drawn to math and found myself to be a pretty concrete thinker, but struggled a little bit with some of the abstract nature of more advanced math. So engineering seems to blend the best qualities of science, math, concrete thinking, and the ability to produce tangible results. And I found myself really drawn to that combination. So I graduated with a BS and an MS from SMU and went to work for a local civil structural firm in Dallas, Texas. In 2008, what better time to enter the industry, but it definitely taught me a lot of lessons about learning quickly and getting a peek into how leadership teams made decisions on projects. So from there, my career took me across the country. I worked for a time in New York, worked for a time in Florida, and now I'm presently located back in New England in Connecticut. But throughout that time, I worked in small teams, large teams, small organizations, and large organizations, and really found myself drawn to project management and the ability of a team to successfully execute a project as a strategic initiative within firms. Not just something that we do passively to deliver engineering services, but really a strategic opportunity for firms. So over the past few years, I've been focused on working with project management teams and leadership teams to pursue project management as a strategic objective. When you boil it down, the ability to successfully deliver a project is the thing that enables all the other things that firms want to focus on.
Randy Wilburn [4:30] That essentially lines up with the mission of Start to Rise, which is to help AEC firms codify their project management playbook giving them more time to focus on their people and their business.
Justin Smith [4:47] That's exactly right. I mean, having a great project management system that is all consuming is better than not having anything but really what we want to do is we want to help firms lean out the process, and focus on the non-negotiables so that they can deliver more successful projects and spend their time running the business instead of fighting fires.
Randy Wilburn [5:09] So, you started working with Zweig during the pandemic and you said it was a unique set up because you did a lot of virtual training, and then you finally did some in-person training. As we all know, Zweig Group offers a number of online education programs, as well as personal training. A lot of companies can call Zweig Group to have them come in and do a bespoke training for that particular company's needs, whether it's leadership, it could be a number of different factors. Typically, the main focuses happen to be leadership, sometimes financial management, but probably the most requested is project management. Most firms want help in that area because every firm has shortcomings as far as that's concerned. There
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