Breaking Frozen Ground

Alaska builds things nobody else can. Roads over permafrost. Pipelines routed around migration paths. Bridges designed for rivers that freeze, thaw, and change course on their own schedule. The engineers doing this work are some of the best in the country. And almost nobody outside Alaska knows their names. Breaking Frozen Ground is the podcast that changes that. Co-hosted by Shelly Thomas, PE, and Dr. Bill Schnabel from the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) - in collab with Women in Engineering Advisory Board of Alaska and UAA, this show introduces you to the people engineering Alaska's future and the students, mentors, and organizations building alongside them. Every episode is a conversation with someone who chose this place. Who stayed, or came back, or showed up for the first time and couldn't leave. You'll hear how they solve problems that don't exist anywhere else, why they're betting their careers on a state mos

Breaking Frozen Ground is a business podcast hosted by Bill Schnabel and Shelly Thomas, with 12 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Bill Schnabel and Shelly Thomas hosts Breaking Frozen Ground, a business show with 12 episodes published.

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  Episode #5

  What Happens After the Blueprint Ends | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Sarah Schacher & Dr. Bill Schnabel

  Sep 24, 202645 minS2

  What do you do when the plans stop matching reality? In this episode of Breaking Frozen Ground , Bill Schnabel talks with Sarah Schacher, PE, about the moments when engineering becomes less about calculations and more about judgment, leadership, and trust. From unexpectedly managing a major highway paving project early in her career to helping rural Alaska communities secure critical funding and navigate complex infrastructure challenges, Sarah shares lessons learned from more than two decades in the field. It's a conversation about people, problem-solving, and what it takes to keep moving forward when no textbook has the answer. Music by the talented David Wolfe

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  Breaking Frozen Ground

  Launch Pad Test Site | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Dr. Raghu Srinivasan & Shelly Thomas, PE

  Aug 11, 202641 min

  Raghu Srinivasan operates an atmospheric corrosion test site at a working rocket-launch facility on Kodiak Island, and that is not even the most unusual stop on his journey to Alaska. He grew up in Tamil Nadu, India, studied chemical and electrochemical engineering at the National Lab, Central Electrochemical Research Institute. He moved to Hawaii for graduate school before telling his wife they were relocating “from the fiftieth state to the forty-ninth” - perhaps forgetting to mention that a tenure-track job meant Last Frontier might just become their last move. Since arriving, he has established the Environmental Degradation Lab, led a middle-school corrosion camp for five years, studied deicing brines containing up to approximately 23% salt, and been selected for the University of Alaska’s second cohort of President’s Arctic Professors. Shelly Thomas sits down with the UAA mechanical engineering chair for a conversation about atmospheric corrosion in the Arctic, collaboration, curiosity, and the unexpected journey from India to Hawaii to Alaska.

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  Episode #3

  Just Go Ask | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Brian Walch & Shelly Thomas, PE

  Aug 4, 202630 minS2

  Brian Walch spent twenty years interviewing candidates for promotions before one answer stopped him cold - a woman told him she simply found people doing the job she wanted and asked them how. It's the reason he coaches leaders differently today. Long before that, he was the software guy who envied engineers their collective culture, passed down from a father who moved to Alaska in 1966 and never left. Since founding Shiftfocus, he's built a national speaking career around ideas most leaders haven't caught up to yet, including one about AI that most people get backwards. Shelly Thomas sits down with the founder of Shiftfocus for a conversation about reinvention, AI, and the bets leaders should be making right now. Music by the talented David Wolfe

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  Breaking Frozen Ground

  The House Gwen Built | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Dr. Gwen Holdmann & Dr. Bill Schnabel

  Jul 28, 202644 min

  Dr. Gwen Holdmann lives in a house built out of shipping containers, with a root cellar dug to bedrock and a refrigerator that rises up through the floor on command — and it's the least surprising thing about her. Long before the house, she was a 29-year-old engineer who called every geothermal company she could find and got told no, until she figured out how to build a power plant anyway. Since then she's stood up a research institute from a one-page idea, run the Iditarod through its hardest trail year on record, and finished a PhD three decades after she started it. Bill Schnabel sits down with his neighbor, coworker, and ACEP chief scientist for a conversation about building things nobody thought were possible, and why, for her, it was never really about the technology. Music by David Wolfe

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  Episode #1

  Small But Mighty | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Dr. Denise Thorsen & Dr. Bill Schnabel

  Jun 30, 202638 minS2

  <p>Denise Thorsen built classified satellite subsystems for the military before she ever set foot in Alaska. She wasn't told what the spacecraft did. She tested her work, delivered it, and never learned the rest.</p><p></p><p>Today she runs the Space Systems Engineering Lab at UAF, where students build actual satellites, CubeSats that go to orbit. The Air Force Research Lab calls her teams "small but mighty." One of her students became the first person in Alaska to receive a NASA Space Tech Fellowship.</p><p></p><p>In this episode, Bill talks with Denise about the...

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