26 - Lindsey Machamer

In this episode, we’re joined by Lindsey Machamer, Division Manager for Park Development at the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, to explore how sustainability, resilience, and equity show up in the design and delivery of public spaces. Lindsey shares her career journey from civil engineering to municipal leadership, offering an inside look at how cities like Austin use tools such as LEED, SITES, and Envision to shape parks, trails, and infrastructure. We discuss green stormwater infrastructure, nature-based play, circular economy practices like deconstruction and materials reuse, and the critical role cities can play as first adopters of sustainable practices. Lindsey also reflects on mentorship, change management, and why she firmly believes every job can be a green job—making this episode both practical and inspiring for anyone working to shift the status quo. 

Books

• A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown

Certifications

• LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) 
• SITES - a rating system for sustainable landscapes 
• Envision - a rating system for infrastructure projects

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Kiersten: Hello Pod people and welcome back! Today, we're thrilled to welcome Lindsey Machamer. In past lives, Lindsey and I met while volunteering with the Young Professionals Group of Built Environment, plus a division of the U-S-G-B-C in Massachusetts. But now Lindsey has relocated down south to Austin and she works for Austin City Parks and Rec Department as a division manager for park development. In that role, she helps shape the future of Austin's parks, trails, pools, and public spaces through sustainable, resilient, and equitable design. With a background in civil engineering, Lindsey brings deep expertise in sustainability and resilience. She holds credentials including LEED AP BD+C, SITES AP, and Envision SP. She's really excited about the City of Austin's growing portfolio of SITES registered park projects. Amazing! Welcome Lindsey!

Lindsey Machamer: So glad to be here.

Kiersten: So excited to have you and to reconnect. Our first question for you today is a pretty simple one. We just wanna hear a little bit more [00:01:00] about your journey?

Lindsey Machamer: Yeah. I've always been interested in sustainability and wanting to incorporate that into my work. So I got my degrees in undergrad in civil engineering and a double majored with environmental studies. So I was always finding ways to kind of cross pollinate the two disciplines and bring that environmental lens to the civil engineering that I was learning about. When I graduated, I started working in site civil design. So kind of develop that technical expertise in, in engineering, which I'm grateful for, but also in low impact design and stormwater infrastructure and all the things that go into site development practices and thinking about how to do them in a more sustainable way than the status quo. As I've moved through my career, I've kind of started to think about that as a through line is, is how can we take our current development and building practices [00:02:00] and shift to a better way of thinking, a more resilient, a more sustainable, more equitable way of thinking. And so when I moved to Austin five years ago, I made a pivot out of engineering practice and came to work for the city in a role where I get to use my engineering expertise, but not necessarily do directly design work. I get to help the city develop its portfolio of capital improvement projects. I started in, Austin Energy working on capital improvements at the airport and helping them achieve their green building goals, specifically working with the Austin Energy Green Building Program and then made the shift over to the parks department where I'm now doing park development work.

Aparna: Very cool. Many, many questions about your time at the airport- but before we move on, can you tell us what your job titles were at each stage of your career?

Lindsey Machamer: Sure. Yeah. So in my civil engineering work, I progressed from entry level engineer up through project engineer. Starting with really more basic practices to [00:03:00] leading projects and directing work. And when I came to the city of Austin, I started as project manager and I'm now a project management supervisor. I'm serving as that division manager for park development at the Parks and Recreation Department.

Kiersten: Awesome. Focusing now on where you are currently, if we were to follow you around for the day what does your day-to-day look like? Who are you interacting with?

What types of tasks do you do? Skills, do you exercise? Tell us a bit more.

Lindsey Machamer: It's interesting how something that feels so straightforward. Like, you know, building parks can be so nuanced and complicated and involve so many different aspects, but really I work with a team of design and construction professionals. Some are project managers, some are a construction team that I work with that does in-house construction work. We take projects on park land from design through construction. So whether we're building a brand new park that is an undeveloped piece of land or redeveloping a pool that has [00:04:00] significant cracks and is failing and needs to be brought up to new standards. We're taking t hings from concept design through construction. For my day to day, that means talking with all the different project managers and understanding what might be slowing a project down or what might be coming over budget that we need to get back into budget or you know, what might be going wrong in the field that we need to address.

