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PROFILE
Visionary: John Kissinger President and CEO of GRAEF (Milwaukee, WI), an international multi-discipline engineering, planning, and design firm that was founded in 1961.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
G RAEF, a structural engineering company, is dedicated to aligning its culture and business practices to be a beacon of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging for all people. Dating back to 1961, GRAEF has continually grown its staff and capabilities through acquisitions, projects with a true client- focus, and an invigorating work environment. A STRONG FOCUS ON DEI. DEI is not new to GRAEF. It’s been a focus for the firm for a long time. But, John Kissinger, the company’s president and CEO, says that the murder of George Floyd in 2020 only deepened the firm’s commitment – one that’s active. They hired a consultant to help them create a path forward and to institute firm-wide unconscious bias training. They’re now just at the end of a two-year roadmap that continues to instill energy and change. Focus groups allow GRAEF to gain valuable knowledge by understanding the opinions of employees. The groups provide input on what GRAEF can do to improve and build a culture
of inclusion. Feedback from the focus groups helps shape leadership viewpoints to make firm-wide decisions that align with most employees. Some changes that have emerged include enacting a family leave program for either spouse and for adopted and natural parents alike. There’s also a plan to eliminate discrimination among the technical versus non-technical staff. “We learned that some of our non-technical staff felt they didn’t have access to the same types of growth opportunities that technical staff did,” Kissinger says. “We’re now looking at ways to develop stronger career paths in those tracks.” Other efforts include fireside chats where an informal group of people come together to share personal experiences, juxtaposed to their own. Each chat is hosted by a different person, creating unique and diverse conversation in each session. There are also hack-a-thons – where there’s a problem, a solution must be found. In these hack-a-thons, a
THE ZWEIG LETTER AUG
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