It’s hard to believe that the end of July will mark my first seven months as CEO & President of Henderson Engineers and Henderson Companies. When I accepted this role, I announced that my intention was not to make radical changes, but to build on our firm’s 52-year history.  We’ve always believed that hiring great people, and providing a work environment where they can thrive, helps us deliver our best work. Over the last few months, we’ve continued to double down on what made us the company you know and trust today: our people-first culture and client-first focus.

Here are just a few highlights of what we’ve been up to across both Engineers and Henderson Building Solutions in our continued effort to deliver the best client, and employee, experience in the industry:

NEW SECTORS

We kicked off the year by reorganizing our business into five sectors: Business, Community, Health, Retail, and Venue. Each sector includes experienced staff from both Henderson Engineers and Henderson Building Solutions, allowing us to level-up our best-in-class client experience by providing a single-source for all design and construction project needs. As always, each sector remains focused on technical quality, sustainable design approaches, and innovation. We announced the following employees to help lead our new sector structure:

• Jason Wollum, Chief Sector Executive (formerly Retail Sector Executive)
• Carlo Sechi, Business Sector Executive
• Julie Pierce, Community Sector Executive
• Mark Chrisman, Health Sector Executive
• Jason Zoeller, Retail Sector Executive
• Ryan Starkovich, Venue Sector Executive
• Vince Masilionis, Client Sector Executive
• Tony Welter, Client Sector Executive

I’ve had the pleasure of working with all the individuals above over my last 20+ years at Henderson. Each have excellent leadership skills and bring a clear understanding of who we are and where we are going as a company. I’m thrilled to have them lead us forward. We also recently recognized 32 new principals and associates leaders as not only exceptional contributors, but inspiring and motivating to others around them.

EMPLOYEE-OWNED

Speaking of shared motivation, at the end of 2021, Henderson Companies officially became 100% employee owned, making all eligible employees beneficial shareholders of Henderson Companies. That means when Henderson does well, so do our employees. You’ve probably heard us used the phrases “employee owned” and “client centric” quite a bit this year and that’s because we believe they go hand-in-hand. As an employee-owned firm, we empower all our employees to think and operate with an owner mindset in every interaction, which ultimately means a better client experience for you.

CLIENT-EXPERIENCE FOCUS

While client service has been a cornerstone of Henderson since we were founded, we’ve continued efforts to infuse client experience into every aspect of our business. We believe that an excellent client experience can only be achieved by approaching each project through lens of four pillars we use to optimize how we work: BIM/VDC, Sustainability, Quality, and Innovation. We use the latest technology combined with data-driven design to deliver highly technical, sustainable design solutions that exceed client expectations and keep our employees excited and motivated. Together with our sister company, Henderson Building Solutions, we combine engineering knowledge with the ability to procure, commission, and construct building system solutions.

FLEXIBLE, HYBRID WORKFORCE

We know that happy employees do their best work. That’s why when we officially welcomed employees back to the office in April 2022, we also introduced a fully hybrid work environment that allows employees to work for us, from anywhere – in the office, fully remote, or a mix of both. This flexibility has allowed us to continue to attract the best talent. But our people-first culture was built through personal relationships and connections, which we continue to define in our post pandemic world.

That’s why as I transitioned into this role, it was important to me to get out and meet employees across the country. Starting several months ago, I’ve been hitting the road visiting employees, asking questions, and getting a pulse on what’s happening in all 12 Henderson offices as part of our Henderson CEO Tour. Each “tour stop” includes a visit with employees in one of our offices or over zoom for remote employees. Meeting employees and getting to know them on a personal level has been one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most as our people are what make Henderson unique. I’d like to mention that we continue the trend of an open door policy for leadership firm-wide, which isn’t always the norm at big firms.

We’ve always prided ourselves on being the firm where you can bring your whole self to work. We believe our differences make us better people and have worked over the last several years to shine a light on inequities within the AEC industry and within our own walls. We recently hired Jenn Miller to serve as our new DE&I Partner and help us continue our intentional focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts. Jenn’s DE&I experience and her passion to elevate diverse perspectives and communities has already had a meaningful impact on our firm. I’m excited for you to hear more from Jenn in the future as she continues to help drive us toward building a better world.

As you can, tell we’ve been busy, but we aren’t slowing down anytime soon either. I’ll close with this… I feel lucky to work in such a caring industry. When my new role was announced, I expected to receive a variety of texts, calls, emails, and congratulatory notes. In reality, it was all of that and MORE. As I began responding, I realized there was a theme across the messages beyond the surface-level congratulations. Almost everyone also shared very sincere offers to help me succeed, including people in other organizations, and even competitors. I’ve always felt there was something special about AEC professionals that makes them inclined to offer help and support to others that doesn’t exist, at least not to this level, in other industries. I always knew this industry and the relationships we build with clients and partners was something special… Thank you for your continued support of Henderson.