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ON THE MOVE DEWBERRY’S DANNY ELSNER NAMED VICE CHAIR OF COLORADO ASSOCIATION OF STORMWATER AND FLOODPLAIN MANAGERS Dewberry , a privately held professional services firm, has announced that Danny Elsner, PE, CFM, has been named vice chair of the Colorado Association of Stormwater and Floodplain Managers. Elsner is based in Dewberry’s Greenwood Village, Colorado, office. With more than 25 years of experience, Elsner joined the firm in 2018 and was recently named water resources department manager for the Greenwood Village office. His background includes engineering major drainage facilities, including hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, infiltration and detention ponds, low impact
design, channel improvements and stream restoration, sustainable development/LEED, erosion control, sediment transport, and stormwater management plans. “I am honored to be serving CASFM in this capacity,” says Elsner. “CASFM has been a part of my career for more than 20 years, and I have been lucky to serve on the board as South West representative, Metro representative, and secretary, and enjoy being on the Scholarship Committee for many years.” Elsner earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University, and two bachelor’s degrees in engineering and applied math and computer sciences from the Colorado School of Mines. In addition to his
involvement with CASFM, he is a member of the Association of State Floodplain Manager. Dewberry is a leading, market-facing firm with a proven history of providing professional services to a wide variety of public- and private-sector clients. Recognized for combining unsurpassed commitment to client service with deep subject matter expertise, Dewberry is dedicated to solving clients’ most complex challenges and transforming their communities. Established in 1956, Dewberry is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, with more than 50 locations and more than 2,000 professionals nationwide.
MARK ZWEIG, from page 11
2)They push themselves out of their comfort (knowledge) zone daily because they know that this, too, is critical to their self-improvement. They make the choice to take on new things – new types of clients, new roles with those clients, new contracting forms they have never tried before, and going to new places their firms have never worked before. They decide to expand their traditional boundaries and then make decisions that support that thinking. An example who was one of the greatest entrepreneurial architects in modern history is the late John Portman, Jr. He pushed the bounds of what he could do as an architect when he couldn’t find any clients who would act on his ideas. So he risked everything to learn all he could about development and became his own client. And his projects got bigger and bigger, and he changed the entire course of the city of Atlanta, the city of New York, the U.S. relationship with China, and did many other things. He could decide and then act on it, when most all of his peers were choosing to scratch out a modest living at the time. 3)They make a deliberate effort to expand the circle of people they associate with. They seek out and find other successful people that they think they can learn from, and employ these relationships to elevate themselves and their companies. They say that our attitudes and mindsets are greatly affected by who we choose to be around the most, so these growth-oriented leaders make a decision to reach out to other people who they think will expand their minds. It’s not by accident. It is a decision that they make and act on. 4)They make the decision to grow their companies. This takes many forms. They hire good people when they evidence themselves even if they don’t have an empty seat they are trying to fill. They put people in jobs that expand their responsibilities even if they aren’t certain they are qualified based on prior experience. They expand their ranks of principals and include some younger people. They explore buying other businesses to expand their capabilities, client base, service offerings, and geographic footprint. They decide to make growth decisions, and then act on them. I’m sure I could go on here and give many more examples of how the best leaders in our business can make a decision and then act on it, but hopefully I have already made my point. So there is now nothing left to do but for YOU to DECIDE and ACT yourself! MARK ZWEIG is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com .
those who do become wildly successful (and you can meet many of those at the upcoming ElevateAEC Conference & Awards Gala being held this year in Denver on November 3-5), have the ability to make decisions with incomplete information. These leaders know that if they make a decision that turns out to be not so great, they can always make a new decision and act to correct it. And they run their businesses accordingly and encourage the people who work for them to do the same. This then becomes the culture of the business, i.e., to act decisively when faced with a choice, and to correct bad decisions with new ones when necessary. “I think this simple idea of making a decision and acting on it really applies to owners and managers of AEC firms as well. So many are paralyzed by fear and just don’t act in a timely manner.” On the most fundamental level, my experience with these outstanding entrepreneurial leaders and what differentiates them from so many others who are less successful is that they make the choice to grow. They want to grow their business because they believe the alternative is sliding backward. And they want to grow themselves because they know if they are going to grow their business they will have to be getting better and smarter every day. In short, if you will forgive the cliche, they have a “growth mindset.” This growth mindset leads these outstanding AEC firm leaders to do certain things and act in particular ways. Here are some examples of what they do: 1)They pursue continuous learning opportunities. That means they read a lot and constantly seek self-improvement. They get involved in organizations with their peers. They attend seminars and conferences. They do a lot of research. They get into learning about things they don’t know – not because they need to, but rather because they just want to learn something new. They decide to self-improve and then act on it.
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THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 1, 2021, ISSUE 1415
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