ALUMNA PROFILE: A CAREER THAT HOLDS WATER
Photo courtesy of O’Brien & Gere
Laurie Parsons (MS ’87) will do just about anything for water. If the goal is to reduce water pollution with better waste disposal systems, she’ll even collect foul-smelling wastewater samples in a Wisconsin cheese factory. But she didn’t enjoy that experience enough to become a wastewater engineer. The path toward her true calling was guided by her passion for water and started with earning a bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Next came a move to Madison for her first job with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and then the idea of going back to school for a graduate degree—in either engineering or resource management. To help make that decision, she sought out DNR projects that involved interactions with engineers. “I found myself really enjoying those conversations, so I decided to become an environmental engineer, even though I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree in engineering and didn’t always excel in math,” Parsons says. “That’s why I tell many students today, especially women, not to get stuck on math concerns early in life.” Since the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, native had already fallen in love with Madison’s lakes, the best place to pursue her graduate education was just a few miles away. In the civil and environmental engineering master’s program, she designed her own curriculum
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by combining groundwater hydraulics and contaminant assessment, with a focus on water remediation.
company O’Brien & Gere (OBG). She and her partners sold NRT to OBG last year. “I’m so glad I had the guts, at a second major crossroads in my career, to sell my baby to OBG in order to keep us on our ‘best in class’ trajectory for employment and professional development opportunities for our staff,” says Parsons, who led OBG’s environmental division for about a year before becoming its senior vice president in January with the charge of overseeing its continued growth in the Midwest. She contributes to the growth of the firm’s diverse services, such as advanced manufacturing, coastal resiliency, smart energy systems, wastewater treatment and forward-thinking techniques for environmental remediation.
“Challenge the status quo, don’t be discouraged by an occasional poor grade, and pace yourself, since finishing your program as quickly as possible isn’t always the best strategy.” In addition to Professor William Boyle, under whom she collected the smelly wastewater samples, Parsons credits Professors John Hoopes, Peter Monkmeyer and Kenneth Potter as being supportive and influential mentors, each in their own and unique ways. Before she even received her graduate degree, she accepted a job offer from Warzyn Engineering. In 1994, just seven years out of graduate school, Parsons made her next career move: She left Warzyn, a large and solid company, to establish engineering services for then-startup company Natural Resource Technology Inc. That ended up being an excellent decision. Thirteen years later, she became the president of NRT, growing the company from 40 to 70 employees and adding offices in Illinois and Michigan. It became so well recognized for its environmental services that it attracted the attention of the East Coast consulting
Parsons, who was honored by the American Society of Civil Engineers as the regional “STEM Forward Engineer of the Year” in 2015, regularly participates in events that expose young people to careers in science, technology, engineering and math. She offers this advice to today’s engineering students: “Challenge the status quo, don’t be discouraged by an occasional poor grade, and pace yourself, since finishing your program as quickly as possible isn’t always the best strategy.” “Most importantly, know that you’ve already made a great choice by getting a degree in engineering. Even if you don’t stay in the specialty you trained in, there are many other ways to put your skills to work—so don’t swim in a single lane.”