Kristine Olsen is a senior publications specialist with over 23 years of experience formatting and producing documents for a wide range of environmental compliance documents. She works closely with technical staff to ensure publication quality control for all elements of document production including print and digital publications.
What is your favorite ESA moment/memory so far?
A couple of weeks before I started in 2015 I attended the Sacramento Office holiday party and already knew 12 people!
What does it mean to you to be part of an employee-owned company?
After working for several other companies in this industry, my experience has been that employee-owned companies are the best for employees!
What keeps you coming to work here at ESA every day?
Kind, intelligent, and forward-thinking co-workers that want to make the world a better place. I’m also so proud of what we do and getting to work on so many interesting projects. I love seeing “my” projects in the wild when they get built. 🙂
What is your hidden or special talent(s)?
I love bartending and I once made a Long Island iced tea that was written up favorably in a travel guide! I also used to be an EMT and was trained as a lifeguard, so if something happens, I’m the one running towards the emergency!
What’s your favorite thing to do when you are out of the office?
My husband and I love to travel the world and ride our custom cruiser bicycles.
If you had one free hour each day, how would you use it?
Probably on YouTube learning something new or planning my next trip!
What are three skills that you bring to the ESA team? In other words, what should colleagues know to reach out to you about?
- Word wrangler extraordinaire. I can leverage Word’s built in tools or around its limitations, as the situation demands.
- I can often answer the question, “How do we usually do this?”
- A strong sense of pattern recognition helps me find those little mistakes that slip past the spellchecker.
In a nutshell, what kind of work does your team do?
TLDR: “We make documents look pretty!”
The Publications team takes the text, tables, and graphics that our project teams have composed, and we clean up organize the content so the reader can logically follow the discussion without thinking too much about the formatting. Ideally the format is a supporting cast member, not the star of the show.
Describe your role at ESA and the type of work you do.
I’m a Publications Specialist–what we used to call “Word Processor.” I format, paginate, and prepare all kinds of documents for publication.
What’s been your favorite project to work on here at ESA and what impact did it have on the community and/or environment?
I usually work on over 100 unique projects per year, so that’s a tough one! Maybe just for novelty, I loved working as a data proctor for the Bay Bridge pier implosion project. Data was collected on the effect of the implosion of old bridge piers on fish at various distances from the event while using a bubble curtain. Not the typical way we at ESA add to the scientific body of knowledge, but super interesting to see our biologists in action!
Have you had the opportunity to work on any career-defining projects?
I get the opportunity to touch so many projects that shape our communities! The Inglewood Basketball and Entertainment Center (aka LA Clipper’s Arena), Delta Plan Amendments, DWR Emergency Drought Barriers, Sacramento Central City SP EIR, Sacramento Railyards (a couple of times!), and over a decade working on High-Speed Rail.
