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ON THE MOVE MATTHEW LEE FOR WESTWOOD’S GROWING DFW OFFICE Westwood Professional Services, Inc. (#9 Hot Firm for 2016), appointed Matthew Lee to the position of Dallas-Fort Worth office leader, where he will be responsible for supporting the growth of local land, power generation, and corridor operations.

Lee is a registered professional civil engineer in Texas and has served Westwood’s land division as a project manager since 2015. He will continue to serve as a project manager for residential and commercial development clients while leading the DFW office. Lee received his MBA from the University of Texas

at Dallas and B.S. in civil engineering from Texas A&M University. As the office leader, Lee will report to Jason McCarty, who is vice president overseeing the firm’s national operations. McCarty says, the firm’s rapid growth in the DFW area led to selecting Lee for the leadership position.

CONFERENCE CALL , from page 7

use bank financing, it’s typically short-term and for the pur- pose of M&A. TZL: What’s your preferred strategy for growth, M&A or organic? Give us a synopsis of how your firm effected growth in the recent past. DW: Our strategy is a blend of both. There’s a constant need in this business to keep our professionals happy and retain them – and if we don’t consistently grow, the best people leave. In my opinion, you can’t grow at a healthy rate just through organic growth – there is just not enough talent available. “Branding and name recognition are huge in this business, so great marketing is anything you can do to create a positive public image for your firm and its individuals.” Look at it this way: Say you are a firm with 500 people with a growth target of 10 percent this year. That’s 50 new hires. At the same time, your turnover is 12 percent, or a loss of 60 people. That’s 110 new employees that must come on board to meet your goal – more than two new hires every week. Given that, M&A is a complementary path to growth where we acquire talented people who bring other ideas, new tal- ents, markets, geographic locations, clients, and more – much more efficiently than trying to do so organically. TZL: What’s the greatest challenge presented by growth? DW: Maintaining our culture while integrating new people. We have to ensure that we have systems in place for growth at the technical level which leads to growth on the execu- tive level which requires growth on the administrative level, and so on. TZL: What’s your prediction for 2017 and for the next five years? DW: I believe that 2017 and the next five years will be re- warding for the infrastructure markets. The new adminis- tration has shown an interest in repairing, growing, and bettering the nation’s infrastructure. I’m optimistic that we’ll see some action. Our industry has done a tremendous job of bringing infrastructure to the forefront with the pub- lic. They know money must be spent to make the country better. It’s with limited funds, however, and the populace is more aware of the continued reliance on public-private partnerships where private money is used to deliver public projects sooner.

future projects. In short, every marketing decision we make has to also take the long view. TZL: What has your firm done recently to upgrade its IT system? DW: Last year we relocated all our critical infrastructure to a co-locate facility that is disaster-proofed. We also up- graded our companywide shared network, significantly in- creased network data speeds and upgraded to a more ro- bust backup system that records backups on an hourly basis rather than daily. TZL: What’s the best way to recruit and retain top talent in a tight labor market? DW: Word-of-mouth is our number one source for recruit- ing; you get your best associates from existing associates. Even so, the labor market for qualified professionals is al- most non-existent. There simply is not a robust pool to go after. We have in-house recruiters, use social media, our website, outside recruitment specialists, offer employees fi- nancial incentives, sit on boards and teach at universities to find talented prospects while they’re still in school, have a strong and attractive internship program – and it’s still a constant effort. TZL: What’s the key benefit you give to your employees? Flex schedule, incentive compensation, 401(k), etc.? DW: This question really should be, “What do your employ- ees think of the key benefits your company offers?” What we think isn’t really material – to retain talent you have to take care of your team. If you want to know those key ben- efits they like and those they wish you offered, you should be asking them through surveys what is most important to them. TZL: How do you raise capital? DW: WGI uses traditional bank financing most of the time; we do not use leveraged third-party financing. When we do “There’s a constant need in this business to keep our professionals happy and retain them – and if we don’t consistently grow, the best people leave. In my opinion, you can’t grow at a healthy rate just through organic growth – there is just not enough talent available.”

THE ZWEIG LETTER March 13, 2017, ISSUE 1191

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