celebrating the power of possibility.
I'm Susanna Navarro and I believe anything is possible.
I'm Halloran Hilton Hill and this is Anything is Possible.
Great stories about great people whose lives prove that anything is possible.
This is Dr. Susanna Navarro.
Welcome to the broadcast.
Thank you so much. I am so happy to be here.
I am so excited to meet you.
And I'm going to tell you why I'm so excited to meet you because I've heard about you.
I've heard a lot about you.
I think I met you once before.
And when I was looking at all that you've accomplished in your life, it's pretty amazing.
Thank you.
Does it amaze you as well?
Certainly. Certainly amazing.
Take me back to the beginning of your story.
Did you imagine that you would build such an incredible, like it's one of the largest woman-owned engineering firms in the country?
Well-respected. Did you imagine this?
Absolutely not.
Since I was a little girl, I was very dedicated, very focused, but I always grew up in Mexico City.
And I always, I think the importance of the role models that you have.
My mom is an engineer and she is a professor, so I thought I would be a professor.
I never imagined if you had told little Susanna many years ago, you are going to own a business and you're going to grow it.
I would have said you're talking about somebody else completely different because I probably do something technical, some technical work.
But I didn't have that background or I didn't know anybody that had a business that would have been a role model in that area.
So coming to the U.S., our country has so many opportunities for anybody to excel at anything if they work hard.
If they want to.
Yes, if they work hard.
Now you said as a little girl though, you were very focused.
You remember being focused as a child. Was it a function of you wanted to live up to the expectations of your parents?
Or was it just your curiosity?
Yeah, I was.
And you liked the way it felt to be excellent?
Yeah, I was, I guess, born that way.
You have siblings, by the way?
Yes, I do.
I knew I was different because I was studying all the time.
My friends and my brothers and sisters were playing outside.
I wanted to read, I wanted to study.
I knew I was different.
But I enjoy doing that and I just stayed true to what I wanted to do.
So you stayed with it.
So walk me through your early education.
So I went to Catholic school in Mexico City and we were, we were, my mom, we didn't have a lot of money or a lot of resources when we were growing up.
But my mom value education very highly.
So the little we had, she invested in private schools for five kids.
Wow.
So we will go to a private school, a Catholic school, and there were a lot of other kids that were much, much well off than we were.
But we, we really benefited from that attention to importance and priority that she gave to education.
So you go through the Catholic school system in Mexico City, when did you come to the United States?
So.
And how much of your education was in Mexico?
All the way to, I finished my, my BS in Mexico City.
And as you were doing all of your early education, was it bilingual?
No.
Okay.
100% Spanish.
Yeah.
100%.
So this, this is really interesting, right?
So continue.
So, so I did my BS in Mexico City in engineering physics.
And then I, at that time.
Why engineering and why, your mother, your mother was a.
Chemical engineer.
Chemical engineer, but why did you choose engineering physics?
I just like so many subjects.
I like all kinds of engineering.
I like physics.
I like, even philosophy.
I like just about every subject.
And I felt like engineering physics would give me science and it would give me engineering.
It was more broad.
Are you a very curious person?
Yeah.
And you seem like you love learning.
I do.
To this day, right?
To this day, yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So you finish your BS in engineering physics.
Yes.
Right.
And then you make the decision to come to the U.S.?
During, when I was doing my BS, I decided I needed to learn English and come to the U.S.
because I wanted to do a PhD in nuclear engineering at that point I decided.
I'm just imagining the language leap.
Yes.
Because it's just the nuances of language are huge, but then language on top of a PhD.
So I work after I finish my BS, I work for two years to study English and to study for
the old exams to get into the PhD, the master's and PhD programs in the U.S.
And yeah, it was hard.
When I came to the U.S., I didn't have so much trouble understanding the classes in
English, but as soon as I stepped outside of the classroom and somebody would just talk
to me in the back of my head, I would have no clue what they were saying.
Because there's so much nuance.
There's so, you know, as I know, I don't know any, I studied German, I want to learn
Spanish, but the nuances, that's where the magic is.
And so I would imagine that that was both challenging and interesting.
And interesting, yeah.
Study Pulled by Covenant Health, Home Federal, and the Knoxville News Sentinel.
But you don't just come to the United States to pursue this, this PhD.
You end up at one of the most prestigious schools in America, which means you must
than a heck of a student.
Yeah, I work really hard.
Let's just say that.
