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Who Knows What You Know? – Your Voice Matters!

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Your Voice Matters is a guest blog by Mike Burns

Voice MattersLast month we discussed Continuous Learning, growing together as teachers and students, deepening our commitment to sustained personal and professional growth. As our COVID-19 response continues to mature, the AEC industry is rapidly advancing new ways of communicating, learning, and delivering projects. As we Zoom from meeting to meeting (cheesy pun intended), it is easy to feel connected without truly connecting. Yet this moment — this critical period of recovery — necessitates sustained empathetic listening in order to empower a diverse and inclusive chorus of critical voices. Infrastructure improvements will be a vital component of our pending economic recovery. We must concurrently fast track “shovel-ready” projects and restructure our capital improvement plans, setting the stage for a wave of critical infrastructure projects. Your voice matters, and is particularly critical today as we make difficult choices, pivoting to and accelerating new solutions. I hope that this embarrassing, yet rewarding story from my career inspires you to assert yourself in this moment for your community and our world.

Voice Matters

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TECC 220: How to Build Relationships With Your Engineering Team

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Engineering TeamIn this episode of The Engineering Career Coach Podcast, our third episode in a new series on the key drivers of successful engineering managers, we talk to Joe Quattrochi, P.E., Director of Quality at The Walsh Group’s Heavy Civil Quality Program. Joe talks about the importance of supporting your engineering team members in their career growth and development. You can also view this episode on our YouTube channel. 

Engineering Quotes:

Engineering Team

Here Are Some of the Key Points Discussed About Building Relationships With Your Engineering Team:

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TCEP 100: The Civil Engineering Podcast Episode 100 Compilation Episode

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Compilation

In this episode, we have published a special compilation episode which consists of clips from some of our past episodes related to our career elevator advice question. This question gets asked at the end of each episode and goes as follows: “If you got into an elevator with a civil engineer and had about 30 to 40 seconds with him or her and had to give him or her career advice in that short period of time, what would it be?”  We are so grateful for the support of our listeners and excited to share this milestone 100th episode with you!

Engineering Quote:

Here is a summary of the elevator advice from our guests in this compilation episode:

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TCEP 092: Business Development Skill Building for Civil Engineers

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Business Development Skill Building In episode 92 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I am taking you with me to visit T&M Associates headquarters in Middletown NJ, where we are going to sit down with Ihsan Al-Fayyomi to talk about business development skill building for civil engineers.

Here are some of the questions I ask Ihsan:

  • Can you talk about how you became involved in expanding your company geographically?
  • What was your mindset like when you started growing the company?
  • Is smart decision making something you personally focus on?
  • What is your overall philosophy on building relationships?
  • How do you build trust?
  • Tell us about having difficult conversations.
  • What is your management style?

Engineering Quotes:

Business Development Skill Building

Business Development Skill Building

Here are some key points discussed on business development skill building:

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TCEP 078: A Deep Conversation on the Philosophy behind building a Civil Engineering Firm

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building a Civil Engineering FirIn episode 078 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I talk with Robert Mora, PE, PLS, ENV SP about the philosophy that he and his partner are operating under in building Batture Engineers + Land Surveyors, a unique civil engineering firm based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Here are some of the questions I ask on building a Civil Engineering Firm:

  • Tell us about your experience with land surveying and how that has helped in growing your firm.
  • When did you realize that you might want to start your own business?
  • What did you do to prepare for starting your own business?
  • Tell us more about networking and personal relationships and how it has affected your career?
  • What was your goal in creating a local mastermind group?
  • Take us through the first year you started your business.
  • At what point did you decide that you want to seek out a partner?

