Career Growth Advice from Dena Prastos, Architecture & Engineering Leader | Career Tips for Women in Architecture & Engineering

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 83
Featuring Dena Prastos, CEO of Indigo River

Episode Title: #83 Dena Prastos: Shaping the Future of Waterfront Architecture

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Dena Prastos



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Today's guest is a bold leader I am so excited to have on the show. Dena Prastos is a waterfront architect, civil engineer, futurist, climate adaptation expert, and entrepreneur. As founder and CEO of Indigo River, which is a woman-owned design firm focused on progressive waterfront architecture, resiliency, and climate adaptation. Dena is an experienced leader of innovative projects around the world, including heavy civil construction, marine engineering, and waterfront architecture. These experiences have helped shape her vision and competency in construction, engineering, and architecture. Dena completed her Bachelor of Architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology, where she additionally completed a graduate degree in civil engineering. After gaining valuable experience in the industry, she was admitted to Harvard Business School's leading professional services firm, Executive Educational Program. Dena currently serves on the planning board in historic Grandview on Hudson, New York, and enjoys volunteering with the National Council of Architectural Registration's Board Future Collaborative, where she drives and informs strategic conversations across the nation regarding the future of our industry and profession. Having experienced the lack of female role models herself as she was building her career, she embraces any chance she gets to mentor or team up with someone early in their career and is happy to help. And I am thrilled she's on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dena Prastos (Guest): Mary, thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure.

Mary Killelea: Great. Okay. So let's dive in. Tell us about your career journey. You know, just the space that you're in, I think is so unique for a woman. So, I am anxious to hear how you chose from schooling, and then kind of climbed your way up through working at various locations and companies to deciding to own your own business and where you are today.

Dena Prastos: Sure. So I finished my undergrad and graduate school. So I studied architecture undergrad. And when I finished my undergrad, I had a bit of a, say, insecurity or awareness around a vulnerability, which was that I wasn't confident in my technical abilities. And so, I leaned into that. And that's something I kind of do time and again in my career is that there's something that intimidates me, I attack it. And so, I did that kind of first with leaning into civil engineering master's degree. And when I finished that, I had the same kind of keen awareness of an area that I wasn't so comfortable in. And that was the maybe we'll call it the common sense approach of why, while you might be able to do several calculations on a sheet of paper as to picking one structural system over another, but the common sense approach as to why you would pick one material over the other, whether it's the labor involved or the expense involved.

And so I went into the field to work for a self-reformed contractor. And I worked in the construction field for the first six years of my career to really get a feel of what the conversations are going on in the field and let that kind of inform both my civil engineering degree, as well as my architecture degree. So that when I did come full circle back to architecture, I have a much more robust understanding, not only of architecture, but of the other disciplines involved and of the people who build the designs that we make.

Mary Killelea: That's amazing. One, did you have, and I know you said you had some self-awareness, but it sounded like you really were building your career strategy based on where you wanted to go and knew the gaps that you needed to get there. Was there some guidance in that or how did you do that from an internal?

Dena Prastos: So I'll liken it. I was an athlete all my life, played tennis, played soccer, and I'll liken it to the feeling if you've ever played sports and trained with, maybe you've worn extra weights while training. And then when you take them off on game day, you feel kind of that much lighter and faster. And so I'll liken it to that kind of with the mentality of, again, things that intimidated me and focusing on them to strengthen those muscles and those areas, knowing and having that awareness that they weren't my natural gifts and my natural talent, but by being disciplined and focusing and committing to focus on them, rounding them out so that I am a firm believer that in many instances, but particularly with career and the career trajectory one can have, that you're not limited by your strengths. You're limited by your weaknesses. And so that was something that was a very concerted effort to round out my weaknesses and elevate them and let them inform and in some cases become my strengths.

Mary Killelea: That's so inspiring. And I'll tell you in my full-time job, that's very relevant for me to hear today. So I appreciate it.

