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Approachable leadership: Mark Sweet President of Shield Environmental Associates (Lexington, KY), a full-service engineering and environmental consulting firm that seeks solutions of distinct value.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
S weet has accrued more than 30 years of experience in the consulting field, with 30 years of extensive experience working with contaminated sites. He has performed many environmental assessments and prepared numerous remedial action plans on a variety of sites for private and corporate clients, including several major oil companies. “When I became majority stockholder in 2019, I did not accept a CEO title, instead preferring to hold only the title of president,” Sweet says. “My number one job responsibility is to ensure company sustainability.” A CONVERSATION WITH MARK SWEET. The Zweig Letter: How has COVID-19 impacted your firm’s policy on telecommuting/working remotely? Mark Sweet: We were able to quickly arrange for all employees who typically perform project work in the office to begin working remotely in less than a week. Some employees with families have worked less efficiently
than others, but access to the company’s server via a VPN connection allowed work to proceed with minimum interruption. We restricted office access to a minimum number of employees, but allowed flexible time for those employees with less remote-access skills to have access to the office when office time is needed. TZL: In addition to being managing principal, you also manage four PMs from the UST program. What is the UST program? MS: The UST program is the group of petroleum underground storage tank site investigation and remediation projects managed under contract by Shield. My 30-year background includes management of this type of work, and these types of projects continue to constitute a considerable portion of Shield’s revenues. Due to the large number of UST projects in multiple states, it’s necessary to have multiple managers. Since I have historically been the primary contact for the UST clients, I remain the primary manager, although those
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