I liked the way you said that.
Yeah, yeah, I was very fortunate.
I was, I applied to several schools.
I was admitted in some, but they didn't give me the scholarship.
I needed money, I needed a scholarship.
I could not just admission.
Like MIT admitted me, but they didn't give me scholarship.
So, um...
So you got into MIT?
MIT, Berkeley, UCLA, and RPI.
And Berkeley, UCLA, and RPI gave me money to come.
And I selected RPI.
You know, state New York with the winters from Mexico City.
I don't know, some days.
I wonder, why did I do that?
But I love RPI.
So, you know, it was a very good experience
and a very good opportunity to be in one of the top programs
in the country.
So you finished a PhD in engineering.
What type of engineering?
Nuclear engineering.
That's...
You...
My dad probably would have said it this way.
You're a smart cookie.
That's what he was...
Smart cookie.
So, what were you going to do with that?
My plan, since I thought when I was younger,
was to be a professor at that point.
So, I applied to become a professor.
And I was accepted to be a tenure track at Madison, Wisconsin,
the University of Madison, Wisconsin.
But at that time, I had already married.
And there were no two jobs in Madison, Wisconsin.
So, I had to compromise and came to Oak Ridge National Lab.
That's how I ended up here.
And so, I worked at Oak Ridge National Lab
before starting the company.
And boy, did you start a company, right?
I think when I was looking at some of the information,
you have a company that has $180 million in revenue.
You've got offices all over the country.
What?
It's one thing to work at the lab.
It's another to launch a company.
It's another to scale like this.
What happened?
How did that happen?
Well, of course, it started with two people and no revenue.
But early on, even though I love to do technical work so much
and I wanted to do research, I surprised myself on saying,
I want to focus 100% on growing the company.
And so, I dedicated.
And when I focused on something, I'm very focused in terms of,
you know, very driven.
So, I didn't have any training in business at all, zero.
It was all technical training.
So, and government contracting, you really need,
there are so many rules that you have to follow all of them.
You have to make sure that you are always compliant.
So, I learned all that on the go.
But it seems like that fits your personality.
Like, you follow the rules.
You solve the problem.
You show up.
You make a grade.
So, that attention to detail.
But also, we need people in the world that,
for whom attention to detail is a delight.
It seems like you're delighted to be that way.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like, it's the full expression of who you are.
You like being that way.
Absolutely.
And I like also building something.
I started, when we started, it was mainly a nuclear
and nuclear quality safety company.
And early on, I had to make a decision.
Do I stay very niche, highly nuclear services company?
Or do I broaden the services to something,
start building a large company?
Early on, I decided, no, I want to build something
that will be different, that will be less focused on
how much profit I make and more focused on,
do I make a difference?
Am I doing a good service to my clients?
Am I making it more efficient?
Am I making a difference?
So, I decided to methodically increase the amount of services
to logical things that were not a big leap.
Like, from nuclear criticality to safety,
from safety to environmental.
And then from environmental, jump into clean up,
environmental remediation and clean up of nuclear waste
and nuclear contamination.
So, broaden the capabilities of the company significantly
over the years, very methodically and well thought through.
Did you run into any challenges
being a female entrepreneur in that space?
At the very beginning, maybe a little bit,
I did have one meeting one time and I came by myself
to the meeting and there were two men and they say,
is your husband coming?
No, I'm making the decision.
But I think my personality is such that...
People know pretty quick.
She's the boss.
Pretty quick, right?
So, when you think about coming from Mexico and here,
you were mentioning early on that America is a place of vast opportunity.
And you were building on that.
Let's go back to that.
I can't express how much gratitude I have for this country
and all the opportunities that are afforded to us.
Because I don't believe that if I had to stay in Mexico,
I would have been able to build what I built here.
The opportunity, if you, for all the kids that are driven,
if you really have a dream,
if you really have something that you want to accomplish,
you can hear.
There is the opportunity if you just learn about what you love,
learn about what you want to do,
and then focus on it and work hard and keep your faith.
It's always...
I believe that it's hard work,
but also I believe the hand of God is there to help us to...
Talk about your faith.
So...
I notice you have your cross and...
Yeah, talk about your faith, do you?
Yeah, yeah.
I am a Catholic and I've been all my life,
very religious person and strong faith.
And I believe that the energy...
I'm full of energy,
but I believe a lot of that is coming from my faith too.