Dena Prastos: It sounds more thoughtful now than it was, but I think, like I said, from athletics, there's kind of a spirit there of strengthening the muscles and kind of repeatedly consistently the discipline involved to improve an area that needed to focus.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. Okay. So, then you founded Indigo River in 2018. Tell us about your company and the vision that you had and what unique services you provide in the market.

Dena Prastos: Sure. So, when I entered the workforce, I worked for a contractor, I worked for a design engineering firm, I worked for an architecture firm, and there were themes again within my career that I didn't necessarily set out focusing on, but as a pattern emerged, I leaned into that pattern. And that pattern was, I was working on waterfront projects and working on the waterfront is kind of a unique instance and where there is heavy regulation, there are specific construction methodologies or specific design types. So that was something that I started to build up a knowledge base. And that's atypical for a traditional architect to do that. But again, kind of with my atypical experience, I leaned into that and having floated around from the construction industry to the design engineering industry and design architecture industry, I saw the opportunity to harness that kind of deeper experience that I was getting as an architect and establish a company that really does focus from a design point of view and design perspective, not only engineering, but focus on the waterfront.

And so we founded Indigo River to do just that. And so, the company focuses, has architects and engineers, many different disciplines that focus on the waterfront. And what that means is our waterfront in general is one of our most vulnerable typologies and conditions, and especially in the face of climate change, with sea level rise and storm surge and flooding. And we focus on creating resilient infrastructure and types of infrastructure include bulkheads or seawalls or wharfs, marinas, ports. So, there are many different facilities, many different types of conditions where land meets water, where nature meets manmade. And so those are the conditions that we focus on. And in particular, we focus on creating an infrastructure that is capable of adapting, particularly as weather patterns become more extreme and less predictable.

Mary Killelea: Oh, that's amazing. Because I think the awareness from a company perspective and all of us really on kind of the climate and sensitivities to how we're treating our surroundings with what we do every day. So that's amazing that your company does that. And I'll come back to that a little bit, but I want to talk about how your company provides specialists in the growing numbers of disciplines. So that includes architects, landscape architects, naval architects, urban planners, climate adaption specialists, as well as civil, geotechnical, structural marine and coastal engineers. Now, I don't know what all those roles do. And I'm sure that's probably on the mind of some of the people listening. There's someone out there who, and this is what I find so challenging with so many women trying to navigate the career. They don't know what they don't know. They don't know how to get from point A to point B. Can you kind of touch on the different roles and kind of maybe if there is any way to cross pollinate or navigate your career?

Dena Prastos: Absolutely. So I I'll just I'll touch quickly on kind of the different disciplines and how they fit within our team. So we have architects who all come back to this, but architects are licensed to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public in the built environment. And that's a loaded statement that I, as I said, I'll come back to. But we also have landscape architects, which focus more on the more natural environments and shaping and forming those. And then we have naval architects who focus on floating assets. So, think of if you've ever been on a ferry landing that's floating or a barge or things of that sort that there's an interface between the fixed and the floating. We have urban and environmental planners that focus on particularly looking at a different scale. So not necessarily looking at one site but maybe looking at a whole neighborhood or a whole coastline and understanding what changes being made have different effects and different consequences and how to be strategic about those decisions that are made and how the decisions affect the community and how to harness the stakeholder engagement and community inputs into the design process. And then we do we also have climate adaptation specialists that have a more kind of scientific view of what's been going on, what's happened historically, what the projections are for future conditions of sea level rise and storm surge and things that, like I said, there are conditions that are happening more frequently, more hazards, more vulnerabilities. And so, a keen awareness to that and how it affects our existing infrastructure, existing assets, as well as designs that we're building. So, we'll be able to model in real time, in real space, what a design looks like with a category three storm or hurricane hitting it and understanding the frequency of that storm, whether it's once in 100 years, twice, five times, whatever it is, just to understand what the real vulnerability is.