But in addition to working on the steps to build the projects, I do a lot of cross departmental work. So working with other city departments to, become coordinated and make sure that we're all meeting our goals together. So I spend a lot of time talking to the Watershed protection department and understanding how they're thinking about water resources for the city as a whole and how parks contribute to that. I spend time talking to folks in transportation and public works, thinking about the network of trail system throughout the city and how that overlaps with parks and how they can be both. A recreational resource and an, transportation [00:05:00] resource. And lot of different people who have similar goals, but we might not always be talking. And so that's part of my role too, is to make sure we're making those connections and finding the synergies to use a buzzword.

Aparna: I love that corporate lingo has infiltrated the public space. Well, I guess I should say I love hate it. . So just to put it into different words, the city of Austin is the owner. You work with a general contractor, you work with the design teams, you work with the engineers, and that's kind of the system that you work in.

Is that correct?

Lindsey Machamer: Yeah, that's

Aparna: Okay!

Lindsey Machamer: The city, as the parks department, we are the owners and yeah, hire the design professionals, hire the contractors. We do have a lot of in-house expertise. So a lot of my team, you know, I'm a civil engineer. A lot of my team is landscape architects. So in some cases we're able to do little pieces of design ourself and build those ourself.

It depends on the scale of the project, but kind of is a broad spectrum of how we get work done.

Kiersten: Maybe a silly question, but I'm so [00:06:00] curious because you mentioned hiring the design professionals. Are there firms that specialize in like the architecture of playground equipment?

Lindsey Machamer: So. Sort of, yes. I mean there, there's definitely people with deep expertise in playground design. It is such a cool area. You know, a lot of who we work with are vendors that create the equipment. So they're the ones that actually are doing a lot of research as well into the science of play and child development.

And actually one of the cool things, a program that we have at the parks department is Nature Play where we're really trying to emphasize the myriad of benefits of natural materials and how that can be better for children. I'm not doing, I'm not doing it justice at all, but we have a really awesome nature play program. Austin is kind of actually a leader in that space of doing that more and more.

And it's really a cool thing to see happening more and more in our city.

Aparna: Nice. I haven't heard that term nature play before, but it makes so much sense. Like we're thinking about when [00:07:00] we grew up, we're biking around like I, I grew up in Austin and I have such vivid memories of like biking the trail and biking to public pools and using the sidewalks and just enjoying the trees.

So I love that so much and as a fellow Austinite, we were talking about you finding a home in Austin five years ago and really falling in love with the city and its outdoor kind of culture. And I'm sure this has a huge part to play in it, but I'd love to hear. From you what you think about this. I feel like a lot of the times the cities we live in are kind of reflections of our value system and what we find important.

Was there something about the sustainability culture in Austin specifically that made it so that you wanted to plant roots in the city?

Lindsey Machamer: I was actually incredibly lucky to find the sustainability culture when I moved here. I sort of independently made the choice to come to Austin. And I moved actually before I had secured the position that I found working for the city, but just like [00:08:00] could not have even anticipated how much of a culture and, and policy driver Austin as a city is for its outdoor spaces and for sustainability in general. I mean, I can just rattle off like Austin Energy Green Building Program, which is the local sustainability rating system operated by the electric utility, which was essentially the birthplace of LEED and the SITES rating system being researched and developed in Austin at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

And just so much of the foundation of the green building industry comes from Austin, and I honestly had no idea that I was getting into that when I came to Austin. It just was, the best possible outcome that I could have anticipated. So it's been really awesome to basically learn about the city through that lens as I moved here.

