The Path to Professional License: James Packman, PMP

In the science and engineering industry, seeing a “PE”, “LG”, “PMP”, or other initials behind someone’s name shows that person went through years of work experience that culminated in a substantial test to confirm the right to practice their area of technical expertise. Many go through this licensing journey but few outside that group know what the process is really like.

We’re telling those stories here. Aspect’s professionals are writing a series of articles that capture the trials and successes of studying for and receiving these career-defining milestones.

James Packman, Project Management Professional (PMP)

Test taken: September 2021

Results given: About 10 seconds after completing the exam (it’s a long and nervous 10 seconds)

James hiking in the Enchantments

Tell us a little about the PMP program. How long does it take?

To qualify to take the PMP exam, one must have 36 months of experience leading projects (60 months if no 4-year college degree) and take a 35-hour prep course. There are many companies that offer PMP prep courses; I chose to take it from Project Management Academy (PMA). The course was live online over 2 weeks. The PMA prep course costs a little more than some other vendors, but they have good online resources, which I used extensively for independent study after the prep course.

After the prep course, I studied for about 4 months before I was ready to take the exam. This was longer than I anticipated partly because I had a challenging personal issue occur (the death of a close friend). I also followed PMA’s advice to keep taking practice exams until you score 80 percent or higher. But in hindsight, I found that the actual exam questions tended to be much simpler than the practice exam questions. Most of the charts, equations, and management models covered in the prep materials weren’t on my exam. Maybe this helped prepare me well, but I think I ended up over-studying.

What was the best piece of advice you got as you started the certification?

Study at least a little bit several days a week. There’s so much information to learn, it helps to build the knowledge in small pieces and reinforce it with frequent study.

What should a person gearing up to do this know about the mental, physical, and social challenges of certification?

For fellow Aspect staff who are considering PMP certification, they should know that only some of the content applies to the types of projects we do at Aspect. Skills like communication, budget management, and leadership apply to every project. But many of the technical project management skills covered in the PMP material are used more widely in other industries, such as manufacturing, software development, and construction.

In some of those other industries, Agile and related approaches, such as Lean, are widely used for managing projects. These methodologies complete work incrementally and/or iteratively from a backlog that is developed during the project. Most of the projects we do at Aspect are what are known as Predictive or Waterfall in the project management world: we scope out the entire project at the beginning and then implement it based upon an agreed budget (here’s a handy article that compares the Agile and Waterfall methodologies).

I find that the project management approach is largely dictated by our clients who often require a complete scope and cost estimate to authorize work. However, an Agile approach could be useful on some Aspect projects, especially when there are unknowns that the initial work will reveal and affect subsequent work. The incremental approach does occur at Aspect to a degree, such as environmental site assessments (Phase II ESAs occurring based on Phase I findings), and I’m using it on some data analysis tasks in the Ecology SAM Study on Stormwater Source Control that I’m leading.

A helpful, albeit intangible, take away for me was trying to adopt an Agile mindset when it makes sense for a project. Specifically, when the work lends itself to adaptive outcomes, flexibility, and the client is open to realizing project value along the way rather than just when the final report is delivered.

Anyone considering PMP certification should also know that the knowledge base is jargon-heavy (at times even pedantic), and a term in the project management world might mean something different in other realms. Sample alternate definitions in the PMP world include the terms: activity, process, risk, charter, coach, domain, quality, parametric, baseline, float, scope, and value—to name a few.

Walk us through the Big Test Day…

I registered to take the exam about a month in advance to get the date and time I wanted. The test is typically proctored at a testing center, though at-home testing was possible during the pandemic. The at-home testing was more restrictive with things like fewer breaks allowed and more complicated with verifying your home setup before the exam. So, I chose a testing center in Northgate (Seattle) that offered evening times so I didn’t have to miss work.

The testing area had about a dozen walled cubicles, each with a desktop computer. You can’t bring anything of your own into the test area: no food or drink, no pen or pencil, not even your own earplugs (they provide). You may take breaks to eat or drink in the lobby but the exam clock does not stop during breaks. The exam is closed-book and they give you a notepad to make notes during the exam, which you must turn in at the end. I was given a few 8x14 laminated sheets and some dry erase markers.

For the exam, you have up to 230 minutes to answer 180 questions, including breaks (the clock keeps ticking!). However, the exam is divided into three segments of 60 questions each, and you have to close out each segment before moving onto the next one. The goal is to answer each question as there is no advantage to leaving questions blank (blank = wrong). So, the exam is effectively three 60-question exams back-to-back and thus requires good time management.

Another good piece of advice I was given is to do a brain dump onto the notes pages as soon as you start the exam. For me, the brain dump was formulas, definitions, and reminders about how to estimate activity durations, calculate earned value, budget forecasting, and the differences among the many types of charts and their associated uses.