And then within engineering, civil who often are focusing on even a wide range. So, it could vary from storm drainage and bridges and roadways, geotechnical engineers focus more on the soil composition, understanding what the mechanics and the soil properties are, structural engineers, again, looking at the physical structures of what is being erected, and then marine and coastal engineers as well as dive engineers, which are really interesting roles. And so marine engineers are looking at the marine structures, if you have a floating asset and it's pile supported, or if it has an anchorage or what the different structures are that are holding the marine asset in place, as well as coastal engineers that are looking at the wave modeling and what the sediment transport is, understanding how coastlines are changing and what the wave impacts are on the built structures. And then we also have a dive engineer that will go underwater and inspect things. And a lot of the times the improvements and the repairs and the rehabilitation is to an existing asset. And so to understand what's going on beneath the water level and what's going on beneath the surface, quite literally to go down and inspect and do the work is important for our team as well.

And so we have quite a few different backgrounds and I'll say beyond our technical specialties, many of us have also kind of bridged the divide between the design world and the construction world, and even the owner's rep world. So representing owners and having an idea as to asset management when designing is incredibly important and incredibly valuable. And understanding the conversations going on with contractors in the field of how something is being built, again, incredibly important when designing. And so many of our team members have specific technical expertise as well as kind of the vast understanding of the design construction and execution of what the effects are of their decisions and of their proposed designs. And so something I'll say about kind of what led me here and how we have this eclectic team is, and if you were to tell me, we're five years old now, but if you would have even told me 10 years ago that this was a company that we would have made and with the focus particularly on climate adaptation measures, I don't know that I would have fully believed it because it's not that it's a new field, but within architecture, it's not common to specialize in this sort of typology. It's more common to specialize in, whether it's hospital design or theater design or they're different, commercial or residential, there are different types of specialties and focuses within architecture, but focusing on infrastructure and focusing on the waterfront, I couldn't name another firm that does exactly what we're doing.

So I think that's what led us here in large part, and our team is very like-minded in terms of passions and curiosities, but that said, if you're looking for a way to have impact and a way to have a meaningful career, I think uncovering and kind of looking for the hints of what are your passions, what are your curiosities, and find a way to marry your talents and your ambitions to find your purpose and leave your mark. And for me, that was really looking at the interface of nature and design, technology, history, culture, and so that manifests itself into Indigo River, which is the company that we've created.

Mary Killelea: That's amazing. I know one thing, you're a woman-owned company, and diversity is important. Tell me why diversity is important to you, because I would assume it's a very male-dominated industry.

Dena Prastos: It is. It's incredibly male-dominated. An example I like to give that's very tangible. Look at, if you've ever been to a stadium that maybe was built in the 60s or in the 50s, and especially if you're a mother and you have a child that needs a diaper that needs to be changed, and you go into those stadiums and you go into the restroom, the men's rooms, they don't have the changing tables. Now there are some that are retrofit, but historically when those buildings were designed, they didn't have the changing tables, and that's reflective of society at that time. And so that's reflective of the men designing and the society and the culture, having women at home taking care of the kids so that when the families went out, it was the woman's responsibility. And we look at how that perpetuates in society today where that's not the norm, that's not the case. We have a much more equal kind of load sharing within the household. You look at how that manifests and it perpetuates this imbalance. And that's a product of not having diversity in the room at that time when those buildings were designed and when those codes and those standards were established.

And so that happens in many different ways beyond that example, but just to understand what the codes and what the standards are and why it's important to have a reflection of society and a reflection of the current culture in the room designing is just that.

Mary Killelea: You mentor women through, ongoing, just as part of your passion, I believe. What are some of the main themes that come across from women that turn to you for coaching?

Dena Prastos: So, I do love to meet with women in their career and at any stage because I felt like, as you mentioned, it was kind of a miss in mind and a missed opportunity that I didn't have many women in the companies that I was at. And when I would kind of raise my hand looking for those kinds of roles, they were largely filled by men and there's that lack of empathy and understanding. And so, when I meet with women, sometimes it's a question of like, how did I get to where I am? And I always share that any given day is only a snapshot in time. And there's usually kind of a dozen things at least that I'm working on out of the spotlight that take a lot of time and energy before they're brought into the spotlight. And so, I am a reflection of my daily habits. And I think that's often something successful people are simply people with successful habits. And so, focusing on the day to day and not being intimidated by wanting to jump five steps ahead, but just taking one step at a time, your habits determine your future and things, making things look easy takes a lot of hard work. And yeah, that's a little bit about kind of the conversations and the types of conversations that I have.

