Learn more about James Erario, Project Engineer III at TRS, A Parsons Company.
Name: James Erario
Position: Project Engineer III
Location: Boulder, Colorado
TRS Employee-Owner Year Started: 2017
Specialties: PFAS in soil; high temperature TCH; DOD funded projects
Education: Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Lafayette College
Certifications: Professional Engineer
TRS Group: What single thing have you been most proud of during your time at TRS?
James Erario: I’d say I’m most proud of the impact that TRS has on the communities we work in and the environment.
TRS: What specific examples do you have?
James: I spent a lot of time at the Long Island City project, which was an interesting experience. I would walk out of the basement where the project was being performed and there’s just hundreds of people everywhere. It was crazy.
The ones where we’re treating in more densely populated areas; knowing that the folks that we interact with during construction and operations all live in a cleaner, safer environment, is very fulfilling.
TRS: So, what was it like implementing a project in the middle of New York City?
James: It was bizarre walking through the city from my hotel into the basement of a building and operating a thermal remediation site beneath New York City.
The disconnect from folks just going about their lives right on top of our treatment area was crazy.
I enjoy being able to visit sites. It gives the work in the home office meaning and context that you can’t just get from working on a screen and manipulating lines.
A great benefit of working here is the ability to see so much of the country and sometimes the world and places you would have never gone to otherwise. It can be really fun. It can also open your perspective to some things, which is really great.
My first project was in Atlantic, Iowa, which was smack dab in the middle of Iowa, over an hour from anywhere. It was a place I never would have gone to otherwise, which I thought was a great experience for anyone to have.
TRS: What is the most satisfying aspect of your job?
James: I think there’s two things. One is seeing the transformation from digital to physical build is super satisfying. Once you can see that design and the system is all up and running, I really love that.
I love the pace of projects at TRS, being able to start and successfully finish a project in a year keeps things interesting and exciting and I think keeps me engaged in our projects.
And then getting sample results back is a rush.
TRS: It sounds like the sample results have come back very good from our project at JBER (Joint Base Elemendorf-Richardson).
James: They have. I was up there for confirmatory soil sampling, and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done at TRS.
I think we averaged over two and a half hours per sample. The soil was extremely hot, which was damaging our tooling.
That, and PFAS is so prevalent in all of the clothes and food products and materials that we use today that it took a very concerted effort by the team to manage all those risks.
TRS: So, what did you do?
James: Well, there are strict guidelines as to what you can and cannot wear. So, things like most waterproof gear, you can’t wear. Most sunscreens you can’t wear. There are restrictive policies to make sure that we don’t influence anything with PFAS and then, yeah, strict decontamination procedures as well for our tooling and things that are actively touching the samples.
When the soil was hot, we didn’t touch it. We only used stainless steel tooling and troughs to handle it all.
TRS: What attracted you to the environmental remediation field in the first place, especially since you came out of school with a mechanical engineering degree?
James: A lot of what we do here is mechanical engineering. Our treatment equipment is pumps and vacuums and plumbing and electrical.
But I joined TRS because I met Jake (Seeman, International Senior Engineer,) at an avalanche safety course, so it was not a deliberate entrance into the field, but I’m very glad that it brought me here.