I’m tired, but I’ve never been more fulfilled in my career. I love being a geotechnical engineer, and I greatly enjoy giving back to my mentees and anyone who will listen to me. But I became a little philosophical last night during this National Engineers week as I contemplated a milestone in my professional life.
Eighteen years ago today, I made the first post on my GeoPrac.net website, a labor of love that I started to support practicing geotechnical / geological engineers like me.
I was a young geotechnical engineer at the time, having just recently obtained my PE license, and about 5 years into my career. I found myself frustrated by the lack of online resources for a practicing geotechnical engineer like me. While I appreciate the important work of researchers and academics in advancing our field, I found most of the publications in geotechnical journals to be esoteric and not relevant to me in my day-to-day practice. So I decided to start my own website called GeoPrac.net to be a source of information for my colleagues and peers.
I wrote about things I knew about, such gINT borehole logging software, considerations for side-hill retaining walls, and how to use VBA with Excel. I also solicited articles from coworkers and colleagues I knew. Some of classics include Aesthetic Blasting, LRFD for Geotech, and of course The Ultimate Geotechnical Engineering Challenge about the geotechnical aspects of the Apollo 11 mission. I also posted whenever I heard about a new FHWA manual, or the latest webinar or geotechnical software update.
Things have changed dramatically in those 18 years. There are now excellent podcasts and YouTube channels such as The Geotechnical Engineering Podcast, and the Geo-Institute; great websites such as Geoengineer.org; and outstanding and practical industry publications such as Geo-Strata and DFI Magazine to name a few. And that’s not even counting all the individual content producers on LinkedIn. Back in 2006, there were a few million LinkedIn users, and now there are over 1 billion, and so many people in our industry are sharing a variety of useful and informative content.
So if I’m being honest, I’ve been struggling of late to figure out what my contribution in this space is going to be in the next few years. Like most of the folks reading this, I have a full-time job as an engineer and I manage a small team. I also have a family and try my best to find work life balance. I find myself asking if a website like GeoPrac.net is still even relevant? Should I be more active on LinkedIn? Or Instagram? Or some other new platform? I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that I’m not ready to thrown in the towel yet. So keep an eye out as I march on towards the next milestone…Thanks to all of those who have supported me along the way!
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