Episodes

  • Hollie Janson Schmidt is a Principal and the Global Solutions Director of Sustainability, Resilience & Climate Response for the Americas Region at Jacobs. She provides consulting and advisory services to a wide range of public, private, and federal clientele. She is also the Director of the Sustainability, Resilience & Climate Response Business Advisory as a trusted business partner for the company’s internal project delivery and growth as well as external client services.

    In her 28 years of practice, Hollie has honed an integrated planning and delivery approach, with a particular focus on large-scale, complex projects. Hollie provides resilient solutions either as a preventative or recovery service for large-scale clients who are experiencing vulnerabilities to natural and man-made shocks and stressors. She addresses ESG and climate response while holistically considering the physical, human, and business aspects of the challenge.

  • Jilma Jiménez is a visionary, engaging, and inspirational leader with more than 30 years of experience in the management of engineering companies and projects. Her diverse and extensive background encompasses various roles within the engineering consulting field. Now as Vice President and Market Strategist of Jacobs’s Global Program Management, she applies her wealth of expertise to assess organizational performance and lead initiatives that sustain competitive advantage, enable strategy implementation, and support senior executive decision-making. In addition to her multifaceted engineering career, Ms. Jiménez is an expert in the realm of infrastructure construction supply chain management having spearheaded supply chain strategies for multibillion-dollar construction programs. Jilma’s strategic thinking and adaptability have been key in navigating the complexities of the construction industry particularly since the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic. Her proactive approach to mitigating risks, leveraging opportunities, and applying strategic escalation pricing techniques sets her apart as a trusted expert. Jilma’s expertise isn't confined to construction programs; she also stays ahead of industry trends, emerging technologies, and innovative contracting models to enhance efficiency and sustainability in the construction supply chain.

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  • Marc DeSchamp is a Program Manager and leader in the Jacobs Transportation Decarbonization Practice. His particular focus is on delivering solutions to clients grappling with the challenges of fleet electrification. Through 15 years in the transit industry, Marc has managed transit bus procurements, led strategic planning efforts, and served as Program Manager for transit bus and facility programs. Marc currently leads the development of NY MTA’s Zero Emissions Fleet Transition Plan, which will serve as a roadmap to decarbonizing the largest transit fleet in North America. Marc holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science in Engineering Management from Northeastern University. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and two young children.

    EPA citation: Carbon Pollution from Transportation | US EPA

  • Peggy Whitson, Ph.D., America’s most experienced astronaut, flew on three NASA long-duration space flights and Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2), accumulating 675 days in space, more than any other American astronaut or woman astronaut in the world.

    Whitson has over 37 years of space and science experience with NASA and is currently serving as director of human spaceflight for Axiom Space. Throughout her career, Whitson has held various positions to include NASA’s chief of the Astronaut Office, two-time commander of the International Space Station (ISS), chair of NASA’s Astronaut Selection Board, chief of NASA’s Operations Branch, and deputy division chief for both NASA’s Medical Sciences and the Astronaut Office.

    On Ax-2, Whitson become the first female commander of a private space mission, adding to her accomplishments as the first female commander of the ISS, the only woman to serve as ISS commander twice, and the first woman, non-military chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office. During her three previous space missions to the ISS (Expeditions 5, 16, 50/51/52), she conducted 10 spacewalks, logging over 60 hours. Throughout Whitson’s career, she has contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science, and Earth science.

    Whitson received degrees in biology and chemistry from lowa Wesleyan and a doctoral degree in biochemistry from Rice University. She has been honored with numerous awards, including NASA medals in Leadership, Outstanding Leadership, and Exceptional Service; Forbes 50 over 50 (2023); TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World (2018); and Women in Aviation Lifetime Achievement Award (2017).

