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BUSINESS NEWS SVA ARCHITECTS HONORED WITH SEVEN GOLD NUGGET MERIT AWARDS SVA Architects, Inc. announced that it has earned seven 2017 Gold Nugget Awards of Merit for six different projects, representing one of the most diverse project portfolios recognized. Earning seven Gold Nugget Merit Awards demonstrates SVA’s excellence in K-12, higher education, student housing, single family housing, and public housing renewal. The Gold Nugget Awards is considered one of the Nation’s largest and most prestigious design competitions, drawing hundreds of submissions from the United States and internationally. The awards ceremony was in June at the San Diego Convention Center as part of the annual Pacific Coast Builders Conference. The Gold Nugget Awards recognizes outstanding planning and design in community and home design, green-built housing, site planning, specialty housing, commercial, retail, and mixed-use categories. Winners

this year were chosen from more than 600 entries from around the world. SVA’s 2017 Gold Nugget Merit Award-winning projects include: ❚ ❚ Potter’s Lane – Best Affordable Housing Community (30 to 60 dwelling units per acre), Attached Residential Housing Project of the Year ❚ ❚ Costa Mesa High School Performing Arts Center – Best Educational Project ❚ ❚ South Campus Plaza at San Diego State University – Best Campus Housing (Faculty or Student Residential – Institutional use) ❚ ❚ Faculty and Staff Workforce Housing at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo – Best On the Boards Site Plan ❚ ❚ 737 Ferndale – Best Renovated or Restored Single House ❚ ❚ Jordan Downs (in collaboration with Mithun | Solomon ) – Judges Special Award of Excellence

The Gold Nugget Grand Award winners will be announced at the awards ceremony, and will emerge from the Merit Awards in each of their categories. Robert Simons, AIA, president of SVA Architects, states, “We’d like to thank the Gold Nugget judges for recognizing SVA. It serves as an affirmation that we are achieving our goal to create healthier, more vibrant communities to live, work, learn, and play.” Founded in 2003, SVA Architects has become one of the country’s most innovative and respected design and planning organizations. The award-winning firm specializes in urban planning, architecture, and interior design of public, private, and mixed-use projects. The company is headquartered in Santa Ana with offices in Oakland, San Diego, and Honolulu.

BILL MURPHEY, from page 9

❚ ❚ Take a potential recruit golfing. If the other two in your foursome can stand the candidate for five hours, the person might be a good fit. Golf is also a good test of integrity. Does the person fudge their score, use a foot wedge, or have a pock- etful of mulligans? ❚ ❚ Invite the candidates to a company social event. Do they mingle and talk with others, or do they keep to themselves? Are they a decent conversationalist or are they a social cipher? Quiet people can be great employees, but you may eventually need them to talk with others. ❚ ❚ The beer test. Ask yourself and others in your company: “Would you like to spend two hours with this person at a bar?” ❚ ❚ Conduct a “bro-check.” That’s a term we used in the Air Force to describe a phone call to a peer, asking for an informal opinion about someone. With social media and a close-knit industry, it’s likely you know someone who knows the candi- date. Call them. Ask for their unvarnished opinion about the person. Most of us don’t work in a fully homogenous company. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to. The breadth of experience and personalities make us better. Don’t waste the effort trying to classify someone as this or that. Embrace the differences in all of us and enjoy people for who they are. BILL MURPHEY is Zweig Group’s director of education. Contact him at bmurphey@zweiggroup.com. “Don’t waste the effort trying to classify someone as this or that. Embrace the differences in all of us and enjoy people for who they are.”

way I thought someone in my desired field would answer them. It recommended that I should pursue a career in the medical profession. “I’m amazed people continue to contribute to this multi-billion-dollar industry to reveal results that may be inaccurate and are rarely, if ever, used.” At that time, I wanted to become a physician. I had taken advanced anatomy and biology classes and had participated in a local Medical Explorers program. When it came time for the aptitude test, I answered the questions purposely trying to achieve my objective, so I could show everyone, “See! I AM supposed to be a doctor!” In reality, I was forcing a result that didn’t reflect what I really wanted to do in adulthood. I’m amazed people continue to contribute to this multi- billion-dollar industry to reveal results that may be inaccurate and are rarely, if ever, used. When was the last time you reflected on your personality test results and proactively changed how you interact with people? Ask most researchers and they’ll tell you that an instrument is deemed reliable only when the results can be repeated within a given margin of error. I’ve been labeled an introvert and a borderline extravert on the same test given over multiple years. Which assessment is correct? If your company is interested in hiring a candidate, how are you to assess whether they’ll be a “good fit” without subjecting the person to a battery of personality tests? In my experience, the old-fashioned ones work best, are much cheaper, and anyone can use them.

THE ZWEIG LETTER July 17, 2017, ISSUE 1208

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