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goals. This incentive program was de- signed to anchor a high-performance and goal-oriented culture. “Leading a team of people is about creating opportunities for them to be able to grow, learn, thrive, and create great solutions for our clients.” TZL: Do you share base salary or bonus amounts with your entire staff? LK: Let’s be honest. It is difficult to keep salaries under wraps when you are propos- ing on public jobs. Project managers need to build budgets from the ground up and many public clients require the raw rates plus build up. For these reasons, we must have a rate range for each position that we track and update annually for the public proposals. We don’t openly discuss indi- vidual salaries but it would be silly of me to imagine the team isn’t aware of their colleagues’ base salaries. We also share the bonus information regularly. I believe in transparent management. People perform better when they understand what they need to do to be successful. TZL: When did you have the most fun running your firm, and what were the hallmarks of that time in your profes- sional life? LK: The most fun is when the firm is win- ning interesting and innovative project work and the younger talent gets a rap- id path to advancement by learning fast. Providing opportunities for scientists and engineers to learn and rapidly grow their careers, becoming recognized as technical experts by colleagues and clients, really energizes me. Leading a team of people is about creating opportunities for them to be able to grow, learn, thrive, and create great solutions for our clients. TZL: There is no substitute for experi- ence, but there is pressure to give re- sponsibility to younger staff. What are you doing to address the risk while pur- suing the opportunity to develop your team? LK: This is the most attractive feature of working at Alta. As a young engineer or scientist, Alta is the place to be for rap- id growth in a nurturing and safe envi- ronment. We give responsibility and al- low younger staff to lead their own proj- ects, manage their client relationships, manage budgets, create and execute mar-
keting campaigns, learn and become ex- perts in a specific area, and grow fast. I’ve never believed in some set formula for how long it should take someone to get to a specific level. We manage risk through mentorship, regular check-ins, our struc- tured process, weekly meetings, and scopes/plans for each activity. TZL: Engineers love being engineers, but what are you doing to instill a busi- ness culture in your firm? LK: We focus on key performance indi- cators that matter and set goals around those. Accountability is critical in a busi- ness and holding folks to meeting our business metrics is fundamental. This means we review our financials together every single month and everyone in the firm knows how we are performing ver- sus plan. We talk about the business and what it takes to be successful. We also talk about why profitability is so important to allow us to do the things we want to do, such as acquire new equipment, experi- ment with new ideas, and spend money on training and continuing education, among other things. “Inclusion is a way of being, or behaviors. Diversity is easier to solve for in many cases, in my opinion. Ensuring you have created an inclusive culture is a little more like wrangling fog.” TZL: The seller-doer model is very suc- cessful, but with growth you need to adapt to new models. What is your pro- gram? LK: We still ascribe to the seller/doer model, but we also have one full-time business development director who is in the market positioning for the strategic longer term wins and relationships. Since we have gone this direction our number of new client IDIQs and MSAs has increased dramatically. TZL: Diversity and inclusion is lacking. What steps are you taking to address the issue? LK: People often use the terms diversi- ty and inclusion in the same context but those are two very different things in execution. Inclusion is a way of being, or See CONFERENCE CALL, page 8
NO. OF EMPLOYEES: 50 NO. OF OFFICE LOCATIONS: Five HEADQUARTERS: Long Beach, CA THE FIRM: Alta is an is an environmental engineering and consulting firm specializing in subsurface remediation, air quality, building sciences, sustainability, water resources, and environmental health and safety compliance services serving the needs of industrial, municipal, construction, and transactional clients throughout California. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: Alta Environmental is committed to environmentally as well as socially sustainable practices, whether they are recommended to clients or implemented within internal operations. While assisting clients in complying with environmental policies, regulations, and changes associated with their operations, Alta Environmental provides services and recommendations that incorporate sustainable policies, procedures, and equipment and helps facilities achieve their sustainability goals and obtain certifications. In addition to providing environmental and sustainability consulting services to our clients, Alta Environmental implements sustainable policies and procedures throughout its own operations.
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nuary 7, 2019, ISSUE 1278
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