  • Tom Skerritt, Emmy winner (Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series) for his series PICKET FENCES, is one of the most versatile and acclaimed American actors in movies and TV. At UCLA Film School, he acted in theatre and began writing for screen as a means to understand the full embrace of his primary interest, directing film. While acting on stage, he was seen and hired to be in a small film where he met Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. Soon after, he met director Robert Altman, with whom he mentored as a filmmaker, which led Tom to be cast in the movie version of M*A*S*H. This led to a distinguished and decades-long career, starring in such acclaimed films as TURNING POINT (for which Tom won the National Board of Review’s Best Supporting Actor Award), ALIEN, TOP GUN, STEEL MAGNOLAS, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, CONTACT, TEARS OF THE SUN and THE DEAD ZONE. The recipient of UCLA’s Lifetime Achievement Honor in 1994, Tom is also a veteran of may television programs, including appearances on MADAM SECRETARY, THE WEST WING, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, CHEERS, WILL & GRACE and THE GOOD WIFE. In 2007, Tom received a Life Achievement Award from Wayne State University, which was followed with a Laureate Award from The Rainier Club in Seattle. In 2011, he received the Saturn Best Guest Actor Award - TV.

    Legendary film actress Veronica Cartwright began her career as a child actress in the classic films THE CHILDREN'S HOUR (directed by William Wyler), Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS and SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN. A veteran of many beloved films, Veronica has appeared in over 50 movies and her resume includes two science fiction classics in the 1970's, Philip Kaufman's remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and Ridley Scott's masterpiece thriller, ALIEN. Veronica starred as Betty Grissom in the epic dramatization of NASA's space program based on Tom Wolfe's novel, THE RIGHT STUFF, also directed by Kaufman. She made an indelible impression on moviegoers in 1987 with her standout performance in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK. Among Veronica's many television credits are the hit shows CRIMINAL MINDS, CSI CYBER, BOSCH, RESURRECTION, GREY’S ANATOMY, WILL & GRACE, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, GOTHAM KNIGHTS, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, THE GOOD DOCTOR and THE X FILES. Veronica has been nominated four times for an Emmy Award with one win. At age 15 she won an Emmy for Best Actress in a television movie called TELL ME NOT IN MOURNFUL NUMBERS. She was nominated again in 1997 for her guest starring role of Mrs. Huston in two widely acclaimed episodes of ER. In 1998 and 1999 the Television Academy nominated her twice for her pivotal role of Cassandra Spender on Fox's THE X FILES.

  • In her role as Digital OneWater Strategic Growth Lead for Jacobs, Dr. Jennifer Baldwin is responsible for unifying Jacobs’ portfolio of digital tools that support an integrated and collaborative OneWater approach to water management. Dr. Baldwin also serves as the U.S. South Conveyance and Storage Regional Solutions Lead for Jacobs and is a principal technologist specializing in assembling and leading large program teams and planning and successfully delivering multi-billion-dollar water and wastewater infrastructure programs. She has over 20 years of experience, providing process mechanical expertise and quality assurance/quality control on a variety of infrastructure development projects, specializing in wastewater conveyance facilities such as pump stations and storage facilities.

    Joshua Registe is a lead data scientist and professional engineer, recognized for his expertise in environmental engineering and advanced analytics. With a unique blend of skills in both domains, he stands at the forefront of cutting-edge AI solution development for Jacobs Intelligent O&M and external clients, tackling intricate environmental challenges head-on. Joshua's contributions span a wide range of critical areas, including solids treatment, disinfection, coagulant optimization, nutrient removal, energy optimization and more. Employing advanced statistical techniques, predictive modeling, deep learning, and scalable computing, he leverages the power of data to deliver unique and complex solutions. In addition to his role as a lead data scientist and professional engineer, Joshua takes pride in mentoring and guiding aspiring professionals in the field. Through his guidance, he fosters the next generation of environmental engineers and data scientists, ensuring the industry's continuous growth and advancement.

  • Todd Marks, a two-time EY Entrepreneur of the Year nominee, a member of Baltimore Magazine’s 40 under 40, and a three-time member of The Daily Record’s Most Admired CEOs, is the founder and CEO of Mindgrub Technologies. Mindgrub, a member of the Inc. 5000 for ten years, is a technical agency and creative consultancy specializing in award-winning mobile, web, and marketing strategy solutions. Todd is an experienced speaker and futurist and continually shares his vision for innovative technology at conferences across the globe. Under his leadership, Mindgrub has expanded to nearly 200 employees across North America and has moved its headquarters into the metaverse, reinforcing its commitment to a culture of inclusion and innovation.

