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Career Advocacy: Luke and Jason

How We Work at Isthmus

At Isthmus, we foster meaningful careers for our team members right from the start. We want our team members to hit the ground running, feel empowered to demonstrate their skills, and engage in real-world work with a consistent level of support and mentorship. It is a unique, intentional, and worthwhile approach that we achieve through our Career Advocacy program. 

Each Isthmus team member is paired with a Career Advocate who supports their individual progress by building a genuine and trusting relationship. They help answer questions and make connections with other team members, project managers, and technical champions across Isthmus. In the case of Luke Schneider and Jason Tschida, their Career Advocacy pairing has evolved into a mutually beneficial relationship of continuous learning and innovation.

Luke joined Isthmus in June 2021 as a summer intern as the world was slowly starting to emerge from the isolation of the pandemic. Our team was still mostly working from home and daily communication and collaboration were almost entirely virtual. Luke was paired with Jason Tschida as his Career Advocate. At that time, Jason had been with Isthmus for nearly six years and was a versatile and innovative engineer who excelled with technology and 3D modeling. Luke shared that, “From my first meeting with Jason, you could tell that he loved engineering and was very knowledgeable when it came to multiple aspects of engineering, not just modeling.”

Photo: Luke (far right) connecting at an in-person, all-team gathering one week after joining Isthmus.

Jason’s first impression of Luke was equally positive. “Luke very much had a similar personality and work ethic to me,” Jason reflected, “he was always finding a more efficient way to do a task, was happy-go-lucky, willing to work on any task, detailed, and determined to learn.”

Throughout the summer, Luke and Jason would check in regularly over video chat. Luke noted that, “When I was an intern, we would meet every morning. Some of these meetings would only be 5-10 minutes and we would just talk about non-work-related things, such as our weekend plans or hobbies. Other meetings would be 30+ minutes and I would ask him about questions I had, or he would show me tasks he was working on.”

It didn’t take long for Luke and Jason to build rapport and trust. “I think Jason and I clicked quickly, but it probably took maybe a month or so until we really knew each other and could tell when the other person was feeling stressed or had something on their mind,” Luke reflected. “Talking everyday was probably the best way we built rapport with each other. Some people would probably think that since my internship was fully remote it would make it harder to connect, but I would disagree. I thought connecting over Teams worked great.”

It became quickly apparent that summer that Luke was a great fit for Isthmus. He had the curiosity, initiative, and drive to continuously learn and apply his knowledge. He continued working as a part-time intern through the fall and was offered a full-time Design Engineer position upon his graduation in December 2021.  Jason shared that, “Once Luke worked on a certain task, I had a lot of confidence in his ability to repeat that task and exceed expectations the next time. Within a few months I could trust him with almost anything and/or provide the resources for him to figure it out without having me step through it with him.”

Three years later, Luke has emerged as a go-to Design Engineer on our Roadway team. He has a versatile and growing skill set that includes geometric design, corridor modeling, and visualization. He has developed such a strong working knowledge of OpenRoads Designer (ORD) that Jason shared that, “I taught Luke SS10; Luke taught me ORD. I go to Luke for most ORD questions that I have, and it seems like he’s found all the bugs and workarounds.”

For Luke, choosing one thing that he has learned from Jason isn’t quite so easy. “That’s a tough question to answer because there isn’t just one thing I learned from Jason,” he said. “Jason basically taught me everything I know. Isthmus was the first internship/job I had in the civil engineering industry, so I came into Isthmus only knowing what I was taught in school which are the basics of engineering and all the formulas you need, but not really the process of how everything is designed or brought into plans. If I had to say, the biggest thing I learned from Jason would be the ins and outs of modeling.”

These days, some things have changed, and others remain the same. Luke and Jason are still paired as “advocee” and advocate. They both regularly teach each other new things. “Nowadays, we have scheduled check-ins once a week, but we are still constantly asking each other questions and discussing projects,” Jason shared. “Luke has very much stepped into the role of teaching me new tools/procedures.” Luke also recently became a Career Advocate himself, taking on the role this summer for one of our current interns.

When asked what has been meaningful to them about being paired together, it is clear that the relationship has been mutually beneficial and rewarding. For Luke, “Being paired with Jason has been great. He is always willing to teach me new things and is willing to stand up for me when I want to try new aspects of engineering (drainage, plan production, utilities, etc.).”

Jason responded that “Luke is very easy going … we both also have similar interests outside of work (golf, traveling) and happen to have very similar passions for the work we do at Isthmus (corridor modeling, visualization).” He also shared that Luke brings many qualities to Isthmus and the engineering industry. “He is a detail-oriented, hard-working, reliable, understanding, confident, communicator and team player.”

Luke reflected that “Jason brings his incredible software knowledge and engineering knowledge to help enhance the engineering industry. A perfect example of this is the contract he is currently working on where he helps MnDOT with ORD challenges. Jason is incredibly determined. If he doesn’t have an answer to something, whether that is engineering related, software related, or completely unrelated to the field, you can be assured that he is going to do some research and find an answer to it.”

The Career Advocacy program at Isthmus takes intentionality and consistency but as Luke and Jason have demonstrated, the benefits to them as individuals, to our team, and our industry are well worth the effort.