Mary Killelea: I love that. Making it easy is a lot of hard work. We need to make that a quote. So can you give us one or two examples of good habits that you have?

Dena Prastos: Sure. So, I think one of my most helpful habits that I formed is learning when to disconnect and when to recharge. And that's something that's really hard to do, especially as a business owner, because you're always on and there's always something and there's always something more to do. And there's always another call that needs to be made, another email that needs to be sent, more work. And so, carving out times and carving out a balanced schedule that sure emergencies will come up and they'll need to be addressed. But on a day to day, how many things really are emergent and kind of putting things in perspective. And so, whether it's five o'clock, six o'clock, eight o'clock, whatever time, putting the phone down, putting the email away and doing things that are outside of the nine to five and just unwinding a bit. And that's important, especially on the weekends, taking vacations, just finding ways to get perspective.

And then something else that's really helped me is leaning back into physical activity and certainly routine exercise, as well as what you put in your body and how you energize yourself. And so those are things that outside of again, the nine to five, but really strengthen and improve your performance during that nine to five.

Mary Killelea: Good advice. How did you find your voice and become confident in your ability to lead others? Because I would imagine as a CEO, there's not really a guidebook to be a CEO.

Dena Prastos: Definitely not. And I'm so frankly, I'm an introvert. And so I'm not a natural public speaker by any means. And I'm keenly aware, as I mentioned before, of vulnerabilities. And I lean into them to round them out. So that takes additional preparation or concerted effort to take courses on whatever those topics are. And oftentimes, as I said, I'll overcorrect a weakness to become my strength. So, my leadership style in many ways did come from athletics. I was a three-year captain of my division one soccer team. And I think throughout my adolescence, also, I was in leadership roles. And that comes from kind of a set an example by my own work ethic and lead the team so that it's not top down, but we're very democratic in our style.

Mary Killelea: Having a successful business that has had such a great impact on the world, I mean, especially around the conservation and knowing what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently in starting your business?

Dena Prastos: Hindsight is always 20/20, right? I mean, that said, I've certainly learned along the way. I wouldn't say I've had any gross missteps, but I'm certainly learning lessons continually. And it informs as long as we're open to tweaking and making changes, it informs how I operate and hopefully iterating for a better result.

Mary Killelea: Let's shift and talk about the work you're doing on climate solutions. Can you give us an example of this? And really, what does that make you feel like at the end of the day, knowing you're doing work that's helping preserve the planet?

Dena Prastos: Sure. So again, this is a mindset and I touched on it a little bit before about what an architect is licensed to do. And I feel like many architects can identify with this calling that's the same way doctors identify with the calling, but protecting the health, safety and welfare of the public in the built environment.

We think about the built environment and the public's health and the public's health is inextricably linked to the health of the planet. And so, architects are very good at thinking at different scales. And when you kind of step back and think about not only a home and a building and a neighborhood and a zone or a region, but you think about this planet as our home and every decision we make affecting our planet, either positively or negatively. And we're again, hyper aware of this in our work, but we're really looking to make an impact that is a lasting one. And so that can come in different forms, but in terms of climate adaptation, generally kind of one of two directions and they're again, they're linked, but whether you focus on sustainability or resiliency or both, typically sustainability is considering the public or the mankind's impact on the environment. And of course, that's very important, but I would say in our work, we focus more on resiliency, which is the planets, the environment's impact on man, the man made.

And so again, you can see how those are related, but some of the things that we think about are, you know, how long an asset is intended to, what is the design life of the, of the asset? If we're building something that's only going to last 10 years and needs to be rebuilt, there are a lot of excess resources that go into demolishing and rebuilding and getting new materials and the carbon footprint, even of the embodied carbon to get the materials to site. And so, we think about as much as we can kind of holistically of if we can find materials that last longer and extend the life of the asset and it can withstand different hazard conditions, that's better, not only for the public, because it's protecting the public, but it's also better for the planet because we're not stripping it unnecessarily of resources. So that's a little bit about the mindset that we employ when we're doing our work.