Kiersten: Yeah, what a lovely happenstance. I'm glad since we shared the sustainability community in, Boston, to [00:09:00] articulate, I'm glad that there's an equally strong sustainability community in Austin where you found yourself. On that topic of sustainability culture in Austin, where you live- are there any fun ways that you practice sustainability in your daily life?

Lindsey Machamer: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I try to do things in small ways and not fault myself for not being perfect about it, right? So I definitely try to pay attention to my waste generation, you know, bring my coffee mug with me to the coffee shop. Not take grocery bags from the grocery store or buy the produce that's wrapped in all the packaging, you know? And really just try to be mindful like it honestly... causes me quite a bit of anxiety when I have to throw things away. So that is a good driver for just not getting things that need to be thrown away. and actually this year I'm, I made the transition to doing a little bit of bike commuting. So I got an e-bike at the beginning of this year. And I'm [00:10:00] able to bike, to the office that I work from at least one day a week.

Aparna: Oh, did you use the incentive? That the city has for e-bikes?

Lindsey Machamer: I did, yes!

Aparna: That's fantastic.

Lindsey Machamer: Yes, yes, yes! Yeah, the Austin Energy rebate. So I got a rebate 'cause I purchased the bike at a local bike store. and it was within, you know, the specs that they, they needed it to be. And so, yeah, that was super cool guys. Take advantage of that. And there's also, I mean, this is, at first, I thought this was what you were saying, and I was like, how do you know about this?

But the Austin, the city actually is just introducing commute rewards for like earning time off for taking alternative commutes to work too. That's a super cool thing that the city is trying to implement to encourage people to bike, walk, take the bus, alternative things to get to work.

Aparna: That's incredible. A lot of the time, if Kiersten and I are going into work, we'll take the metro or she started to e-bike. I bike as well. So I would love to earn some more PTO with that. That's so [00:11:00] cool. City of Washington, DC please take a note from the city of Austin.

Kiersten: I think we'd have to shout out to JLL to do that.

Aparna: Oh.

Kiersten: Yeah.

Aparna: The City of Washington, DC make it a mandate for anyone who lives in your city

Kiersten: Yeah, as like a, a traffic calming measure. We can say nobody likes traffic, so incentivize alternatives. Also I have to say yes, sometimes I e-bike, but I'm working my little legs up. Sometimes I bike.

Aparna: She does them both. She does them both. Strava has her receipts.

Kiersten: That's true. You can track e-bike versus regular bike on Strava.

Aparna: Oh man. We're kind of posing Austin to be a mentor for DC here. So Lindsey, using that very smooth transition, do you have sustainability mentors who influenced your outlook on how you work, how you think about this industry?

Lindsey Machamer: Yeah, for sure. I, I I feel so lucky to have the mentors that I do. There's a couple women that I work with at the city of Austin that have been part of the green building industry [00:12:00] here for a long time, and I've been so lucky to learn from them.

Particularly, I'll just shout out Sarah Talkington as I worked with at Austin Energy Green Building, and I also work with now Parks and Recreation and, and getting to see the way that she models change management in sustainability and doing the work of sustainability for the city is really incredible. And on that same theme of change management, I also credit a lot of mentorship to my involvement in Built Environment plus back in Massachusetts. the reason that I think of sustainability as a change management problem is as a result of Barbara Batshalom's work, who works for a Sustainable Performance Institute and the founder of Building Ease. And I really reflecting recently on how much of the way that I think about my work is informed by what I learned from her. And I was so lucky actually, when I moved to Austin to have that network of built environment plus to reach out to, and, and actually [00:13:00] some folks put me in contact with people in Austin that they knew from the local chapter and I got the chance to have some conversations before I found a job and just ask people what it was like in Austin. And what they suggest I start to learn about as I move to the city. So I give a lot of credit to that network of people for me, making that transition successfully and I really enjoyed my time volunteering with the Emerging Professionals Group and like learning from you, Kiersten, and all the other co-leaders of that group that we worked together with. You know, it was just such a great learning opportunity to see everybody's different work and leadership styles as we were developing them.

