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BERNIE SIBEN, from page 5

agency is operational at its headquarters in San Francisco, engineers are starting to take notice, says USRC co-founder and structural engineer Evan Reis. “It’s been very popular,” says Reis. “This is finally putting the engineering quality in the forefront. Engineers have felt that LEED has always lacked a vital component – resilien- cy. It’s not enough to be environmentally friendly. It has to last.” Reis’ organization already has 70 engineers certified for as- sessments, and is looking to certify several hundred more. In the future, Reis and his colleagues want to include rating systems for tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. “The sky is the limit, depending on how it takes off,” Reis says. “This is the next big push in the A/E industry.” “The sky is the limit, depending on how it takes off. This is the next big push in the A/E industry.” Personally, I subscribe to what a friend called the “Velcro theory of relationships,” where many people in your organization have relationships with many people at the client/agency. I think this approach helps people make relationships that are real, strong, stand the test of time, and bring value to all the people on both sides of the equation. BERNIE SIBEN is owner and principal consultant with the Siben Consult, LLC in Austin. Contact him at 559-901-9596 or at bernie@ sibenconsult.com. If you have a strong enough relationship with the person who gives out those assignments, many of those discretionary projects can come your way. It’s all about the value you bring to the person who makes that decision – whether the value is professional or personal – especially if it’s a value he or she can’t get elsewhere. Here is a great example. A previous employer of mine did a lot of work for a major airport located near one of our offices. On one regular visit, our project manager commented on a picture on the client’s wall, showing a teenager with a tennis racquet and a trophy. The client explained that his 16-year-old son was a nationally-ranked player who had difficulty finding a local opponent good enough to give him a good challenge. Our project manager, a strong player, offered himself as a partner, and the client accepted. The first game between teenaged son and project manager turned into a once- a-month meeting. The son was happy. So the dad was happy. So we wound up on the receiving end of a lot of smaller projects for the airport without competing. So our project manager was happy, as were his division and office managers. We know that, all other things being equal, people like to give work to people they like. So you have to develop relationships with multiple agency/client staff, and make them real friendships, not just people you greet when you pass them in the hall.

solicitation process.

So the best way I know to get new tasks under an ID/IQ vehicle is to visit the client’s office, and talk with end users and/or project managers. Once you are in the agency’s or end user’s office, make the most of your time. Meet as many of their project managers and contracting officers as possible, and make sure they all get information on your contract. If you can, get everyone you already know to introduce you to someone else they think you should know. “Personally, I subscribe to what a friend called the ‘Velcro theory of relationships,’ where many people in your organization have relationships with many people at the client/agency.” In a previous employment, one of our environmental leaders wanted to increase the revenues from a USACE environmental ID/IQ. He visited a local Air Force Base every week, and always came away with a new contract. His complaint was that every new assignment was $25,000 or less, and he wanted to increase the “burn” on the contract. I suggested that, until a larger assignment came along, he should visit the base three times a week and have every agency project manager with whom he worked introduce him to another project manager or contracting officer. More visits with more project managers creates more relationships, and that equates to more business. The second instance has to do with a client being able to give out work on a discretionary basis, with no formal selection process. Generally, these contracts must be for less than a specific dollar amount.

SALUS RESILIENCE, from page 7

rocked with a recent spate of earthquakes, including a 5.1 magnitude on February 13. Responding to dire warnings about fracking, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission im- plemented a curb on the volume of wastewater injected into disposal wells over a 5,281-square mile area in the western part of the state. The resiliency council was in the works since 2011. Near- ly 70 founding members raised about $570,000 in startup funding to get the nonprofit off the ground. Now that the National awareness of resiliency, or lack thereof, was triggered by storms, not earthquakes. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 killed more than 1,200 people, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 caused around $75 billion in damage.

THE ZWEIG LETTER March 14, 2016, ISSUE 1143

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