Mary Killelea: As a futurist and a visionary, you're, you're consulting others on future designs and future states of what the architecture outlook might be. Where do you see architecture? I mean, because, you know, you hear about autonomous driving, so that's a big shift. What is the next evolution, if you will, in your mind for architecture?

Dena Prastos: I love this question. I may have a very polarizing response, but again, I'll tie it back to, I'll maybe share a little bit kind of historically of what the role of the architect has been, and then we can look at kind of redefining what that means in today's world. But historically, if you look at the Renaissance architect, the master builder, it encompassed many different professions that we have today. So it was not only the architect as we know him or her, but also the landscape architect, the planner, the design thinker, the contractor, the owner's rep, the craftsman, the mason, all different types of professions. And so as time has gone on, different professions have been carved out and kind of had their own industries. If you look at even, for example, engineering and all the different specialty fields within engineering that have emerged, and that's all good and well, but I have a deeply rooted personal concern about the role of the architect and what that means if the slice of pie that the architect has purview over has frankly gotten smaller as other professions have emerged.

And that's okay, except the architect really is the generalist and the conductor and the coordinator of all of the other kind of professions in the built world. And so when we think about that, and we think about the scope of the architect kind of narrowing and decreasing over time, that's highly concerning to me. And then if you think about in today's world what that means in terms of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the public in the built environment, and if we really think about the word built, it's not only physical. And so I often challenge my peers to think about the built environment to expand to include the digital environment and what that means in terms of health and the public's relationship with technology and whether or not anyone is thinking about the impact, the health, safety, and welfare of the public, the mental health implications of the technology that is built.

And so that's something where I see an opportunity certainly for architects to expand and assert agency beyond the traditional role that we have. And I believe it's deeply necessary as well as we look at how technology has evolved and how mankind's relationship with it has evolved and whether or not there are some direct correlations in terms of health and mental health and wellness.

Mary Killelea: That's amazing, I can sit with that for a while, but I'm gonna keep going. How much do you rely on technology in your projects? I mean, you know, technology is invasive in every business situation nowadays and there's so much data. How much technology is involved in the work that you do and then how do you stay on top of the ever evolving technology?

Dena Prastos: So I would say in terms of kind of the spectrum of architecture, engineering, construction firms, and the outlook on technology, we are certainly on the progressive side and we look to embrace changes and developments as they emerge and particularly with instrumentation certainly and forecasting models and modeling, wave climates and patterns. So there are many different ways in which we use beyond kind of the standard drafting and modeling, three-dimensional and four-dimensional, putting schedules together and resource-loaded schedules and there are kind of some standard things we do, but the direction it's going is certainly for computational modeling to take hold and AI to have, even if you've played with AI a bit to create images, it's also a slightly scary thing for architects to see that anyone is capable of generating these images within a matter of seconds and an image can be a really scary thing to share with a client when it hasn't been thought through in terms of the implications and the impact to the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

And so oftentimes if you've experienced, you know, meeting and working with an architect very early in the process, they're not showing photorealistic simulations of something that would be built. They're sketching and they're leaving more to the imagination to interpret while they're figuring out, you know, the broad strokes and the bones and the really important crucial pieces before they go to select materiality and finishes and things that, I mean, frankly, they can appear very sexy in a matter of minutes to show and have a rendering and gain funding and there are certainly benefits of using AI to generate images, but it does call into question how, as a profession, architects can assert their agency and their value contribution beyond just the imagery, the superficial.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, that's fascinating. Jumping back to the various roles that you have within your firm, let's say someone comes into whatever role and wants to become an employee of yours, what type of, and all things equal, like they've got all the technical skills, what do you look for in individuals to be successful in your team?