Engineering Quotes

building a Civil Engineering Firm

building a Civil Engineering Firm

Here are some key points discussed and quotes from this episode:

  • I always thought about the bigger picture in my career and looked for roles that would benefit me in the future.
  • To a certain extent, I was not really focused on salary, it was more about mobility and opportunity. I would take less money to work someplace if it was going to give me the opportunity to do something that I wanted to get better at.
  • Part of what made things easier for me is that I’ve always enjoyed the process more than the results.
  • You become confident in certain things because when you are good at doing something, you are typically confident in it.
  • Overreacting to something is not going to change what is happening. It’s just going to change your perspective on it.
  • When building a civil engineering firm you might not immediately enjoy doing all of the different tasks, but through consistency, you can find enjoyment in it.
  • It’s important to build relationships and to listen to people in doing it, and help them, instead of immediately just trying to sell what you are doing when building a civil engineering firm.
  • Doing good work and being mission driven is more important than profits. You can’t do bad work and blame the price you gave the customer, for doing the bad work.
  • Don’t let money drive your decisions and what you do, but also don’t ignore it. As you grow in your business, you have to think differently about your company finances than your personal finances.

More details in this episode…

About Robert Mora, PE, PLS, ENV SPbuilding a Civil Engineering Firm

Bob Mora, founder of Batture Engineers + Land Surveyors, has over 15 years of experience in land surveying and civil engineering, providing civil design services for both private developers and municipalities. He has successfully managed and completed projects for the Sewerage and Water Board, the Department of Public Works, the Regional Planning Commission, the Orleans Levee Board, and St. Bernard, Ascension, and Plaquemines Parishes. As a sub-consultant for the Army Corp of Engineers, Bob managed the construction of over $100 million of flood protection, earning a Certificate of Appreciation for Exceptional Achievement from the Hurricane & Storm Damage Risk Reduction System Mission. A native of New Orleans, Bob graduated from LSU with a degree in Civil Engineering and Land Surveying. He is the past president and an active member of the New Orleans Chapter of Engineers Without Borders, helping engineers identify pro bono opportunities both locally and around the globe.

Sources/References:

Batture
The Engineering Management Accelerator
Engineering Management Institute Training
Bob’s LinkedIn Page

This episode is brought to you by PPI, the leader of civil engineering FE or PE exam preparations. Use promo code TCE8 for a 20 % discount at ppi2pass.com/resources

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

Engineer Your Own Success

 

 Art’s Principles: 50 years of hard-learned lessons in building a world-class professional services firm

Please leave your comments or questions in the section below on building a Civil Engineering Firm.

  • If you enjoyed this post, please consider downloading our free list of 33 Productivity Routines of Top Engineering Executives. Click the button below to download.

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To your success,

Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Mangement Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success

Are you Focused on Moving your Engineering Career Forward, Every Day?

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Are you Focused on Moving your Engineering Career Forward, Every Day?

Engineering Career ForwardOdds are if you’re like most engineers, you show up at work each day, solve problems, go home, and then come back the next day and repeat that process.  Obviously, I am simplifying things here.  Within that, ‘solve problems’ generalization, lie thousands of amazing projects, inventions, and solutions that move our world forward.  Engineers create extraordinary things. But what career-related items do you partake in outside of your engineering projects, and how you do you decide when or why to execute them and move your engineering career forward?

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TECC 016: The Engineering Career Coach Podcast – Nine Points to Help Prepare for and Get the Most out of Engineering Conferences, with Christian Knutson, the Engineer Leader

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engineering conferences 2014In this session of The Engineering Career Coach Podcast, I speak with Christian Knutson, PE, author of The Engineer Leader blog. Knutson has over twenty years’ experience in leadership. He learned, and earned, his expertise in one of the most demanding professional arenas available: the U.S. military. During a career in the U.S. Air Force spanning two decades, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, he has led military and civilian teams in the international arena performing engineering, construction, and project and program management at locations across the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East.

engineering careerThe career-changing tip at the end of the show will discuss one very important aspect of your personal development that you must pay attention to at all times.

“The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck.” – Tony Robbins

Listen to this session and learn: [Read more…] about TECC 016: The Engineering Career Coach Podcast – Nine Points to Help Prepare for and Get the Most out of Engineering Conferences, with Christian Knutson, the Engineer Leader