Our guest, Erin McConahey, is a Principal in Mechanical Engineering with Arup, an employee-owned global engineering, advisory and planning consulting firm that focuses on all aspects of the built environment. Erin’s passion for finding integrated design solutions through a collaborative design process began with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering from UC Berkeley. As she rose in leadership, she has served on Arup’s global Trustee Board, was named to be one of 40 Arup Fellows responsible for uplifting technical excellence within the firm, spearheaded the startup of its Americas Region Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, and served on the leadership teams for a number of capacity-building training programs. In addition to project work, she now leads Arup’s global initiative around adopting Whole Life Carbon approaches to both new construction and existing building decarbonization.

Erin is a Professional Engineer in California and Colorado and during her 26 years with Arup, Erin has been responsible for the design leadership of many significant projects, including projects here in LA such as the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, the LA Memorial Coliseum Renovation, the Broad Museum and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the LACMA as well as many others.

Episode Breakdown

00:00 - 28:32: What’s engineering, sustainability and why do they matter? The history of sustainability and how we got to this point. Being an ethical engineer and the need for imagination in engineering.

28:32 - 41:24: From Summer Camp to Graduate Engineer, Structural vs Mechanical Engineering, Design and the Built Environment. Soft Skills are a must for engineers. Professionalism and the application of knowledge.

41:24 - 56:46 The workings of corporate engineering, Becoming a corporate agent of change, The necessity of teamwork and collaborative design, Sustainability through community building. Leadership vs Followership.

56:46:- 1:12:54: what does it mean to be in sustainability and where do we start? , corporate social responsibility vs personal responsibility, The power of environmental commitments, and the synergy of policy, science, and engineering. The Cost of climate change. Why do we need gender equality to save the earth?

1:12:54- 1:30:54: The tactics of corporate knowledge building, Mushroom Bricks!, The “art” of building art museums, Role models growing up, playing the organ, Albert Schweitzer, Building your utopian institution for sustainable community building, the importance of grassroots causes.

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This episode is sponsored by Sci Find–the scientific collaboration network (www.scifind.net)