Her Story
About Reggins
I'm originally from Chile, where I was already an engineer and working before coming to the United States. I graduated with my master's from Georgia Tech in 1989 and have been working as a hydrologist in the United States since then. I started my career as a forecaster for flood forecasting, where my typical day would be doing daily forecasting and trying to improve our simulation models for forecasting, which included field work. One piece that was very important to me was understanding that these were not just numbers - they were actually action towards people, to protect the people. You were giving a forecast on how high the river level would go, but you were thinking of people, not the number. You're thinking of people that are going to take action, and you are trying to protect. After forecasting, I moved into management, managing a program on hydraulic engineering for the National Weather Service. I was working from Silver Spring, Maryland, where our headquarters are. After that, I became the chief hydrologist in New York, managing all the northeast of the United States. Now I'm retired from my 30 years job, but I continue to work as a volunteer for the World Meteorological Organization as a member of the Standing Committee of Hydrology, representing the United States.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Reggins
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I could get was to always follow integrity, follow your knowledge, and do not give your opinion when you don't know what you're talking about. Follow your matter of interest, which is hydrology, and do it accordingly to what you know - your knowledge on it. But there is one piece that is very important to me, more than the other ones I mentioned before, and that is understanding that when you're doing forecasting, these were not numbers. They were actually action towards people, to protect the people. You were giving a forecast on how high the river level would go, but you were thinking of people, not the number. You're thinking of people that are going to take action, and you are trying to protect.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the challenges when you start is that as a forecaster, you work shifts, meaning that you might be working midnight if needed because of the weather situation, or weekends, or holidays - you have to consider that. In the management part, the challenge is that you have to be aware of the full conditions of the country in general, regarding technology, regarding modeling, regarding how the agency is managed at the national level. If you move geographically speaking, if you move from one state to another one, or one region to another one, you need to know what is going on. So that is a constant - having meetings, conversations, having discussions on how things work in one area with respect to others. You need to have that knowledge.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Professionally, my values are to work hard and follow your ambitions. That is personal as well. Being honest, have integrity, and understanding people. It is very difficult to manage people, but it's a challenge, but also it's a satisfaction.
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