Just, really great network of peer mentors essentially. Really grateful for that time.

Kiersten: I wholeheartedly second that. Meredith as well, if she's listening,

Lindsey Machamer: Yes,

Kiersten: thank you for all you do through BE+, making it what it is.

Well, on that note, we will take a break, listeners, we have a podcast recommendation for you, and then we'll be right back.

[00:00:00]

Kiersten: All right. Hopefully you liked our recommendation for a podcast, but not so much that you left this episode in the middle to go listen to the other podcast. So if you're still with us, we are here with Lindsey. And Lindsey, I wanna ask you, you talked about sustainability and change management, and we have a little bit of a concept for you. So a common debate in policy and environmental circles is really about who influences the change first. Is it carrot stick, like federal, private, local, grassroots? There's a lot of dichotomies in the space. So since you have seen the private space through your time in past roles and now the public space, with your time with Austin Energy Green Building and the Parks and Rec department what are your thoughts on this?

Who do you think is kind of the, the OG influencer.

Lindsey Machamer: Hmm. That's an interesting question. I mean, certainly everyone has a role to play, right? but I feel I'm uniquely positioned to. To see the municipal role in being a green [00:01:00] building leader or sustainability leader, or both? I'll just start by saying, I mean, uniquely positioned in my role at Austin, of course, but I'll start by saying that one of the ways that I was introduced to using the LEED rating system is in my civil engineering work in Massachusetts with the Massachusetts School Building A uthority and working on school projects because there's a, financial incentive for reaching LEED silver or there was, I don't actually know what the current status of policy is, but there was a policy essentially that incentivized achieving LEED silver and I say that because there's a policy requirement that is driving participation in achieving sustainability thresholds and that is sort of amplified in the city of Austin. It was the first of two cities in the nation to adopt, LEED into its green building policy. So back in 2000, right alongside Seattle, it was the [00:02:00] first city to require LEED for city projects. So as the developer ourselves, having that as a requirement.

And then, in 2021, the newest update to the green building policy adds SITES, the rating system for sustainable landscapes as a requirement for all park and landscape projects over $2 million. So we are incentivizing, not by, well, in some cases by requiring private industry to do certain things, but incentivizing by being the leader the first adopter essentially, and showing how it can be done and learning the lessons that it takes when something is new, and figuring out how to make the space in the market for, you know, the products that you need to procure that are more sustainable or the learning that the contractors need to do to do these green building practices. So by doing it, by committing to doing it ourselves as a city, we're creating that space in the market for broader adoption. Not every [00:03:00] municipality takes that role, but I think it's a really cool opportunity to be part of projects that are trying to do that change work.

Kiersten: I think that's a great answer. And it was maybe a trick question 'cause I don't know that there's one who rules them all right. It's a very interactive system. I did wanna pause the conversation though in a way and ask you to tell us a little bit more about SITES because I think you are. first guest to mention it.

I believe you're also the only guest to have your Envision SP. So those two things, being new to listeners, maybe if you could just elaborate a bit on what they are before we move on.

Lindsey Machamer: Yeah, sure. So SITES is a sustainable rating system for landscape projects. And its focus is on ecosystem services. It rates anything outside of a building. It does not include a building in what it rates. It is. Sort of organized into categories. That align with phases of a development project.

So thinking about pre-design and how are you intentionally thinking about [00:04:00] your site and capturing what's existing there and then moving through design of things like water and materials. And, plants and vegetation, of course, because it's landscape. And then moving into construction and how you can manage your construction site and even into operations and maintenance in a way that's a sustainable landscape.

And really emphasizing how to get the most from ecosystem services because they do so much for us as humans. They clean our water, they control our flooding. They keep us cool. There's just so many things that can be done if a, a landscape is developed the right way. Might be a long answer, but that's SITES.

