Overall Story of our lecture:
On September 12, 2012, we were introduced to Guillermo J. Vicens.
He is a Senior Vice President from the company CDM Smith and came to our class to talk about how CDM Smith has many oppurtunities for people who are trying to major in Environmental Engineering.
motto: “listen.think.deliver”
What I learned from the lecture:
About Guillermo J. Vicens:
He is a CDM Smith Senior Vice President and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors and Executive Leadership Team. Also a Group President of the Consulting and Engineering Divisions(responsible for management oversight of nine technical service divisions)
Goals of the company:
– to provide all employees with a resource that would allow them to be active in mapping their career goals and aspiration
– to create a tool that managers and employees could use as the foundations of meaningful discussions around career development
About the CDM Smith Projects:
As of right now, there are five projects that CDM Smith is working on.
They can be categorized into five sections:
(Water, Environment, Transportation, Energy and Facilities)
Water:
1. Important for living and developing (economically, agriculturally, technologically)
2. Solving the problem of water pollution is the key to our better future.
3. Without water, there would be no life.
example: Marina Barrage, Singapore
Comments:
I felt like this project would fit me the most out of any other projects because in Japan, they are experiencing some heavy fresh water loss due to many natural disasters such as typhoons, nuclear power plant malfunction, and tsunamis; and one of the reasons why I wanted to become an environmental engineer was to help Japan with their reconstruction.
Environment:
1. Protecting Air, Land and Water overall
2. As a company, CDM Smith provides program support for Superfund cleanups, redevelop landfill and brownfields into community assets, apply novel techniques for the biodegradation of chlorinated compounds, preserve air quality, build and operate remediations and restoration systems, and restore and protect our fragile ecosystem.
example: Danang Airport, Vietnam
Comments:
From what I have heard, I would love to go to Danang Airport and see what’s different about this airport compare to all other airports that exist in our country. I have seen some airports that uses solar panels to be more conservative and energy efficient but I would like to see how environmental the airport is.
Transportation:
1. Important for linking communities and businesses, developing environmentally sensitive growth strategies, and improving economic prosperity
2. Transportation also helps with spreading information out through transportation.
example: George Bush Turnpike, Texas
Comments:
This is important because it helps people spread the information easier around the country as well as around the world. I feel like this is something we need to do. Share information on how to be more conservative and managing of our energy and environment.
Energy:
1. Because we need so much energy every day, we should be more conservative, managing, and use renewable sources
2. Without any energy, there would be no life and would have an extremely limited life.
example: Catawba County, Biomass
Comments:
I think this is the most important project in the world. As our population increases every single day, the amount of energy needed for people to survive increases. Cutting down trees and burning coals for energies are easy, however for our future generations, it’s only making them suffer with polluted air, unhealthy water, and etc.
It’s not my best interest but, if I had an opportunity to create a way to be more conservative and manageable, I would love to work in this project.
Facilities:
1. Construction of different facilities for different genres (industrial, military, etc)
2. Non-invasive sewer rehabilitation, environment-friendly urban landscaping, or complex geotechnical and seismic services.
example: Andrew Air Force base
Comments:
I went online to research about this “facilities” but I was not sure what they are specifically going to do. I would like to see more about this project.
About Employment Opportunities:
– There are offices around the world (worldwide)
– Need to have at least a Bachelor’s degree and having Master’s is an advantage
– The company looks through each person’s summer work, how expressive, and academic record
– Starts at junior year and if you want to join, you should always look at the website and research
– There are an application opportunity from late winter. (around Jan, Feb)
Comments:
From what I have heard, I was very interested because the company helps the environment with water, energy, transportation and etc. However, when I heard that the company is “flat” due to the recession, I felt like it will stay like that for at least another 5 years. That worried me a little because I’m still not sure if I will be going straight to job searches or going for some master’s.
My Overall Opinion of the company:
Dr.Vicen’s lecture helped me learn about his company (CDM Smith) as well as what I should do to be successful with my future job searching. He also taught us how companies not only want smart and intellectual people but also very social and expressive engagers.
One of the things that surprised me the most was when Dr.Vicens explained to us that CDM Smith gives specific outline of how the company works, there are a lot of opportunities depending on what you favor and how you can increase your pay/gain promotions. Most of the companies that I have seen so far only talks about what they are expecting out of the employees and how much they will pay; instead, CDM Smith wants the workers to suggest what they should do and how they should run.
From what I have seen, i think the company is very welcoming and very open to new ideas as well as future developments. Their ideas and their motto give an amazing impression to me because I want to develop our world into a more uniformed and peaceful world because if we do not work together to make this world a better place, and I feel like CDM Smith is trying to accomplish that.