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600 tractor back to life. These kinds of things bring me immediate gratification. “Over the last 30 years, I’ve learned that if you don’t get the buy-in and ownership of your people, you will not be successful. You’ve got to win their hearts and minds. The strength and power of rowing together in the same direction cannot be underestimated.” TZL: Diversity and inclusion are lacking. What steps are you taking to address the issue? JW: We recognize our industry has a long way to go in terms of diversity and inclusion. Our focus is about adding diversity of thought and perspective to our team at all levels. That starts with recruiting talented young people into the engineering field, showing them the career path and growth opportunities that are before them, and, ultimately, retaining them within UES so they can grow with us. I think we’ve made some key strides in hiring more women to leadership positions within the company and are continuing to push for diversity in our candidate selection as we’re currently recruiting for more than 200 open positions across the country. TZL: What benefits does your firm offer that your people get most excited about? JW: Our work fulfills a critical role in this country – we help ensure safe construction, drive forward progress on major projects of urban revitalization, help to increase connectivity across the nation, and more. As we look ahead to the next decade and the U.S. invests significantly in much-needed repairs and infrastructure development, engineering services such as those we offer at UES are going to be in high demand and valuable to communities and civic entities across the country. TZL: It is often said that people leave managers, not companies. What are you doing to ensure that your line leadership are great people managers? JW: We take a great deal of pride in retaining our people. One of the ways to do this is by holding our own internal
training programs, partnering people with mentors so they can see a clear growth path in their field, and helping engineers and technicians advance in their careers by paying for their certifications. TZL: When you identify a part of your business that is not pulling its weight in terms of profitability or alignment with the firm’s mission, what steps do you take, and what’s the timeline, to address the issue while minimizing impacts to the rest of the company? JW: We’ve made some recent hires to our leadership team that are helping to look across all our operating businesses and verticals and decide where we can flex or better pull levers to be successful. As it relates to our capabilities, our service line leader, Ron Harris, has been instrumental in that. It’s also opened our eyes to areas we can really focus on from a growth and differentiation standpoint, like our environmental consulting business. At a corporate level, we’re trying to build more consistency across the organization, and our new senior vice president of innovation and integration Kathy Kilmer will take a leading role in executing on that for UES. TZL: How often do you valuate your firm and what key metrics do you use in the process? Do you valuate using in-house staff or is it outsourced? JW: This isn’t something I can comment on in great detail, but what I can tell you is we expect to be a $1 billion engineering and consulting firm within the next 10 years. We work closely with our partners and investors and board of directors on growth and valuation strategies. “I’m focused on maintaining and accelerating our commitment to our growth, as well as continuing the legacy values and culture which have TZL: They say failure is a great teacher. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve had to learn the hard way? made UES so unique, while incorporating new talent and new ideas into our family of businesses.”
HEADQUARTERS: Orlando, FL NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 2,500+ YEAR FOUNDED: 1964 NUMBER OF OFFICE LOCATIONS: 60 SERVICES:
❚ ❚ Geotechnical engineering
❚ ❚ Construction materials testing and inspections
❚ ❚ Building code compliance
❚ ❚ Environmental
❚ ❚ Occupational health and safety
❚ ❚ Building envelope
❚ ❚ Structural inspections
❚ ❚ Forensic engineering services
GIVING BACK: Corporate philanthropy efforts are important at UES. Making a difference in the communities where UES employees live and work is an important part of the firm’s legacy and culture. For decades, UES has supported charitable causes on a regional basis and is now looking toward opportunities where it can make a greater impact by leveraging its national footprint.
See ROWING TOGETHER, page 8
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MBER 29, 2021, ISSUE 1418
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