And then envision is also a sustainability rating system for infrastructure projects. So this is where the engineers really take the lead. It's kind of designed around civil engineering as a discipline and it is designed to rate like water utility or transportation corridor projects or, anything, it could include a building. But [00:05:00] anything that is an infrastructure project and it kind of takes the tact of thinking more from a policy level because infrastructure is such a expansive system often, right? Like a, a water treatment plant is like a community resource and not just an individual user building. And so it thinks a lot about the larger regional system leadership practices and policies and, again with that engineering focus. So yeah, I got the weird collection of all those accreditations. Because I can't help myself. I just want to learn about each of them and understand the different nuances and how they can help us do our projects better.

And I think that those different rating systems can all be a really useful tool in the right application.

Aparna: That's awesome, and you're speaking to the choir with like wanting to learn more, get different certifications, just see how different groups of people view the work that we're already doing. But from the engineer's perspective, from the designer's perspective, from a facility manager's perspective, right?

There's so many [00:06:00] pieces that one person might be missing, that another person might be trained to see from the get go. So it really gets you that holistic picture.

I feel like the classic question would be, what is your favorite certification that you have, but I'm gonna spin it! So thinking back to the city of Austin and the work that you do and your time at the Parks department, is there maybe one favorite way you have that the City of Austin Parks has integrated sustainability into its day-to-day?

Lindsey Machamer: One way that I've been spending a lot of my time recently is implementation of green stormwater infrastructure into our parks. So the city has a pretty robust policy about prioritizing green stormwater infrastructure rather than gray stormwater infrastructure. And so ultimately the city's a leader in that. We're learning a lot about how to install those as amenities in parks, essentially, right? Because there's so many co-benefits of a rain garden that is designed to [00:07:00] capture and treat water that's flowing off of your impervious areas and have it be a garden or someplace that people can also connect with nature or walk around and appreciate the beauty of as well.

It seems like a pretty straightforward concept, but it's not something we've nailed yet. And so we're doing a lot more now to design those intentionally into our parks.

And as part of that, thinking about: how do we properly maintain them? So working with our maintenance crews on what plants we wanna put in there. What native plants require really low maintenance that don't require us to extend a bunch of extra effort or a bunch of fertilizer things we don't need to be inputting into the environment.

So there's a lot of operational practices that come with putting these in and working really closely with our maintenance teams to kind of make all of that a reality is a pretty exciting thing to be working on right now.

Kiersten: That is really cool. I know in DC since we're comparing cities a little bit, just by nature of where you live and where we live and Aparna's shared allegiance to [00:08:00] both. I'll say. DC does have a program where residents can apply and get rebates if they install rainwater retention or other things. Our neighbor here has a pretty cool sunken landscaped area that holds rainwater. Really, really cool to hear about it conceptually and then see it in the real world.

Before we talk about other experiences , I can't talk about Parks and Rec without talking about Parks and Rec. Do you watch the show?

Lindsey Machamer: I have watched this show, but it's been a really long time. And I tried to re-watch it recently and I couldn't do it. It was too real. Too, it was too much like actual life.

Kiersten: What character do you identify with? But maybe, I don't know, maybe

Lindsey Machamer: Mm.

Kiersten: too real and you don't wanna share.

Lindsey Machamer: No. I don't know. I think, if I remember correctly, I think I'm probably Karen? I don't, I don't feel a strong affinity to any particular role in that show, but if, if I had to choose, it'd probably be Karen.

Kiersten: I recall correctly, Karen was the most realistic person, right?

Lindsey Machamer: [00:09:00] Right?

Kiersten: That makes sense. Although I will say if I had to pick, I would probably go Leslie Knope, just like the starry-eyed idealist. On my good days, on my bad days, definitely more disillusionment. Aparna, would you say you relate to any particular person

Aparna: in high school it was the Aziz Ansari phase. In college, it was also the Aziz Ansari phase, , we're both Indian. But also treat yourself always in all things. You earn some money. Awesome. Go to the spa.

Kiersten: He had many co-conspirators in the treat yourself though, right? I can't remember her name. Donna.