How did you feel when you got the results?

Big relief! As soon as you complete the last 60-question segment, there is a pregnant pause, and a moment later it reveals your result. The exam is pass/fail only and you don’t get a numeric score or know which questions you got right or wrong. The result given just as below target, on target, or above target. I was grateful to pass on my first attempt with an “above target” score in all domain areas!

What advice do you have for people looking to get their PMP?

My advice is to give yourself enough time to study (weeks or months depending on your schedule) and for the 35-hour prep course, which is given over 1 or more weeks depending on how it’s taught. Also, be open to learning the concepts as the project management world understands them, some of which may be different than you’ve experienced so far as a project manager.

Join Aspect Stormwater Experts (Virtually) at NEBC Stormwater Conference Thursday September 10

Touted as “The State’s Largest and Most Comprehensive Stormwater Conference,” the Northwest Environmental Business Council (NEBC) will host the Managing Stormwater in Washington state conference on Thursday, September 10th. For the first time, this conference will be held virtually, and Aspect is proud to be a premier sponsor of the event again.

This focused one-day conference is Washington’s leading stormwater event, convening regulated companies, governments, solution providers, and regulators for learning, networking, and business development. The conference’s educational sessions will cover both fundamental and advanced topics in the areas of industrial, construction, and municipal stormwater management. Aspect’s stormwater professionals Owen Reese, James Packman, John Knutson, and Erik Pruneda and will also be contributing to three of the sessions.

Owen will be part of the panel during the conference’s Featured Plenary Session, The Impact of Third-Party Lawsuits. Clean Water Act lawsuits brought by public interest groups have become an effective enforcement tool for stormwater permit compliance. Functioning as a supplement to agency enforcement efforts and feared by regulated industry, these citizen suits can lead to unwanted scrutiny and often carry stiffer penalties than an agency enforcement action. The panel of experts will shed light on the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act, causes and timing, and what you can expect if you find yourself in trouble.

James will moderate the Municipal Fundamentals session, where attendees can gain a thorough understanding of the basic elements of municipal stormwater management including general permit requirements and enforcement; watershed planning; source control; creating Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPPs); proper sampling techniques; and the most common Best Management Practices (BMPs) in municipal settings.

John and Erik will be presenting on the Keys to Successful Infiltration, where they will discuss the recently published Infiltration Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that Aspect developed for the Port of Seattle’s Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The SOPs provide a holistic process for planning infiltration system and dive into the details on field testing and using test information to support design.

Learn more about the conference HERE.

James Packman Presents on Urban Environmental Planning to University of Washington Class

Aspect’s James Packman presenting on environmental planning as a profession to University of Washington students

Aspect Senior Hydrologist James Packman presented on environmental planning for the second year to a class in the College of the Built Environment at the University of Washington.

The students in the “Planning as a Profession” class learn about urban planning from a different guest lecturer each week who is a professional working in their field. James presented environmental planning from a holistic point of view—from the skills and interests that lead a person to the profession and the different disciplines working in the industry to the laws and regulations that drive project design, permitting, and building and examples of water-focused planning. His overarching message focused on interdisciplinary skills, and he gave examples of Aspect projects where collaboration between disciplines was vital to both win the work in a competitive consultant market and address the environmental elements.

One example of an urban planning project is Seattle’s SEA Streets Project, which changed several streetscapes in residential neighborhoods to decrease stormwater runoff.

For example, James discussed how planning and executing urban stormwater management projects – such as the City of Seattle’s innovative SEA Streets program in north Seattle – have many benefits: reducing stormwater runoff before it reaches the sewer and downstream water quality; improving habitat diversity; narrowing streets that make cars slower and increase safety, and increase street aesthetics and property values.

For the homework and in-class activity, James introduced the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). In small groups and guided discussion, the students learned about the many environmental planning elements required to complete a SEPA checklist. Through this exercise, they developed a list of skills and areas of knowledge required for each SEPA topic, which will be a valuable reference as they transition into their careers and work in urban planning.

James Packman Talks Interdisciplinary Skills and Water’s Role in Urban Environmental Planning to UW Class

Senior Hydrologist James Packman recently presented to “Planning as a Profession,” a senior-level urban planning class in the College of the Built Environment at the University of Washington. The nearly 30 students come from different majors and career trajectories—among them are future architects, landscape architects, city planners, urban designers, real estate professionals, construction managers, engineers, environmental scientists, and more.

James Packman, Senior Hydrologist

James’ presentation, entitled “Environmental Skills, Water Resources, and Urban Planning,” gave a holistic view of environmental considerations in urban planning—from the skills and interests that lead a person to the profession and the different disciplines working in the industry to the laws and regulations that drive project design, permitting, and building and examples of water-focused planning. His overarching message focused on interdisciplinary skills, and he gave examples of Aspect projects where collaboration between disciplines was vital to address the environmental elements.

