- I have worked on so many different projects, so many different tasks, and I'm always given something new and something exciting.

- They're interested in what you have to offer to the company and where you want to go in your career.

- I think it is an amazing profession.

You don't have to be super strong in STEM to pursue engineering.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This time on "STEM Works," we visit with Lumos and Associates, a civil engineering company that provides infrastructure projects in our community and beyond.

Caroline Elliott is a project engineer who designs projects involving hydrology.

Emily Wolder, a senior project designer, designs and manages projects to ensure they're built to the highest standards, as well as Randall Long, who started out as an intern and now manages and leads the company.

(upbeat music) - As a project engineer, I work on designs with my company, with my colleagues, mainly regarding hydraulics and hydrology, so that can be anything from pipelines to water treatment systems to dams.

- Typically, a senior project designer would be in the office helping out with design work basically.

I'm sort of in a unique situation where I'm helping out with third party construction management assistants, so I'm full-time on site, doing construction observation and documentation, taking pictures, taking notes.

I coordinate with the contractor and special inspectors as well as help resolve field conflicts.

- My day to day is being around people, understanding them, listening to them, finding what works for them.

It's leading the company through initiatives that are taking us places we haven't been, you know, what market are we gonna be in, where are we pulling back?

Where do we think tomorrow's gonna be?

- I work on designs, I draft them in a computer.

I modeled the physics and the math of how it works.

Lots of hydraulic modeling, pipe design, looking at spillway design, all sorts of fun things like that, and that's what I enjoy doing.

- There's quite a variety of tasks out in the field, whereas when you're in the office designing, it's pretty focused.

Out in the field, the plans aren't always representative of field conditions, and so you're kind of on site, basically making sure that the client is getting the product that they want, everything is being built properly.

- My primary role as CEO is that provide an environment for our employees that's lasting, that they're inspired to come to work, that they have collaboration, they grow, being able to understand what they're going through, the strides that they're making, wanting to know what their hurdles are today, what their successes are today, that stems into our clients, that stems into our products.

- We do all different kinds of sub-disciplines of civil engineering.

We do structural, land development, wastewater.

We have a GIS group, hydrogeology.

We have a construction department that does materials testing as well as construction management services, which is what I'm doing right now.

- We have water resource, wastewater projects.

We're working currently on a dam project, lake projects.

We have structural related projects, soils, materials, laboratory testing, asphalt, it is a very broad spectrum.

- We're working on Marlette Dam, we're working on Hobart Dam.

We are working on the East Slope Pipeline that collects water from the other side of the mountain.

It's a really cool system to be a part of with the historic legacy of it all.

- The dam that's there, Marlette is outdated and it needs improvements, and so we've been working with the state of Nevada to bring that up to code, and so we are a part of upgrading that system to make it more efficient, more environmentally sensitive.

- So this is the Marlette Dam and this is the Marlette Lake Reservoir, which supplies water to Virginia City and Silver City, also to Carson City, and so our job is to assess the structure and make sure that Marlette Dam is secure and it's not gonna be at any kind of real risk of failure.

(upbeat music) - You don't have to know everything to start out.

You just have to be willing to learn and to work hard.

They're here to help you, they're here to help you grow because you're a resource and they want you to learn and they want you to succeed - When you come in the door initially, there's a lot of mentoring and a lot of teaching, coaching, training.

It's our way of touching an individual, showing them the profession, sharing our knowledge with them, see them grow, and then give them some life lessons for tomorrow.

- It's the kind of company where you get the support to do these big things.

They're interested in what you have to offer to the company and where you wanna go in your career.

- They wanna hear from us, they wanna hear where we wanna go and what we wanna do, and I think there are plenty of opportunities to move up and you can kind of see your path staying here in the next five years, next 10 years.

- I mean, there's multiple services in the company that it takes to make the rest of the ship move, and we have a whole team that's working on our image, our proposals, our branding, human resource.

We also have operations.

Operations has multiple different functions, but we have to manage a fleet of trucks and equipment and get those maintained and certified.

- There's two main things that I love about Lumos, and the first is the opportunities and the challenges that I've been given.

I have worked on so many different projects, so many different tasks, and I'm always given something new and something exciting, something to challenge myself, to help me grow personally and professionally.

- Something that's really rewarding about the projects that you work on as a civil engineer is seeing your designs come to life.

They're designed to be built and to impact the society that we live in and the community around us.

- The work that we do, the infrastructure that we build, it's local, we get to see it being built, we get to see that difference being made.

And knowing that I had a part in that, it's really special.

- I think it is an amazing profession to be able to be impactful for our community to enhance public works.

There's not a road or an airport or a dam or any of those things you touched that wasn't touched by a civil engineer.

- There's such a variety, like you can do water, wastewater, you can build bridges, you can build structures, you can build roads.

There's just endless possibilities.

- It's very rare that I don't drive by something knowing that either I or our company did and how that bettered our community, how impactful it was and how much it's needed.

- I am surrounded by people with like-minded ideas, who are passionate about what they do and who love what I love and love to see this work come to life in our community.

- Every day I am amazed at the talent we have and being around those like-minded, curious, wanna solve, problem-oriented individuals is captivating to me, it keeps me going every day.

Leading starts with listening.

We gotta listen as you're messaging to understand where you need to make the changes.

You have to recognize that if you're all by yourself, you're not a leader.

So you have to have your team around you as you go.

- We are not on an island as we work through these big problems, these technical challenges with designing it down like this.

So I'm very fortunate to work on a team of engineers that are really collaborative, positive, have strong communication skills.

- I'm constantly talking to the contractor, I'm talking to the laborers.

I'm making sure that the project's being built correctly, that they're following the details, following the plans.

I'm making sure changes are implemented.

- I think people skills is certainly paramount in my progression through the company.

Everything we do is together, it's all about collaboration.

Being able to approach someone in a way that resonates for them.

- You're always working with other designers.

One person can't do all of that design work.

It's constant communication.

You have to be able to coordinate everything so that the plans all work together.

- You're really looking at physics of fluid dynamics.

You might be using lots of math, Excel, or modeling softwares to make a 3D version of your dam.

- I think a lot of kids are intimidated by the math portion and really it's just, it's working hard in getting through it, and then you get to the fun math where it's actually applicable and you're like doing punk calculations and you're actually finding out things through math and science and not just doing a problem for the heck of it.

- Math is so important.

Actually, I use it a lot and you know, I think I did a trick problem yesterday, and so you never know when it's gonna come at you.

- My advice is to start with a firm that has multiple different services and house and experience that provides you different avenues.

So if you're in design but yet you have maybe an interest in construction or construction management or testing, if you have an inclination, you wanna try surveying if you wanna be more on the structural route.

- I would recommend going to a water treatment plant, taking a tour there, going to a dam or a bridge that you think is cool and just checking it out and asking yourself those questions of like, how did they build this?

How did they design this?

- Having the ability to pick up a software.

AutoCAD is a large component to our work.

It's a program that we use.

There's multiple ones in structural engineering.

There are traffic softwares that we use, GIS, Esri.

- Work as hard as you can in your science and math classes and find your passion.

Any civil engineering company would be thrilled to talk to high school students about it.

- Be persistent, put your foot in the door to stop by.

We'd love to talk to you.

You don't have to be super strong in STEM to pursue engineering, in my opinion.

I'm a good example of that.

(upbeat music)