    Darrell Collett has 25 years of legal experience, including 10 years in private practice as a commercial litigator and 15 years as in-house counsel with Jacobs. While at Jacobs, Darrell has provided operations counsel support for the water and O&M businesses, and worked as compliance counsel in the Ethics & Compliance department. Currently, Darrell provides corporate legal services related to intellectual property, cybersecurity and data privacy.

  • Todd Busch graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1990 and was hired by Lucasfilm’s EditDroid division the same year, where he was first exposed to digital post-production. An outlier, Todd has navigated his career over the past three decades by staying at the technical forefront of the movie industry, while also working on some of the biggest film franchises in recent memory, including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Alita: Battle Angel, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Independence Day: Resurgence, and Furious 7, as well as various streaming series including Peacemaker, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. When his editing career hit roadblocks in the early 2000s, he turned to visual effects editing, and then from 2009-2013 he was the lead editor for The Third Floor, Inc., helping them become the predominant previs company in the world. In 2013 he returned to feature editorial as both a visual effects editor, and first assistant editor. Todd is currently editing the feature film, Lady Scorpions.

  • Michael Brown is the Data & Technology Director at Jacobs where he provides strategy and oversite to how Jacobs leverages data and analytics on its projects, solutions and services. Michael has built a large community of practice within Jacobs focused on advancing Machine Learning, Data Science, and Data Engineering in Jacobs work and embedding it into all Jacobs offerings. Michael works with innovation teams and strategic initiatives to help teams identify how to leverage advanced analytics within their solutions and has developed and launched multiple digital products within Jacobs, most recently Jacobs Hive, a data integration and insights platform for the Transportation market. Michael’s passion for innovation and advanced analytics has him constantly seeing new challenges and opportunities where he can bring creative, strategic thinking that is backed by technical excellence to disrupt the market status quo and create new channels for value with Jacobs’ clients.

    Sean Co is the Director of Special Projects and Services at StreetLight where he manages custom projects using StreetLight’s Big Data analytics to provide insights on transportation metrics for clients. Sean built the Professional Services unit and expanded the team capabilities to deliver lean product launches and to offer services for customer support escalations. Sean works cross functionally with all the teams in StreetLight and has leveraged work the from the Data Science and product marketing teams to deliver the metrics using clear technical explanations that help all users understand the analytics. Sean has managed over 300 projects while at StreetLight which brings the experience of working with transportation agencies all over the country. Sean Co is a transportation planner with 27 years of experience working with cities, counties, MPOs, state governments and AEC firms to deliver projects on time and on budget.

  • Graceson Scariah, CNS&A Asset Lifecycle Management Lead at Airservices Australia, has over 15 years of experience working in the aviation sector delivering critical services to the industry. Graceson is currently leading the asset planning practice at Airservices with a focus on transformation of the Communication, Navigation, Surveillance and Aviation Firefighting capability.

    Abhishek Singh brings over 25 years’ experience of leading technology-enabled transformation programs in asset-intensive organizations that operate in a highly regulated and safety critical environment. Abhishek currently leads the Technology Convergence practice at Jacobs Australia, enabling Critical Infrastructure clients to leverage emerging technologies to deliver improved sustainability, safety and efficiency outcomes. In his leadership roles with defense, aviation and consulting organizations, Abhishek has a track record of building organizational capability and realigning management of assets to service delivery outcomes and future-proof operations. Abhishek is a strong advocate of inclusion and diversity and has contributed immensely to shaping the culture of the organizations he has worked for. He also serves on the Board of ‘Engineers Without Boards Australia’ and is the Vice-Chair of Engineers Australia’s College of Leadership and Management Committee (Queensland).

  • David Brin is a scientist, speaker, technical consultant and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages.

    His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. His 2012 novel Existence extends this type of daring, near future extrapolation by exploring bio-engineering, intelligence and how to maintain an open-creative civilization. A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on The Postman.

    Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction and philanthropy. He has served since 2010 on the council of external advisers for NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts group (NIAC), which supports the most inventive and potentially ground-breaking new endeavors.

    His non-fiction book — The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? — deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association.