For example, the Waypoint Park project along Bellingham’s shoreline incorporated coastal geology, hydrogeology, stormwater management, civil and geotechnical engineering, landscape architecture, habitat restoration ecology, and more to reclaim a contaminated former industrial site to an urban waterfront park.

Waypoint Park Before and After Construction
City of Bellingham’s Waypoint Park incorporated many environmental planning steps to turn a former industrial site into an urban waterfront park.

James also introduced the practical side of business consulting, or how people and firms pursue and win public work, and walked students through the Request for Qualifications / Request for Proposals process. His key message for being on winning teams is that it requires networking in and outside of one’s discipline and forging relationships with public agency staff to learn their needs.

He ended by going over a homework assignment about the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist process and its key role in urban planning projects. The homework reinforced the variety of environmental disciplines—geology, hydrology, archeology, botany, wildlife biology, engineering, and more—along with professional skills—technical reading comprehension, writing, project management, public speaking, quantitative analysis, and more—that are needed to complete the checklist.

James will present to a new set of students when he returns to the class in Spring Quarter 2019.

The Story in the Sediment: Tracing Stormwater Pollution Sources at Superfund Sites

Since 2001, the lowest five miles of Seattle’s Duwamish River (known as the Lower Duwamish Waterway or LDW) has been designated as a 412-acre Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site. The LDW’s Superfund status results from decades of historical industrial activity. On top of the historical contamination, the LDW has ongoing issues with contaminated stormwater runoff. Rain hits the abundance of impervious surfaces – e.g., asphalt roads and lots, building roofs – in the industrial areas next to the river, collects contaminants from those surfaces, and carries it to the nearest storm drain and into the river.

Sediment sampling in Seattle's Lower Duwamish Superfund area helps identify contaminates and cleanup strategies to improve water quality. 

Among the many tasks in cleaning up Superfund sites is the ongoing detective work to sleuth what contaminants are there and where they came from. In the LDW cleanup, one of the key clues isn’t even in the river water itself, but in the sediment carried by stormwater. 

Aspect staff have sampled stormwater sediments across the LDW Superfund site – previously for the City of Seattle and King County and currently for the Port of Seattle at Harbor Island. Our efforts studying these solids in stormwater runoff provide key information about the recent history at a site and the extent of contamination.
 

The Benefits of Sediment Sleuthing: Unlike Water, It Accumulates

Unlike stormwater, which runs through and beyond an outfall to receiving waters, heavier sediments and other settleable solids (relatively heavy substances that sink in water) carried by runoff drop out and accumulate. This accumulation, which occurs in key locations such as stormwater catch basins, vaults, and low-gradient pipes, provides a rich environment for valuable leads on water quality contaminants that may eventually end up in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and Puget Sound. Sediment monitoring often provides a more comprehensive historical picture of pollutants compared to instantaneous or short-term sampling of water alone.

At Superfund areas, and many other sites challenged by stormwater runoff, sediment monitoring benefits clients by: 

  • Providing a historical picture of pollution—through accumulated sediment analysis--associated with stormwater runoff and industrial discharge.
  • Identifying chronic types of pollution that may deteriorate water quality and habitat.
  • Tracing the sources of pollution to their origin for purposes of management, treatment, or elimination.
  • Determining sediment accumulation rates in sewers and catch basins to improve maintenance and operation needs and to anticipate and prevent flooding.
  • Complying with permits, records of decision, and other legal requirements for preventing environmental degradation or requiring cleanup of polluted sites.
  • Measuring the effect of land use activities and stormwater treatment best management practices (BMPs).
     

Tracking Hot Spots Across 600 Acres of Pavement and Buildings

Boeing Field (aka King County International Airport or KCIA) is one of the nation’s busiest primary non-hub airports and covers over 630 acres of mostly impervious surface. Managing stormwater runoff over this much area and with many industrial tenants is a challenge, especially because KCIA faces the challenge of being responsible for all discharge to the LDW from its property, even runoff or discharge in tenant-operated areas. 

Sediment traps in a storm sewer manhole

Aspect staff previously performed inexpensive but high-resolution sediment monitoring throughout KCIA’s storm drainage infrastructure that ranged from shallow old brick manholes to deep new stormwater treatment vaults. The results from the sediment monitoring provided a finer-grained picture of accumulated sediment quality than had ever been collected at KCIA. This allowed King County to identify hot spots of likely pollution sources coming from both individual tenants and from legacy airport infrastructure and helped prioritize an action plan to address these areas.

