind of clear, even with automation ladies from the start.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Like mostly our rules are no assholes allowed, like it's for everyone.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: People think it's whatever that, that it's for ladies, but it will stick with the name Assholes by ladies.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: The main rule is no assholes on Automation Ladies or in our community.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: You can see yourself out.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of other places for you to go where that's appreciated.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, there's asshole culture everywhere.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: We just don't need that.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Yes there is, I was telling alicia earlier you, if that's what you like, and I probably said it again like I want all the constructive feedback, just please be kind about it like I want to hear it, but I will cry if you're going to be mean about it if you don't give me a compliment sandwich there's no need to be mean about it.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: That's the thing I don't even need the compliment sandwich.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: You could just, like you know, say it like you don't think I'm dumb yeah, can you give me some credit for anything?
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: like did I?
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: do anything, right, all right, uh, mean poppy's here, he really wants to.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, david darcia, yeah, okay, uh, he says juan pino, one of our other wonderful speakers the only asshole, yes, juan pino's, the only asshole allowed.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: We do love one.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: We love you, juan it's because he breaks tequila he's a self-identified asshole not actually.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Well, doesn't everyone have that one like at least one asshole friend that you love, even though he's an asshole?
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, she right, that's a unisex term in my yes, emily, just kidding, like at least one asshole friend that you love, even though he's an asshole.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: Yes, right, that's a unisex term, in my opinion, emily just kidding, I'm an asshole.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: I'm an asshole too.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: I love her, but damn.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I just try to keep the ratio down below 5% of the time.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I have a designated one in my life.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: It's one of my husband's friends from high school, so I've known him since like for too long, and when he comes to my house I have to be his guest.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: That's how I've figured out a way to make that relationship work.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: But learning to read people, knowing what their strengths are, knowing like things that you're not going to change about them that also applies in the workplace situation, right?
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: So, alicia, you said you kind of figured out that you know, instead of trying to make everyone the same, figuring out people's strengths and that's really like, I think, one of the biggest things about like really high performing teams.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: It's it's a puzzle, not you know, I don't know checkers board, where every chart or anything.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that, right?
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's cool.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to determine what things you can work on and grow someone and what things are just part of their nature and then work around it.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: And I think things like behavioral tests, like predictive index and, you know, disc and all of those are actually pretty cool tools for a team.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: If you're willing to like, share the results, because I can give you mine from.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: It was like over 10 years ago, but I can give you mine and it talks about like, oh, alicia doesn't like it when people use jargon that's not common, or when people go too slow and it's like I know I need to work on being patient, but other people need to understand that where I'm coming at it from.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, those tools are really helpful.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just recently did one called the Enneagram.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: But I think as you get older and wiser as well, you kind of realize, like that, reading about yourself, like some of those things may change but some of those things are just realities.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: And like, rather than trying to, I used to try to present myself as like a mold of a person that I was told in college is what people, what employers wanted, right.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: and then now I'm at a point where I'm like here's all of it to go to college or like me to be in all of these like volunteer things.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: Are we faking volunteering like just to get into college, and is that that even like good?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: But that's probably like a crazy thing to go start talking about.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: But yeah, well, we are actually at time, so I'm going to go ahead and throw it over to Alicia one last time.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us where people should be connecting with you, following you, if there's anything coming up that you want us to know about?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: And yeah, all of that good stuff.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Brag about whatever you want and pitch whatever you like.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was kind of in a hole for the last four years just building factories.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: So I'm kind of back out and I'm on LinkedIn pretty actively, so that's probably the best place.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: I love connecting, I love talking about automation stuff, I love answering questions, I love helping people.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: You know, know what's out there and know what's what problems they can run into.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, network with me.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: I'm working on getting a website and all that kind of stuff, but, yeah, I'm just around.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Very cool.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: This was a blast and we look forward to seeing you again next time, because this is definitely not.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we will have you again.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: Please, please, of course, if you allow, joining bye.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: Thanks everyone.