Dena Prastos: Great, great question. Honestly, I think if we can get to the root of someone having intrinsic motivation that aligns with our mission and that they take initiative, those are probably the top things. A lot of the technical can be taught, but that intrinsic motivation that aligns with our mission of what we're doing and how we're looking to create an impact and taking the initiative and not looking to be handheld every step of the way, but being willing to kind of make mistakes and we encourage people to make decisions kind of outside of their comfort zone so that they can quickly learn and we've never punished someone for making the wrong decision. It's a learning opportunity. We'll meet, we'll debrief on it, we'll learn from it, we'll grow as a team, and so those are some things that certainly we value is that kind of intrinsic motivation that can't be taught or incentivized, certainly not with a monetary figure, but really the initiative as well.

Mary Killelea: That's great. What is the best piece of business advice you've ever received?

Dena Prastos: Start. Don't wait until you're ready, just start. You'll figure it out, fake it till you make it.

Mary Killelea: Have you had mentors over the years?

Dena Prastos: I have in different forms and some may be more successful than others, but I've been in companies where mentors were assigned to me kind of blindly and some of those more successful than others, and then I think probably my greatest mentor is my business partner, Shae Thorvildsen, who kind of early on we just clicked and he's 10 years my senior and had, you know, tremendous more experience in the industry than I did when we met, but kind of took me under his wing and coached me every step of the way.

Mary Killelea: In regards to your career, what would you tell your 20-year-old self?

Dena Prastos: Keep doing what you're doing, be disciplined, and have faith.

Mary Killelea: What does to be bolder mean to you?

Dena Prastos: To commit to my instincts and to have confidence in my intuition, to take risks and put myself out there.

Mary Killelea: And what, before we close it out, do you have a favorite project that you can think of, that you could share?

Dena Prastos: Sure, I mean my favorite project is always the one that's not yet built, but aside from that, there's something just so beautiful about getting lost in the imaginative, but certainly one of the projects that we're working on, it's actually a couple different projects, but we're working with the Trust for Governors Island right now in New York City where soon they will be developing the Climate Solution Center of the World, and that project is not yet awarded, but in anticipation of that, they are upgrading a lot of their infrastructure. And so some of that, there are a couple piers on one side of the island that will be made functional for, in part for construction for the new Climate Solution Center, as well as for visitors to the island. And so, to have the opportunity to be designing the landing to the Climate Solution Center of the World really is a tremendous one, and we're very excited about it.

Mary Killelea: That sounds amazing. This just popped into my head. Have you ever thought about living anywhere else than where you live?

Dena Prastos: Well, I mean, I grew up in Alaska, and I live in New York Harbor now, and I've worked in the Middle East in a desert and a hole, so I've lived in a couple different places. I'm always happy to explore new places. I'm actually super excited that tomorrow I'm heading down to Houston to visit NASA's facilities with our Futures Collaborative and CARB committee to talk about space architecture. And so that raises some question of what are the habitats being designed for space in the future, and who are the lucky beings that will get to go there? So yeah, I can imagine myself in a lot of different settings.

Mary Killelea: Wow. What keeps you up at night?

Dena Prastos: Too many things. I couldn't even begin to tell you. I have lists on lists on lists. I do find keeping a list nearby, a piece of paper and a pen, just jot them down helps me to kind of release them and then get back to them when I'm ready.

Mary Killelea: That's awesome. All right, last question. Do you have any good resources that people can check out to gain knowledge and, you know, learn more?

Dena Prastos: Sure. So a book I read in the last year, I think really speaks to, you know, climate change's ability to affect us. Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. He uses a fictional eyewitness account to tell a story of how climate change will affect us. And I'm admittedly not a huge sci-fi fan, but I am a concerned futurist. And so, I think just kind of painting the picture in an eyewitness account of the different possibilities for climate change to affect us, the way that we live now, is very powerful. So, it's something I highly recommend whether or not you're, you know, believer or not, but it's just, it's a really interesting story and it does call into question some of our habits and the way that we live today.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. It has been a pleasure. You're a brilliant woman and I appreciate just your down to earth sharing and thanks.

Dena Prastos: Mary, thank you so much for having me.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number two, little b, bolder.com.