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ON THE MOVE

THORNTON TOMASETTI ANNOUNCES PROMO- TIONS The board of directors of Thornton Tomasetti (NewYork, NY), an international engineering firm, announced the following promotions: Portland, Maine ❚ ❚ Associate: Colin Schless ❚ ❚ Senior Project Director: Amanda Lehm- an Chicago ❚ ❚ Associate Principal: Jonathan Block ❚ ❚ Vice President: Kevin Jackson and John Peronto ❚ ❚ Senior Associate: Ken Maschke and Todd Whisenhunt ❚ ❚ Associate: Geoffrey Dauksas, Lee Fritz, Matthew Huizinga, Rachel Autenrieth Jackson, Rachel Michelin, Andrew Mur- ray, and Nate Sosin ❚ ❚ Senior Project Engineer: Christian De- Fazio, Mike Gannon, Harrison Garo, Ben- jamin Pavlich, and Mary Williams ❚ ❚ Senior Project Director: Tara Toren- Rudisill ❚ ❚ Project Engineer: Justin Cline, Chris- topher Hart, Alloy Kemp, Jordan Komp,

GZA ANNOUNCES PROMOTIONS GZA GeoEn- vironmental Inc. , an environmental and geo- technical consulting firm, announced that Bradford Roberts was promoted to senior principal in its Norwood office and Deborah Zarta Gier was promoted to associate prin- cipal in its Bedford office. GMB WELCOMES NEW TEAM MEMBERS George, Miles & Buhr LLC (Salisbury, MD) an- nounced new hires to its Salisbury and Sparks offices. ❚ ❚ Sean Kennedy : geographic information systems specialist ❚ ❚ Jon Soistman : full time engineer ❚ ❚ Ryan Clancy and AndrewWright: gradu- ate engineers. WIDSETH SMITH NOLTING ANNOUNCES NEW HIRES Alex Schrader and Ryan Hermes have joined the architecture department of Widseth Smith Nolting ’s Grand Forks, N.D., of- fice. Schrader is responsible for assisting project architects, preparing and presenting proposal estimates, reviewing construction budgets, and more. Hermes is responsible for preparing, supervising, and assisting in the preparation of drawings and tracings for landscape architectural projects.

Andrew McMorrow, Alber Mena Jr., and Julia Seitchik

❚ ❚ Senior Engineer: Mark Ackmann, An- thony Alessi, Kathleen Fogarty, Diarmuid Kelleher, Cassandra Lutz, Laura Meissner, Michael Murphy, Nam Nguyen, Elaine Shapiro, and AbhiramTammana ❚ ❚ Senior Building Information Modeler: Maria Salas Denver ❚ ❚ Senior Associate: Jeffrey D’Andrea ❚ ❚ Associate: Benjamin Kaan ❚ ❚ Senior Project Engineer: Carole Rusch ❚ ❚ Project Engineer: Joseph Camilleri and Jacob Hoffman ❚ ❚ Senior Engineer: Timothy Gilchrist and Devin Mitchell Kansas City ❚ ❚ Managing Principal: W. Steven Hofmeis- ter

❚ ❚ Vice President: Kevin Legenza ❚ ❚ Associate: Gregory Johnston

❚ ❚ Senior Project Engineer: Andrew Lack ❚ ❚ Senior Engineer: Raymond Chou and Walter Hicks

the rate of change is manageable – choose an evolutionary over revolutionary rate of change. And the focus of any growing company should be to “build infrastructure,” not “bureaucracy,” to support the firm’s long-term goals. There are some key themes in this article to consider: Pro- moting focus, agility, creativity, or similar attributes while avoiding bureaucracy, death-by-data, and complexity is im- portant. It might be helpful to compile a list of the “action words” you desire and the ones you want to avoid and use them in your decision-making process. Just remember that we operate a simple business at its core that depends on getting work, doing it well, and get- ting paid for what you did. Keeping these thoughts in mind will help you sort through the complexity we face today. Gerry Salontai is the founder of Salontai Consulting Group, LLC. Contact him at gerry@salontai.com . Some, if not many, (A/E/P and environmental leaders) seem to add layer upon layer of complexity to their businesses while not appreciating that there are parts of our business that are so fundamental that trying to overcomplicate them can lead to less-than-desirable performance.

GERRY SALONTAI , from page 3

bureaucracy, and apply undue burden. Conversely, providing a framework that allows easier access to get things done is paramount – whether it’s communication, client and/or staff interaction, or to facilitate project execution. ❚ ❚ Promote a culture of business savvy entrepreneurs. Mo- tivate and reward your people to serve the client well while building the business and returning acceptable profits to the company. Promote agility and lowest level decision-making for the benefit of the client and the shareholders. And don’t encumber or stifle employees’ ingenuity, creativity, or entre- preneurial spirit with complexity in terms of systems, rules, processes, and policies that must be followed. A simple frame- work and environment to flourish in is important. ❚ ❚ Vigilance in operating the business with an eye toward leaner operations with better and fewer metrics to moni- tor performance. Don’t get lost in the complexity of all the data one can derive from sophisticated project/financial ac- counting systems. This remains a pretty simple business, but one can get lost in the plethora of information and the com- plex spreadsheets that can be built. This business is largely about revenue, efficiency, overhead structure, and cash. Using just a handful of metrics that get to these with some that are forward-looking is all that’s needed. Leaders today must champion change by adopting new approaches and technology while ensuring they operate a financially sound business that continues to build share- holder value. A key to this balance is to choose change that will enhance rather than dominate or mandate how things get done. Change is healthy in an organization as long as

THE ZWEIG LETTER JULY 27, 2015, ISSUE 1113

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