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CONFERENCE CALL, from page 7

TZL: They say failure is a great teacher. What’s the big- gest lesson you’ve had to learn the hard way? JH: I took over as president in January 2009 after serving as VP of operations for a number of years. Up until 2010, our firm had accumulated so many successes that I thought to myself, “This job is easy.” What I didn’t recognize was how much the stimulus dollars introduced by the Obama admin- istration did for us. Once 2010 hit and the stimulus dollars were behind us, reality set in fast. While 2010 and 2011 were tough years and we were fortunate not to be hit nearly as hard as many other firms, I learned that the job is a lot tougher than you think. You need to be willing and able to make some tough, timely decisions, and you only succeed as a team. Many firms tried to cut their way to success. We were fortunate and pushed for growth during the worst of times. I think the decision to focus on maintaining our team during difficult times truly paid off. TZL: While M&A is always an option, there’s something to be said about organic growth. What are your thoughts on why and how to grow a firm? JH: For OHM Advisors, growth is all about recruitment and retention. To date, we’ve grown organically as well as through M&A. We’ve experienced strong organic growth by adding new services that solved a need for our clients, and we were successfully able to cross sell those new ser- vices. While organic growth has outpaced growth through M&A, we believe that M&A is critical to successfully enter new geographical markets. Through M&As, we’ve brought on new talent and added services that delivered additional value to our clients, and we benefited from the post-M&A organic growth in these new geographies. For our technical experts, M&As have created an entire new base of clients that they can serve. Overall, we expect that M&A and or- ganic growth will both continue to play important roles in our growth strategy. TZL: Do you use historical performance data or metrics to establish project billable hours and how does the type of contract play into determining the project budget? JH: Our team uses historical performance data as just one of its methods to establish a project fee. Too often, how- ever, the unique aspects of a project or the introduction of new, innovative solutions prevents this from being entirely what we rely on to establish a fee. We encourage back-check- ing the accuracy of the historical data with projected hourly and percent of construction estimates. Although we’d pre- fer to establish lump sum type fees, this is not always pos- sible, so project managers are taught to look at project fees from many different angles. If any of the client’s demands are particularly unique, we aim to ensure that the fee covers the risk exposure. TZL: What’s your prediction for 2018? JH: Another strong year of growth for our industry. We ex- pect increased client and public attention to needed infra- structure improvements. We’d love to see an infrastructure bill pass in Congress this year. We expect to see continued growth in alternative funding for infrastructure projects, which will further create strength in the industry. Oh, and as a Lions fan – and a realist – I predict the Lions will not win Super Bowl LIII. I hope I’m wrong.

JH: Some years ago, we recognized that our passion and our mission was “advancing communities” – not simply en- gineering and surveying. We also realized that there were services that our clients needed which we weren’t offering, but which fit with our firm’s mission. Because we believe that taking a holistic approach to problem solving brings far more value to our clients than offering only a piece of the solution, we made the decision about eight years ago to significantly diversify our services through adding ar- chitecture, planning, landscape architecture, and urban de- sign. Today, we have 12 different service disciplines across 13 different geographies. We continue to add new servic- es and geographic locations whenever the opportunity fits with both our clients’ needs and our passion to deliver a su- perior result. TZL: With overhead rates declining over the last five years and utilization rates slowly climbing back up to prerecession levels, how do you deal with time manage- ment policies for your project teams? Is it different for different clients? JH: With all of our clients, we need to hit deadlines and en- sure our staff’s availability to meet their needs. We strive to be flexible to our clients’ changing needs while also allow- ing our staff the flexibility to create a work/life balance that best suits them. We provide our staff with personal utiliza- tion and performance goals, but we’re flexible in how they achieve these. We’re fortunate that our team members in client-facing and support roles are very dedicated to doing what it takes to serve our clients, and allowing them the ability to self-manage their time, provided that it fits within the overall project tolerances. This has been a well-received solution for our workforce. TZL: Measuring the effectiveness of marketing is diffi- cult to do using hard metrics for ROI. How do you evalu- ate the success/failure of your firm’s marketing efforts when results could take months, or even years, to mate- rialize? Do you track any metrics to guide your market- ing plan? JH: As a business owner, I like metrics, and we’re always trying to measure the effectiveness of our efforts. Some of the marketing metrics we track include hit rate for propos- als (by discipline and geography) and a collection of website and digital metrics that help us understand who is visiting our site, how they’re arriving there and what content they find helpful and engaging. While these metrics are indica- tors that we’re on the right track, ultimately the true mea- sure will be whether we drive the increased revenue we set out to achieve. TZL: The last few years have been good for the A/E indus- try. Is there a downturn in the forecast, and if so, when and to what severity? JH: Even the best economists aren’t great at answering this question, and unfortunately we haven’t received a crystal ball yet. Statistically, we’re due for a recession. However, we don’t expect one in the next 12 months based on econom- ic indicators we’ve reviewed. Our best efforts are therefore put into watching leading indicators and ensuring our man- agers are prepared to respond.

THE ZWEIG LETTER April 23, 2018, ISSUE 1245

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