Aparna: Donna. Yeah.

Kiersten: She was a big treat yourself, gal. Okay,

Aparna: Yeah. I love the treat yourself attitude. So Aziz is still my spirit animal.

Kiersten: well now that we've asked the hard hitting questions. I do recall when you first moved and your work was with the airport, you were talking about a lot of cool stuff on deconstruction and materials reuse and circular economy. So I would love to visit that chapter of your life as well and hear a little bit about that experience.

Lindsey Machamer: [00:10:00] Yeah. Luckily that chapter continues and I'm still getting to do some work in that area. And so yeah, I can talk about that too. But, the really cool pilot project that I was working on when I was working with the airport was trying to find a new home for some of the old hangars that were gonna be taken down to make room for the new expansion of the airport. It was really interesting learning opportunity. 'cause what I found was that there was market demand for it. between actually demolition contractors and then people who wanted just metal structures like a airport hangar would have a use for it. But one of the barriers that I ran into was city procurement processes and not having a really clear cut way to, contract that type of service. 'Cause ultimately part of what we wanted to do was sell the buildings, but it's also a construction contract and you know, there, there certainly could have been a way to do it within the [00:11:00] constraints of the current procurement policy, but ended up being limited by the time available to follow those pathways.

So it was a really interesting learning opportunity of what the barriers are that need to be overcome in order to do that as a more regular practice. And I do know that there are a lot of excellent folks in the city's planning department and historic preservation office that are thinking about deconstruction and how to make it more possible. For anyone in, in the city, so that's really great. One of the great things that I'm getting to work on right now is actually in cooperation with the planning department to do a deconstruction skills training workshop on city property. So, finding an old building that needs to come down that is wood frame construction and having a nonprofit come and do skills training for the sort of industry in Austin at large, but also an opportunity for some of our staff to get some training in that as well.

So yeah, there's some cool work and I just, I love being able to dip my [00:12:00] toes into that kind of thing and kind of help make that more standard practice.

Aparna: It seems like that's kind of a way that you are making all jobs have aspects of green in them, right? So all aspects now have this piece of deconstruction, this piece of reuse, having to think about the future of it. I am thrilled that you still get to engage with this kind of work.

Circular economy is something that we're both very interested in, love to geek out about, and it's nice to see someone who's doing that in their day to day. So speaking of making all jobs green jobs, something that we like to ask us about on this podcast is pretty much that sentence. So it's a hypothesis we hold and we truly believe in it.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that statement, that every job can and fact be a green job, and see if you have any ways for folks who might make their day jobs that might not be overtly sustainable, more green.

Lindsey Machamer: Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that hypothesis. I mean, that is how I feel like I [00:13:00] approach anything. Anything I do, I wanna bring an aspect of sustainability to it, you know? And I think it requires a little bit of creative thinking, but it's really awesome to find the Venn diagram of overlap and everything.

Right. I think for me, one of the most helpful tools or ways that I went about it was, was getting involved in my local U-S-G-B-C chapter and built Environment plus, right? Because not every single project that I was working on in civil engineering world was a sustainable project by definition, but I could always find ways to bring in low impact development or ask questions about how we could be doing our designs more sustainably, because I was participating in this network of people who wanted to talk about it and were really passionate about it. And it was not only just a reminder, but it was an access to resources about things I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

So for me, finding that professional community that cares really deeply and having regular contact [00:14:00] with. With them, with you, with, was really centering and allowed me to bring that to my day-to-day work, even if it wasn't always directly focused on that. So that's been my biggest way that I've, I've kept sustainability at the forefront of my, my mind as I do my work.

Kiersten: I love that answer and the angle that you're bringing in of, essentially, you did recognize that maybe your day job wasn't inherently sustainable, so you found a space to expose yourself to those concepts because again, maybe it isn't immediately clear to someone who's starting their sustainability journey and not in a role that is traditionally thought of as sustainable, how they can bring it in. But that first step is absolutely, well expose yourself to the topics and then you kind of start to have that lens you can apply and look through every day to say oh, I just learned about, this practice or this standard or this certification.