It's interesting this thing we call faith.
In the world of quantum physics,
they're really trying to figure out,
is there some type of physical connection?
Is there a thing because we do get energy from faith?
And I don't know what it is.
I don't know if it's a vibration, I don't know what it is,
but when people do have some type of essential faith,
it creates a resilience and a fuel.
At least that's what my experience has been,
because I can't imagine...
I can't imagine me without faith.
No, I can't either.
What about your family?
Do you have family?
Yes, my mom, I have two brothers and two sisters,
mainly engineers and doctors.
And the only one that's in social science is the brother,
not the sister but the brother.
You have children?
Yeah.
So I have two, my daughter is 19,
and she goes to UT in the business school.
Is she coming to work in the company?
Yes, she says she wants to be a pilot,
so she's already getting her license, her pilot license,
so that's what she wants to do.
And then my son is a nuclear engineer too, from RPI too.
Wow, you got to be really proud.
Oh yeah, so I brought my son to the company to start working,
and then I rotated him in different projects across the country.
But then he decided that he wanted to make it on his own first.
Sounds like his mom.
He wanted to go make it on his own and then come back.
So he's right now working at Y-12 as a criticality engineer.
What have you learned?
If there is a person watching today,
name of the show is anything is possible.
What's your secret sauce?
Don't be engaged, believe in yourself,
and work, set your goals and work hard to achieve them.
Focus on them.
How many hours a day do you work?
Are you...
All the time.
Even sometimes it depends on the situation.
Sometimes I get up at three o'clock thinking
about something and ride it down, and then go back to sleep.
to work hard, but also you need to be smart about it and how what you spend your time
on.
You don't want to be like a squirrel just following the light, you know, whatever.
You know, focus your energy on what's going to let you achieve your goals.
Don't be afraid of trying new things, even things you didn't think you could do.
Give me an example of something you were afraid of that you decided, I need to do this.
Exactly starting the business when I thought I would do research on a little cube or in
a little office myself all the time.
Going out there and saying, well, I'll try to see what it is to run a business.
Not leap, you know, that getting out of your comfort zone and trying it, it takes a lot
to do that.
But once you do it, you may surprise yourself about how much you like it.
And I did surprise myself.
Do you have any, what I've found is if you work really hard, you can get burned out.
So you have to, you've got to balance your life, things that give you energy.
Do you have other hobbies or passions?
A lot, a lot.
So I like, when I'm very stressed, I like go hiking.
Love it.
In fact, two months ago, I was just at the Kilimanjaro taking a lot of stress out.
Wow.
Kilimanjaro climbing it.
So hiking, and this is a perfect area for doing that.
I love doing that.
It connects you with nature and at the same time releases all the stress that you have.
But I also love different kind of engineer.
I love art, music, art, music.
Do you play an instrument?
No, I don't play any instruments.
What kind of art, what kind of music are you a collector?
I'm a collector of paintings.
Do you have a favorite?
My collection is Latin artists and Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
And you primarily oils.
Oils.
A little bit of watercolors, but mainly.
You like to see the texture on the canvas and all of the colors.
The colors.
Yeah.
So I, and I belong to the collector's circle here in the Knoxville Museum of Art.
So I love art.
I love music.
So I like Broadway shows in here and in Knoxville all the time I'm there.
I think, you know, as I've listened to your story, your story really is a story of possibility,
but you've got this drive.
Do you ever, thank God that you have that drive, that desire.
It's impressive.
Thank you.
I will say I'm passionate about what I do and then I imagine, oh, I could do this.
I could do this partnership where I'm just starting a nuclear partnership with some partners
and I start imagining all the possibilities and I get passionate about it.
So right now I'm in the middle of forming other nuclear partnerships with different companies
and it's just, I get passionate about it and I enjoy it and it's contagious, I guess,
sometimes.
That's a really good insight to end on.
I think people with hope and optimism are really special because most people take the
counsel of their fears.
They imagine what could go wrong and they're trying to hedge against that, but I think people
who change the world imagine the possibilities.
They're going to go, what if we did this or what if we did that, but this will connect
with that and sometimes having overcome a number of things, it really does give you
an education of possibility because you can look at your own timeline, your own track
record and go, well, I remember I was scared here and we got that and I remember this and
we did that.
So thank you for being a possibility person, you are truly inspiring.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for the opportunity, I really appreciate it.
You are proved positive that anything is possible.
Thank you.