  • Leighton Cardwell is Jacobs' Sector Growth Director for Cites and Places in Europe. He is responsible for the strategic evolution and growth of the Cities and Places offer at Jacobs, with a focus on evidence-led, place-based approaches to the built environment, integrated city and regional development, and future trends in the industry. With a passion for outcome-focused delivery and for bringing together global best practice for the benefit of all, Leighton is at the forefront of Jacobs’ approach to inspiring, enabling and creating the great places and lasting legacies that our communities, clients and people are proud of.

    Liza-Jane Sapsford is a Project Manager with 10+ years and a Designated Project Executive with 2+ years experience working predominantly in the Facilities Management field for clients across numerous sectors to include Healthcare, Banking & Investment, Local Authority and Government. Her areas of expertise are mainly in project management, operational sales and strategy, product sales, customer service management and delivering best practice to customers. Her career has developed from working in delivery to leading the Track Record Facilities team in the UK. She states that her passion is to continue to drive customer excellence and innovation within the facilities and building management sector to enable Jacobs' clients to be leaner, have better access to their data and put the control back into their hands.

  • Simon Gaskell, Jacobs Senior Associate Director - Strategic Consulting, is a passionate change manager and has spent much of his career enabling operational transformation across multiple industries. He has a passion for implementing new ways of working that are enabled through client adoption of new technologies and digital solutions. Simon is currently Delivery Lead for Jacobs' Aqua DNA platform based solution. Sitting at the crossroads of client requirements for more mature, digital-based management of their water networks; emerging IoT technologies; and Jacobs domain expertise, Simon has been able to build a strong understanding of digitally enabled transformation within water client businesses. Simon began his career as a leader in the British Army with the majority of his time spent within the UK's Commando forces, undertaking expeditionary engineering operations. Since joining Jacobs, Simon has undertaken consultancy work within lean and agile ways of working, design led thinking, innovation and digital transformation.

    Samantha Sloan is a Network Business Manager at United Utilities, a water and wastewater services provider to around seven million people in the North West of England supplying 3 million households and 200,000 business premises. Samantha has held a variety of roles at United Utilities since 2015. She received her Bachelor degree in Mathematics from the University of Manchester, and her Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Swansea University.

  • Roger Falconer is Emeritus Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering, at Cardiff University, UK, and an Independent Water Consultant. His research and consultancy interests are in hydro-environmental modelling and his models have been used in over 100 Environmental Impact Assessment studies world-wide and provide one of the engines to the model Flood Modeller (marketed internationally by Jacobs). He has published over 450 papers in journals and conference proceedings and given over 600 keynote conference presentations and lectures to learned societies and universities world-wide. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. He was President of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (2011-15). He consults regularly on flooding projects world-wide and was a member of the: Government’s National Flood Resilience Scientific Advisory Group, Natural Resources Wales’ Flood Risk Management Committee (2006-16), Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (2019-date), Independent Expert Group (of 3) reviewing the recent London Floods (2021-date). He regularly gives TV and media interviews on flooding.

    Dr. Richard Crowder, Jacobs Director, Water & Environment, is an internationally recognized flood risk management professional with more than 25 years of experience. His history in the industry is one of innovation and doing things differently. He is a business leader with experience spanning research, innovation, project delivery, client management, sales, and operational management. Richard is known for taking on challenging projects and using innovation and digital delivery to solve problems and deliver projects in new and more efficient ways. This covers the full range of flood risk management disciplines including appraisal, environmental services, engineering design, asset management, and hydrological and hydraulic modelling. He joined Halcrow (now Jacobs) in 2002 and has held senior leadership roles including Regional Business Development Director (Europe) for the water sector, and framework manager delivering engineering and environmental services to the Environment Agency (England). He is currently part of Jacobs’ Water Catchment Management leadership team responsible for Growth, the Director responsible for Jacobs family of flood products, and the Framework Director leading Jacobs contract with the Environment Agency to deliver flood mapping and modelling services.

  • Jeff McCoy is the Chief Engineer for the Jacobs Software Engineering Center (JSEC), located in Hudson, New Hampshire. Jeff joined Jacobs as part of the TYBRIN purchase in 2010. Jeff also currently serves as the Program Manager for the Support Aircraft Agile Effort (SAAE), which employs the SAFe agile process to develop a wide range of Department of Defense advanced software solutions for the Mission Planning Enterprise at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts. Jeff’s background is in engineering, and prior to his time at Jacobs he served as a Systems Engineer at TASC, Lockheed Sanders, BAE Systems and TYBRIN Corporation. Jeff also served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force after studying computer science and graduating with a degree in Mathematics from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Jeff also holds a Masters Degree in Meteorology from St. Louis University.

