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ON THE MOVE WOOLPERT SENIOR STRATEGIC CONSULTANT NAMED SECRETARY OF NIBS FACILITIES COMMITTEE Woolpert Senior Consultant Emily Herndon, LEED AP, has been selected to serve on the board for the National Institute of Building Sciences, Facility Maintenance and Operations Committee. NIBS is a group of industry, government and agency experts who identify and solve issues that would otherwise hamper the construction of safe, affordable structures throughout the U.S. The FMOC works to improve the performance and longevity of buildings through effective maintenance and operation, improved total cost of ownership and life-cycle strategies for the nation’s built environment. NIBS was established by the U.S. Congress in 1974 as a nonprofit, non-governmental organization and is responsible for standards, including the Whole Building Design Guide, Integrated Resilient Design Program, and buildingSMART Alliance. Herndon, who works within the Woolpert Strategic Consulting group, has almost
two decades of experience developing and implementing strategic asset management programs, with a focus on how sustainability and efficiency can be applied to the built environment. “I’m excited to provide the perspective on how to build and operate efficient and sustainable buildings, and how this can help the committee improve national design standards,” Herndon said. “I also bring a more holistic, strategic perspective on the concept. Since I’m not an architect, engineer, or designer, I can evaluate and contribute to the standards from a more programmatic point of view.” Herndon added that although her perspective is objective, it will give the architects, engineers, and designers at Woolpert a distinct advantage, which will then benefit the firm’s clients. “This participation will give the firm consistent insight into where the industry is headed, which always gives you a big leg up on the competition,” she said.
Woolpert is the fastest growing architecture, engineering and geospatial firm in the country, delivering value to clients in all 50 states and around the world by strategically blending innovative design and engineering excellence with leading-edge technology and geospatial applications. With a dynamic research and development department, Woolpert works with inventive business partners such as Google and Esri; operates a fleet of planes, sensors and unmanned aircraft systems; and continually pushes industry boundaries by working with advanced water technologies, asset management, building information modeling, and sustainable design. The firm, which is 95th among ENR’s Top 500 Design Firms, supports a mission to help its clients progress and become more progressive. For more than 100 years and with 28 offices across the U.S., Woolpert serves federal, state and local governments; private and public companies and universities; energy and transportation departments; and the U.S. Armed Forces.
CORE VALUES, from page 7
TZL: With technology reducing the time it takes to com- plete design work, how do you get the AEC industry to start pricing on value instead of hours? LH: Our tagline is “Connected Teams. Bold Solutions,” and we fully embrace that. Our clients recognize PCS Structural Solutions as a partner, and they notice that we have internal processes that deliver quality: We internally teach cross-dis- cipline awareness with fire codes, constraints to the archi- tect and general contractor, building type impacts, architec- tural design, etc. Our culture of always working to help the owner and the entire project team succeed demonstrates value, and our clients recognize that value over any pricing/ hours exercise. TZL: Your firm had an established relationship with Port- land clients before opening an office there. But it seems that marketing and business development would still be important in terms of creating awareness among poten- tial new clients. What steps did you take to make sure people knew you were in town and that the pipeline was being fed? LH: Having a solid, positive PCS brand in the AEC market was foundational. We learned an important lesson from opening our Seattle office 25 years ago. For the first two years, we tried to connect with everyone in town in our key market. In hindsight, this delayed our connection to key de- cision makers. Eventually we got there and our Seattle office is a huge long-term success story. In Portland, we re-evaluated our strategy. We created a tar- geted list of key individuals in key markets and focused on it. Even when other potential clients wanted to meet, we prioritized our list. Focusing our energy and resources has been much more successful in the first two years of opening the Portland office. We doubled our revenue in year one as compared to the first year opening our office in Seattle.
grow, we continue to build our teams by providing plenty of opportunities for our teams to have fun together. In ad- dition to great benefits, we find that retention is a natural result of a great fit with our culture. Our average tenure is about 10 years with many over 25 years. It’s a diverse group of talent and provides internal mentorship opportunities. “We put a lot of energy into creating a collaborative, positive culture. Growth is managed with culture in mind, and as we grow, we continue to build our teams by providing plenty of opportunities for our teams to have fun together.” TZL: You have two engineering degrees fromWashington State University. It must have been gratifying to be part of the team on the Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center project, which is on the WSU campus. How did your involvement come about, and what personal rewards did you reap? LH: We’ve always had great partners in the higher ed mar- ket. Our team put forward a project on a design build com- petition that really matched the vision of the late universi- ty president. The Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center is the first building you see on the campus. It’s beautiful. It has an iconic curved roof to match the surrounding Palouse hills. We worked with my old professors throughout the project as they were a part of the advisory committee. I also was able to spend some time as a guest lecturer for a senior de- sign class. It had always been a dream to work on the cam- pus, and this project was a homecoming.
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THE ZWEIG LETTER April 15, 2019, ISSUE 1292
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