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Hi. I'm Joe Paiva, CEO of GeoLearn and I'm here with Wendy Lathrop. She's one of our
faculty in our courses. And the particular set of courses she has done here on her first
visit to us is on floods and flood plain management and the NFIP. So Wendy's had a brutal couple
of days recording. It was her first experience in doing this in such an intense way. And
she's now showered and refreshed, has just come out of the locker room and we thought
we'd share a few moments with her, so that you can learn a little bit more about Wendy.
Perhaps even more than you might learn in an environment where you go to a state conference
and hear her speak.
So Wendy, thank you so much for doing all this for us. You've been a real trooper and
you've pulled off an amazing job.
I've been pleased to be here. It has been a little hot and tiring. I'm not used to speaking
without an audience that's live.
Yeah, yeah. So hopefully, so I take it this would mean that regardless for what you do
for us in the future, you will want to keep your gigs, where you talk to real live people,
as well.
I find it very rewarding to interact with people in an audience, to make sure that whatever
I'm presenting is something that's of use to them. I always have a core of information
that I want to present to people, but then I try, on the fly, make sure that the material
is going to cover what those people, in the particular audience that I'm addressing at
that moment, might need to make their professional lives a little bit more easy.
So, I know everybody seems to know at conferences that you do a lot of stuff on flood, floods
and flood plain management. I know you have other areas of expertise, but how did you
wind up in the flood area?
That was kind of a roundabout thing. My first full time job after college was working for
a company that was doing the original flood plain mapping, at that point in time, the
Flood Hazard Boundary Mapping for Housing and Urban Development, because it was before
FEMA had been created. And I got that job, based on both my art portfolio and my portfolio
of drafting background. I had wanted to be an architect at one point in my life.
So I started my FEMA, my flood plain exposure with doing some of that original mapping,
on an approximate basis, where we were stripping cross sections from U.S. geological topo maps.
Very interesting. So that has grown into a pretty high level of recognition, because
I know that in September of 2013, I think it was, the NSPS nominated you to be on, yet
again, on the Technical Mapping Advisory Council. And congratulations on that and I assume that
FEMA knows you so well that it's going to be a slam dunk, as far as your place on...
Well it would be nice to think that. It's something I would really look forward to.
So Congress reinstituted the Technical Mapping Council with the Biggert-Waters Act that passed
in 2012. The first Mapping Council was initiated by the National Flood Insurance Reform Act
of 1994. And this particular council has very specific charges, in terms of improving the
mapping process and distribution. Everything from the collection to the analysis to the
distribution, in a cost effective manner, which, of course, is the hardest part of the
whole program.
I learned a tremendous amount by being on the first council and I would look forward
to doing it again. And, of course, to serving my colleagues and getting their input to bring
back to this council, should my nomination be accepted. I certainly hope they didn't
get tired of me and decide they would prefer somebody else.
One of the things that I have noticed in the various forums and committees and things like
that, that I've worked with you, is that you're very tenacious and you're very disciplined
and you have a very good energy, mental energy, to handle your tasks. And from talking with
you, I think some of that maybe comes from the fact that you are a martial artist. Which
types of martial arts do you practice?
Okay. So I thought you were going to say, so you're very stubborn too, which is what
usually comes out. Yes, tenacious, depends on who talking, whether it's tenacious or
stubborn.
So I've been studying martial arts for 30 years now. I started in 1982. I have a third
degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, which is a Korean karate form and I'm also ranked in
Kung Fu. Currently, the style that I am studying is a Vietnamese form called Thun Thot Moo
Dau(sp). But I also have a black sash in Tai Chi, which I've been studying for about 22
years, at this point.
So I should let our viewers know that as kind of a loosener-upper, when we have been able
to convince Wendy to, what do you call them, not poses, but...
Well, they're kind of stances. So the various animals that you were asking me to show you,
that's basically different fighting forms, based on the spirit of the different animals.
Because all of us have different emotions and we can channel those emotions into how
the spirit could be expressed in a different animal. So if you watch cats fight, they do
a certain kind of a thing. And if you watch birds fight, they do a little bit different
kind of a thing.
So, we're not going to discuss this here, but we actually video recorded some of your
stances and moves. So we'll talk afterwards about whether we can show viewers some of
those stances and moves, at some point.
But thank you for doing that and entertaining us. And at the same time, I think it helped
you prepare for the next session that you were going to do and I think, I know from
other people who practice martial arts, that the practice, the self-discipline, the mental
discipline, helps, seems to help them and I'm guessing that it's probably the same for
you.
There's a very big connection between being able to discipline your mind and discipline
your body, because those two things together are what help you get through so many difficult
things, whether they're physical or emotional in nature. Being able to recognize all of
those aspects of yourself, so yes.
I want to also, or I should say, put it this way, I would be remiss if I didn't mention
Cadastral Consulting and, specifically the fact that you run, essentially, a speakers
bureau, that sends speakers, including yourself, all over the country, maybe all over the world,
to speak on various topics. Tell me how you got into that.
Well, I actually began, went into business for myself in 1998, in January of 1998. It
was one of those things where I was in a job with a company that was going through an ownership
transition and a management transition. And after a while I realized that the stress of
that situation was becoming to the point where I was becoming physically ill. And I decided
it's better to just get out of this and start on my own. Or, it was meant to be kind of
an interim, before I found another job. But I realized that I really enjoyed working for
myself. I started it as a consulting business.
And then, a few years later, I purchased the name of Cadastral Consulting from Dennis Mullond(sp),
who had that name before, and he and I had worked together and I had been part of his
speakers bureau.
When he went back to work for the federal government, he could no longer have a private
business, so that's how I had, I gained that name. And so, besides the consulting that
I do and the speaking that I was doing on my own, which his kind of an adjunct and not
the primary part of my own business, I also inherited the ability to have the public knowledge,
the public awareness, of this speakers bureau and to expand on that, as well.
That's great, because I don't even know when it happened, but at some point, you invited
me to join your bureau, so it's kind of interesting that now we've kind of gone full circle and
you're back here at GeoLearn, speaking on our behalf.
It's a little better than the quid pro quo. Yes, I'm pleased to be here.
So thank you for doing this. I hope you enjoyed your stint at GeoLearn well enough, that you
will come back and do more courses, because I know you have many more areas that are of
interest to you, than just floods and flood plain management. So, thank you for talking
with us. And I hope that you will feel positive about coming back.
I do feel positive. And there is much more that I would love to share with the public
at large, whether it be regarding land titles or business practices or professional practice.
And thank you for the invitation to be part of GeoLearn.
Well, that will do it. Hopefully, you will get a chance to see Wendy at some of her seminars
that she presents live at state conferences and other places. But in the meantime, whenever
you need a Wendy fix, you can come right here and get a course or two from her in this environment
as well. Thank you, Wendy.