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ON THE MOVE AMES & GOUGH APPOINTS JESSIE WITHEROW AS ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT Ames & Gough, a leading insurance broker and risk management consultant specializing in serving design professionals, law firms, associations/ nonprofits, and other professional service organizations, announced the appointment of Jessie Witherow as an assistant vice president. “I’mpleased to announce Jessie’s appointment as an assistant vice president,” said Dan Knise, president and CEO, Ames & Gough. “She has been a stalwart contributor to the firm’s success for many years and epitomizes what it means to be an Ames & Gough professional – client-focused, a team player, expert in her
area of responsibility, open to learning, and professional in her approach and demeanor.” Based in the Washington, D.C. office, Witherow is a senior account manager with Ames & Gough, responsible for the company’s professional liability small-market program for architects and engineers throughout the mid- Atlantic region. She joined the firm in 2006 and served in various administrative and client team support roles prior to assuming her current responsibilities. Before joining Ames & Gough, she attended Virginia Western Community College and George Mason University. A licensed property/ casualty insurance broker, she is continuing
her education in the property/casualty insurance field. With more than 1,500 architects, engineering firms, and other construction professionals of all sizes as clients, Ames & Gough is the leading insurance brokerage and risk consulting firm serving the needs of these professionals. Ames & Gough also has established itself as a committed, superior resource for law firms and associations and nonprofit organizations in need of professional liability, management liability, employment practices liability, cyber/ network security and related insurances; as well as more typical property and casualty insurances.
BALANCING THE RISKS. How do we balance standard business risks with the unique risks associated with engineering consulting? First, you have to recognize that neither engineering risk nor business risk are mutually dependent. You must have the processes to control engineering risk while still taking the necessary business risks to create the opportunities to build a successful business. After all, we are all businesses that just happen to provide consulting services. Some simple changes you can make that will have positive impacts on your firm and staff include: ❚ ❚ Push training and mentor-protégé programs that are active and not programs in name only. This takes commitment especially by leadership to champion the programs through participation. ❚ ❚ Increase opportunities for younger engineers. Give increasing project and leadership roles to those who have the abilities they will need to be successful. Age is not a skill and thus should not be pre-requisite for advancement. ❚ ❚ Establish open two-way communications across all staff levels about financials, staffing, and operations. Create the open, trusting culture that is necessary to control and overcome risk. ❚ ❚ Form an innovation group representative of technical and business functions. Task this group with review of operations and processes and give them the authority to advise firm leadership on needed changes. ❚ ❚ Reinvest in the firm. This will allow the firm to grow and, by not sucking all the profits out of the firm, leadership tangibly displays their belief in the value of the firm. We owe it to our younger engineers to work with them to redefine their purpose and future, and to encourage reasonable risk-taking, both as engineers and as a business. We want them to understand that taking risks will allow us to reinvent the future, as well as help define their unique contributions to our firm and communities. And with those controlled risks come the financial and personal rewards that they perceive may only be available in other professions. STEPHEN LUCY is CEO of JQ with offices in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Lubbock, and San Antonio, Texas. Contact him at slucy@ jqeng.com.
STEPHEN LUCY, from page 3
good risks in our industry while addressing the concerns of this next generation of leaders? And what are the risks that are unique to our industry and to those we want to attract and retain in our industry? THE BUSINESS RISK MODEL. There are common risks to any business and properly addressing those risks is critical to the success of any business. The fastest way to position your firm for failure is to fail to correct the bad risks; failing to act on employee issues; failing to diversify your staff from an ethnic/gender standpoint; failing to deploy technology that helps achieve, not hinder, productivity; not having sound financial controls in place; and failing to reinvest profits in the firm itself. In short, the risk is being willing to maintain the status quo. “These young engineers believed that it was far easier to avoid risks by choosing another career because engineering exposed them to greater personal risks and did not offer the salaries obtained by their peers.” THE ENGINEERING RISK MODEL. Engineering does have some unique business and individual risks. Our profession is obligated both ethically and legally to act to safeguard and protect the public. We probably all remember the first time we placed our seal on a set of plans and the weight we suddenly felt on our shoulders. This tends to make engineers and the firms we create more risk adverse than other businesses and can lead us to make decisions which are not always in our best business interest. We are conscientious to a fault. We often take on non- contractual scope of work and we step into the gap when others on the design or construction team do not keep up with project requirements. We are slow to elevate younger engineers believing that career tenure and project experience trump untried talent and entrepreneurial spirit. This thoughtful performance model is laudable but invariably leads to reduced rewards and lost opportunities with increasing frustration for younger staff.
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THE ZWEIG LETTER October 14, 2019, ISSUE 1316
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