Episode 2: Building Resilient Systems

What this episode covers

Most engineers pick a lane. Natalie Wagner has worked in all of them. Fortune 100 private sector, state government, federal agencies, and her own consulting firm. She's a PE, has a master's in water resources from UAA, and has served as a State Engineer with USDA.And she's spent that expertise on some of the least glamorous, most consequential work in Alaska: rural water systems in communities where the roads aren't wide enough for pickup trucks, oil and gas platform permitting in Cook Inlet, and permafrost engineering on projects where design life has to reckon with ground that might not stay frozen.In this episode, Bill Schnabel sits down with Natalie to talk about what rural Alaska water system design is actually like (and why the textbooks almost completely miss it), the one thing that determines whether a water system survives long after the ribbon cutting, what happens when the ground under a bridge stops being frozen, and the piece of advice she'd give every young engineer in Alaska right now. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to book a flight. 🎙️Come find your people. 👇

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