• Job Skills – Part 3: What’s Better, Technical or People Skills?

    Following up on my last couple of blogs about ‘hard’ (technical) versus ‘soft’ (people) skills for junior and intermediate-level job seekers in environmental consulting, I found out some interesting things in my survey of a few senior colleagues. Hopefully, these findings and

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    Job Skills – Part 2:  People Skills

    Last month I reviewed some of the technical skills most sought by employers in the environmental consulting field, specifically for environmental site assessment and remediation. Based on my discussions with colleagues in ownership and senior management positions there were some common

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    Job Skills – Part 1: Technical Skills

    This month I will discuss some of the skills most sought by employers in the environmental consulting field, specifically environmental site assessment and remediation. I surveyed a few colleagues in ownership and senior management positions to see what skill sets they are looking for in potential

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    All I Want for Christmas is a 'Clean' ESA

    For your holiday enjoyment, here is a make believe interview for a Phase One Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) for a remote industrial property somewhere near the North Pole… Assessor: Can you tell me the purpose of this Phase One ESA? Client: Everyone is saying we will be getting a

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    ESA Report Reviews for AESAC Certification

    With AESAC’s fall training course schedule underway, it’s good time to talk about one of the key components for achieving AESAC’s Certified Environmental Site Assessor (CESA) designation – submission of a Phase I ESA report for Certification review. In addition to meeting

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    Can AI Write an ESA Report?

    There’s been a lot of talk recently about AI and Chatbots and whether they will replace living breathing professionals for writing ESA reports. I’ve even heard that ‘Dinosaurs’ (like myself, although I prefer to be labelled as a crocodile) will become obsolete. To test this

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    Getting Paid… or Not

    One of the more distressing events for any business, especially small firms and sole proprietors is the prospect of not getting paid for work you have completed. Late payments from clients are bad enough, but getting stiffed for an invoice is even worse, especially if you have already paid out for

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    Take Me Back, Way Back

    As I creep closer to 40 years in the consulting business, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the way we do things in this industry. Recent conversations and articles I have read, along with a purge of a couple of decades of accumulated office detritus, got me thinking of some of the tasks and

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    To Bid or Not To Bid

    Last month I discussed the process of selecting a consultant, contractor or subconsultant. This month I’ll look at the other side of the equation - how can a consultant determine whether or not to submit a proposal to an RFP/RFQ (Request for Proposal/Quote). Proposal preparation and price

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    Selecting a Supplier

    It’s always surprising how much prices can vary widely when obtaining cost estimates.   Over several decades of consulting I have obtained, reviewed or responded to hundreds of RFP/RFQ (Request for Proposal/Quote) for projects ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few million; and

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