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TRANSACT IONS WGI ANNOUNCES THE MERGER OF TEAM BETTER BLOCK INTO ITS NATIONAL MOBILITY, COMPLETE STREETS, AND URBAN DESIGN TEAM National engineering design and professional services firm WGI, Inc. announced that Andrew Howard and his Dallas, Texas-based Team Better Block joined forces with the West Palm Beach, Florida-based company that has offices in eight states. WGI is a nationwide leader in providing technology-based solutions for the planning and design of public infrastructure and private land development projects. Founded in 2010, Team Better Block is led by Howard. It gained national recognition for performing pop-up pedestrian-scale projects that earned awards and recognition for their placemaking and community revitalization efforts. More than 200 cities around the world have used Team Better Block’s “design recipes” to rapidly illustrate and execute the conversion of auto-dominated urban areas into vibrant community and business spaces. Long-time clients of Team Better Block include the American Association of Real Possibilities, National Association of Realtors, Massachusetts Development Authority, and City of Norfolk, Virginia. Team Better Block will retain its branding in the marketplace as Team Better Block, powered by WGI. Howard will continue leading the Team Better Block practice at WGI, joining an integrated firm that is leveraging tomorrow’s technology, today. WGI’s significant and forward-thinking investments in national thought leaders and tools that support its work across the spectrum, from placemaking and new mobility to heavy infrastructure, is part of a strategic corporate plan for continued growth and success. WGI’s Chief Strategy Officer Michael Davis,
architect of the WGI-TBB deal, said, “I am very excited that Andrew and Team Better Block are joining the WGI Mobility, Complete Streets, and Urban Design team. Recent events call on each of us to focus on making our communities safer, healthier, and more equitable. “Andrew’s ability to effectively engage and visually demonstrate opportunities to all citizens on the streets where they live and the parks where they play provides WGI, our clients, and our communities a profound resource.” The combination of WGI and TeamBetter Block expand into multiple facets of WGI’s wide range of services and markets – beyond the initially obvious. As Team Better Block integrates into WGI, its unique approach will pop up in civil engineering, transportation planning, land planning, landscape architecture, structural engineering, and more. Also welcoming Team Better Block is Dan Hennessey, who is responsible for WGI’s Mobility Planning Department. “The WGI Mobility team looks forward to adding Andrew and his international street-planning and placemaking experience. I have admired his successful work for many years and how he helped make communities safer and better through innovative ‘tactical pop-ups.’” For Howard’s part, the excitement is also unmistakable. “You’ve seen what a small Team Better Block can accomplish. Now, as part of a multi-disciplinary firm of 600 – hold onto your handlebars! WGI already feels like home, as they embrace developing community informed projects and focus on infrastructure that can heal places with equality, sustainability, and more fun! I look forward to scaling the Better Block process to the variety of services WGI offers.”
Team Better Block clients are also excited about what lies ahead for the combined firm. Said John Land, Deputy City Manager of Farmers Branch, Texas: “Our city looks forward to having two great consulting firms become one. I have no doubt your commitment to community-based solutions will only enhance WGI’s fantastic work.” “I am so glad you are expanding the support for the Better Block Mission. I can’t wait to see what you come up with now,” said AARP’s Livable Communities Director, Danielle Arigoni. After six years of consulting, Howard’s Team Better Block co-founder, Jason Roberts, anchored himself in Dallas as the founding director of the non-profit Better Block Foundation he created. The 501(c)3 educates, equips, and empowers communities and their leaders to reshape and reactivate built environments to promote the growth of healthy and vibrant neighborhoods. “Andrew going to WGI is an affirmation of what we bootstrapped 10 years ago,” Roberts said. “Once a fringe topic, better block is now a formal planning process in cities around the world.” As a multidisciplinary solutions-providing consulting firm, WGI has 18 offices in eight states, serving an active client base in over 30 states, specializing in the following disciplines: mobility planning, transportation engineering, land development/municipal engineering, traffic and transportation engineering, parking solutions, geospatial and land surveying, subsurface utility engineering, restoration and structural engineering, landscape architecture, environmental sciences and water resources, architecture, land planning, and MEP engineering.
will encourage other people in your company to do the same. One “match” may very well start a fire that burns down a forest. Try it out and let me know what happens! MARK ZWEIG is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com. “Pick up the phone and call 50 of your old clients. Catch up with them. Find out how they and their families are doing. Ask them about their business. Ask them about the challenges they are facing and what they are doing about them. Ask them if there’s anything you can do to help them right now.”
MARK ZWEIG, from page 3
variation on the “50 cups of coffee” tactic that I am hearing many people do these days. That is where they try to arrange 50 cups of coffee with people they may never have a chance to meet or talk with otherwise. I have had people ask me to do that several times in the past year and always said “yes.” Today we have virtual “cups of coffee” from the pleasure of our own kitchens or back porches or offices. Which brings me to Phase 2 of the “50 calls” program. That’s where you make 50 additional calls to people you have never spoken with before. Once you realize how great this is you will be more willing to call people who weren’t clients in the past. And of course that could be pivotal. And once you make the second 50 calls, you will have new opportunities with new clients you wouldn’t have had otherwise. All of the same benefits to the 50 calls made to former clients apply. Finally, once you make these two rounds of 50 calls each you will be so sold on the benefits of doing them that you
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THE ZWEIG LETTER JULY 13, 2020, ISSUE 1352
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