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treat our company as one firm. If a work- group is really struggling, it’s everyone’s re- sponsibility to support them and help out. The same is true when a workgroup has too much backlog or too many consecu- tive deadlines. If we do this right, we con- tinually engage all of the design intelligence across our firm – but it’s a lot of work to do that consistently requires all of us to be pro- active and holster our egos. TZL: Internal transition is expensive. How do you “sell” this investment oppor- tunity to your next generation of princi- pals? How do you prepare them for the next step? BI: Due to the foresight of our founding principal, we’ve been working at this for a couple of decades now. Over that time, we have created two tiers of ownership where our senior principals invest in 50 shares each and our principals invest in 10 shares each. Each share value represents its por- tion of the balance sheet’s book-value of the firm. About half of firm members are cur- rently shareholders. Then, our intangible value is calculated ev- ery year, using three years of normalized earnings and giving the most weight to the current year. The current intangible val- ue, as calculated annually, is owned by the shareholders with annual increments (ei- ther positive or negative) being awarded on a performance basis. Each owner’s shares, and their respective in- tangible value account is paid back at retire- ment in accordance to simple agreements we have with each other. Plus, we’ve invest- ed some money on the side in a corporate owned life-insurance vehicle to help fund a shareholder’s retirement, making our cur- rent and future internal transitions rela- tively easy and pain free. We’ll be putting our efforts to the ultimate test in the next couple of years when our founding principal hangs up his T-square and rides off into the sunset with his equity! TZL: In one word or phrase, what do you describe as your number one job respon- sibility as CEO? BI: One word or phrase? That seems impos- sible, but when I think deeply, it’s this: Keep our company moving fast by choreograph- ing our firm’s collective intelligence-horse- power into a powerful engine of profession- al progress. Okay, that was wordy and my passion for muscle cars clearly influenced this analogy, but I think that pretty much sums it up. It’s
mostly not about me, but rather the total talent we’ve grown organically in the firm. Maybe a simpler way to describe my biggest responsibility is to say “continuously im- prove our culture,” which encompasses ab- solutely everything we do, and that starts with me. Culture is as culture does. I think Forrest Gump may have said that. TZL: What happens to the firm if you leave tomorrow? BI: Jack squat. That means nothing. We keep growing and succeeding. In our 35-per- son company, there are at least three oth- er people who could step into my job right now and probably do it better. “Our betterment comes from our relentless ambition to be a prominent, distinctive, client- centered planning and design practice, but our strength comes from our collective experience, which is extensive.” TZL: There is no substitute for experi- ence, but there is pressure to give respon- sibility to younger staff. What are you do- ing to address the risk while pursuing the opportunity to develop your team? BI: Our betterment comes from our relent- less ambition to be a prominent, distinctive, client-centered planning and design prac- tice, but our strength comes from our col- lective experience, which is extensive. More than half of us at Hitchcock have more than 20 years of professional landscape architec- ture experience, and of those folks, much of that has been invested with our firm. That gives us the opportunity to be one of the best teaching firms in our markets, pro- viding front-line experiences for all of our staff, while mitigating risk through firm- wide collaboration and workgroup-centric quality management procedures. TZL: Landscape architects love being landscape architects, but what are you doing to instill a business culture in your firm? BI: Great question, and since we are all members of a private practice landscape ar- chitectural firm, understanding the busi- ness is inherently a requirement of our cul- ture, so the engagement in the business side of our practice is already pretty high. See CONFERENCE CALL, page 8
YEAR FOUNDED: 1980 HEADQUARTERS: Naperville, Illinois OFFICES: Hitchcock has four offices: ❚ ❚ Austin, Texas ❚ ❚ Chicago, Illinois ❚ ❚ Indianapolis, Indiana
❚ ❚ Naperville, Illinois NO. OF EMPLOYEES: 35 MARKETS: ❚ ❚ Civic ❚ ❚ Education ❚ ❚ Healthcare ❚ ❚ Parks and recreation
❚ ❚ Real estate ❚ ❚ Senior living MISSION: Hitchcock’s mission is to help its clients Create Better Places by maximizing the potential of their valuable outdoor places through smartly planned, thoughtfully executed design solutions. Hitchcock focuses solely on planning and landscape architecture and the firm applies its skills in markets that genuinely interest and inspire its talented, specialized teams. CULTURE: Hitchcock is a “skills and passions” based organization where everyone is encouraged to have fun and pursue their best professional experience. And, even though the firm has four distinct offices in separate cities, Hitchcock rallies around the phrase “better together” and supports each other firmwide and across studio lines as if its offices were simply adjoining rooms.
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pril 22, 2019, ISSUE 1293
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