    Jeff Cusato has been with Jacobs for over 16 years and currently works as a Product Manager for the Jacobs Software Engineering Center (JSEC). His main focus is in support of Airdrop and Mission Planning tools for the USAF and other armed services. He is a proud jack-of-all-trades who is not only used to wearing many hats but sincerely enjoys it. Jeff has worked on the airdrop suite of tools since 2008, growing Jacobs' expertise in this exciting domain. Jeff has a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and a Masters degree in Systems Engineering from John Hopkins University.

  • Shannon Miller is an Executive Vice President and President of Jacobs’ Divergent Solutions operating unit, responsible for delivering creative innovative, next generation cloud, cyber, data and digital solutions across the company to enable our customers and partners globally. She leads our Cyber & Intelligence, Platforms, Technologies & Software Solutions and Technology & Innovative Solutions business units and partners with our Critical Mission and People & Places lines of business to accelerate growth by creating scale in the related skills and business approaches, driving meaningful value for our clients and partners around the globe.

    Over her almost 25-year career at Jacobs, Shannon has had a rich and varied journey, starting as a process engineer and evolving into project management, sales, operations and human resources leadership – spanning multiple industries including technology, resources, infrastructure, pharmaceutical and consumer products with assignments in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Canada. Most recently Shannon was Chief Growth Officer and lead for Enterprise Risk Management. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

  • Chris Voss is a former Lead FBI Negotiator and dynamic speaker who debunks the biggest myths of negotiation. Chris used his many years of experience in international crises and high-stakes negotiations to develop a unique program that applies globally proven techniques to the business world. Prior to 2008, Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. During his career, he also represented the U.S. government as an expert in kidnapping at two international conferences sponsored by the G8.

    Before becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City division of the FBI. Chris was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years. He was the case agent on TERRSTOP (Omar Abdel-Rahman/"The Blind Sheikh" case) and the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe. He also negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up in the Chase Manhattan Bank robbery. During Chris’s 24-year tenure with the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI, but also Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Chris is the author of the book, Never Split The Difference©.

  • Adi Karisik is a global leader with over 20 years of highly specialized professional experience, one that covers information technology, enterprise IT cyber security, Operational Technology, management consulting, and intelligence consulting as well as providing specialized services in Defense and Intelligence domains. He managed several classified and open programs/portfolios in both USA and Europe. During his 14-year tenure with Blue Canopy Group, Mr. Karisik served as a partner and one of the key leaders in National Security.

    His work experience covers a variety of organizations in the intelligence arena. He has authored several types of training in areas of cross-cultural negotiations, predictive behavior analysis, human terrain reading and survivability. Since 2012 Adi has been involved in big data analytics and has partnered with several US and European companies to provide a product capable of combining big data and machine learning with multiple external data sources, in order to facilitate assistance in the area of complex decision-making modeling.

  • To learn more about the United Nations Outreach Programme on the Holocaust, click here. Read more about Leslie Rosenthal's story from this article from Canada's National Post (originally published August 25, 2012), as well as this story about Miriam Rosenthal from the February 22, 2018 edition of The Globe and Mail. You may also find additional information from this blog.

  • Alex Mahrou is the Director of Incubation for Data and Technology within the People & Places Solutions line of business at Jacobs. His focus areas are on growing organic capability in cloud, data & analytics, Open Source, and platform-level technology. He originally started with the Jacobs family in 2013.

    David Yardy is a Software Architect/Team Manager with a 20-year history of working in the engineering, design, and construction industry. In his role, he is responsible for overall architecture, design, and development of web, mobile, and cloud-based solutions. David is highly effective in driving the software development lifecycle, including requirements gathering and analysis, design, programming, testing, and deployment, and he has demonstrated ability in leading Agile/SCRUM-based teams environments aligned with DevOps patterns and practices while collaborating with geographically diverse teams to deliver global solutions.