Most days are pretty smooth in the laboratory where Heidi Birdsell works.
But if a test of a wastewater sample plant indicates something is wrong, she enjoys collaborating and troubleshooting to solve the problem.“Sometimes there’s a lot more troubleshooting than a normal day has,” says Birdsell, senior quality assurance chemist at the Dublin San Ramon Services District in Pleasanton, California. “That’s when it’s nice to have eight people in the lab. It allows us to work together and brainstorm. There’s always a chance that somebody has seen that problem before and maybe they have an idea how to fix the issue.