Using Sediment Data to Track Down Drainage Ditch Polluters

In a different area of the LDW, sediment data helped the City of Seattle identify the source of intermittent toxic metal pollutants from a far upland drainage area to the LDW, despite having outdated drainage maps. 

Sediment collection in a storm sewer manhole

Because the area was previously in unincorporated Seattle, sewer records were incomplete. With the assistance of an Ecology inspector who knew the area and businesses well, Aspect staff collected sediment samples from both the public and private drainage systems. The sediment samples helped both Ecology and the City efficiently trace the source of the metals pollution to a business that had a previously unknown illicit connection from its industrial waste drainage system to the ditches outside, which served as the public storm drainage.

Long-term Sediment Monitoring at Harbor Island to Support Environmental Compliance

Aspect is currently assisting the Port of Seattle with sediment monitoring at a 15-acre marine terminal on Harbor Island, a discrete Superfund site located downstream of the LDW Superfund area. The sediment monitoring supports the Port in demonstrating compliance with a Record of Decision (ROD) to rehabilitate the site. As a site that drains directly to Puget Sound, the objective of the cleanup (which included dredging and removing contaminated soil) is to reduce concentrations of hazardous substances in runoff to levels that will have no adverse effect on marine organisms. 

Sediment traps mounted on the side of a storm sewer manhole

Sample bottles with accumulated sediment at the bottom

To evaluate this over the required 10-year monitoring period, Aspect is monitoring accumulated sediments in the new stormwater drainage system at the terminal for metals, tributyltin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The results from the sediment monitoring are compared to target concentrations in the Washington State Sediment Management Standards and show the Port’s commitment to compliance with the ROD and to ensuring that the site rehabilitation was successful. 

Sediment Sampling Provides Key Historical Context to Water Quality Evaluation

Measuring sediment quality is an excellent – and affordable – complement to measuring water quality. Aspect’s sediment sleuthing has helped clients in the LDW create a more holistic picture of both historical and ongoing stormwater pollution, as well as flooding potential. From this picture, they are better able to identify sources of contamination and create specific plans to address them—leading to a healthier LDW for all. 

Looking Forward to StormCon – August 27-31

Aspect is excited to attend and present at the 16th Annual StormCon, August 27-31 in Bellevue, WA this year. This national conference, organized by Forester Media, offers a vast curriculum of workshops, certifications, and presentations focused on surface water quality. A diverse range of topics will be available over six tracks ranging from cutting edge research and technologies to lessons learned managing stormwater in various settings. Aspect’s Tom Atkins, Senior Associate Engineer, and James Packman, Senior Hydrologist, will be presenting on three topics at this year’s event. 

On Tuesday, August 29th, James Packman will be presenting with Beth Schmoyer from the City of Seattle on the design and testing results of an R&D pilot project to develop a new suspended solids fluvial sampling device (a.k.a. sediment trap). Later in the day, Tom Atkins will be presenting on the systematic approach and successful strategies that were used to achieve stormwater regulatory compliance at Maxum Petroleum’s diesel fueling and petroleum fuel/lubricant shipping and receiving facility located on Harbor Island in Seattle.

During the Wednesday, August 30th sessions, James will be presenting again, this time alongside Greg Vigoren from the City of Lakewood on the results of a regional evaluation of municipal stormwater source control inspection data. The project is part of the western Washington Stormwater Action Monitoring program and is the first time a regional evaluation of this type of data has been done in Washington.

Aspect Stormwater Team Presents at MuniCon 2017

Aspect is proudly sponsoring and presenting at this year’s Washington State Municipal Stormwater Conference (MuniCon), May 16 & 17 in Yakima, WA.

On Day 1, Senior Associate Engineer, Tom Atkins and Senior Project Hydrogeologist, Andrew Austreng will be leading a discussion on infiltration testing requirements from the Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington.

During Day 2, Senior Hydrologist, James Packman and Greg Vigoren, City of Lakewood, will be presenting an evaluation of Western Washington Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (IDDE) data. Later in the day, Principal Engineer, John Knutson and Project Engineer, Erik Pruneda, along with Rob Buchert, City of Pullman, will be presenting on designing and constructing Low Impact Development (LID) retrofits in low permeability soils.

Aspect’s Tom Atkins and Senior Hydrologist, Bryan Berkompas will also be displaying poster presentations. Tom will be providing a poster on assessing the feasibility of stormwater infiltration at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. While Bryan’s poster demonstrates a hydrologic performance evaluation of ten bioretention facilities across the Puget Sound region through a project funded by Stormwater Action Monitoring.

The conference is presented by the Washington Stormwater Center, in partnership with Yakima County and the Department of Ecology. This unique conference focuses specifically on addressing high-priority issues and challenges faced by municipal NPDES permittees statewide. Learn more about the conference at: http://www.wastormwatercenter.org/municon2017/.