Great, great answer. Great advice to be taken by the listeners. I hope others can follow in your footsteps. In that [00:15:00] same vein, because you did just give some great advice in your answer there, do you have any other advice that you would give to someone starting out in the space?

Lindsey Machamer: I guess what I would add is maybe a mentality suggestion, which is don't get daunted by the scale of the problem. Right? If you think of your work as sustainability or climate change mitigation or adaptation, it can be really easy to feel like that's insurmountable challenge to tackle on your own.

But you know. What helps me is really defining what I have control over and focusing my energy where I have control and, and what I can make a difference in. And finding enthusiasm by finding the people that want to do that work and that being part of the motivation to keep working on that giant goal. I think, yeah, it can be, it can be really easy to get daunted, but there's ways to slice it up and [00:16:00] work on little pieces at a time and if we all do that together, we'll make a difference.

Aparna: That's a good answer. That's a great answer. Thank you, Lindsey! I think it's something that a lot of our other guests have echoed as well. The fact that you're not in this alone. You have community, and if all of us take a small step together, what a huge impact that could be overall. It's a really beautiful image.

Thinking about that- imagine yourself like 30 years from now. ? Looking back, what kind of a legacy are you hoping to have left behind?

Lindsey Machamer: Well, I mean, kind of just that I wanna be making a little bit of a difference all the time. I think I mentioned that I've started to think about the through line of my career as being, working on changing the status quo. So away from business as usual in the way we think about development of the built environment.

And, as much as I appreciate knowing the technical expertise of the way that we do things I want to not be afraid to [00:17:00] challenge that status quo and help to drive things towards that. And take all the opportunities I can to push boundaries and learn lessons and tell people about the lessons that I learned so that they can try it again and just consistently chip away at turning the ship. So that's what I feel like I'm working on and that's what I'm really excited to keep working on as I continue my career.

Kiersten: No wrong answers to that question. We love every single one! So as of last year, Aparna and I became proud online bookstore owners. And as a part of that, we have been building up a repository of guest recommendations and guest authored books. If you ever write a book. Hit us up, we'll put it in our store. But, for the time being, if you have any personal attachment to energy or sustainability novels or things that you found particularly helpful as resources when you were exposing yourself to all of these topics, we would love to, to hear them and share with [00:18:00] our guests.

So the question is just, do you have any books that you would recommend?

Lindsey Machamer: I came with one that I'd love to share. And if I think of anything else I'll follow up and let you know. But I'm actually only halfway through this, but it is a pretty incredible book and it's an Austin based author. It's called A Natural History of Empty Lots, and it's about the natural ecology that pops up in urban spaces that are sort of the boundary land like it used to be natural space, but then it's developed, but the nature's taking back over and how much value those pockets of ecology tucked into the city provide. And so far really interesting read and I expect it to be all the way to the finish.

So yeah, I recommend that.

Aparna: Do you think they'll also talk about MD pits? Just keeping on our Parks and rec theme.

Lindsey Machamer: Oh my goodness. There might be something on that later in the book.

Aparna: I hope so. Last chapter. Well, we can't wait to hear how you like the book once you're done with it. And thank you for sharing that. We'll definitely link it in our bookshop and honestly, [00:19:00] thank you just for this conversation, Lindsey, it's been so fun to get to know you and understand more about your personal life, your work life, and this through line that you have through your career.

I feel like you really are walking the walk, talking the talk, and connecting all these dots to. Impact, change, impact within Austin Parks and Rec. And next time I'm at Barton Springs or Deep Eddie, I will be thinking about you and saying, wow, she did this. So thank you so much for your time.

Lindsey Machamer: I hope you call me if you're at one of those places so we

and see each other.

Aparna: We can go together. I love that.

Kiersten: Thank you for everything you do and for being on the pod!