 In this episode of the podcast, civil engineer and CEO of Mead & Hunt, Andy Platts is going to talk about how he leads his company through crisis situations just like this coronavirus outbreak. He's also going to tell you why if you want to be the CEO of a civil engineering firm, you shouldn't focus on being the CEO. Let's jump right in. All right, now I'm excited to welcome on our guest for today, Andy Platts. Andy is the CEO of Mead & Hunt. Andy, welcome to the Civil Engineering Podcast. Thank you. Looking forward to it. So Andy, there's a lot going on right now with the COVID-19 outbreak and we're going to get into all that. But before we do that, maybe you could just tell our listeners a little bit about your career progression as a civil engineer. Absolutely. Well, 35 years ago, I didn't know what the COVID-19 was for sure. So when it came out of school, it was a different world. But at that time, I was a civil engineer, a lot of basic classes like a lot of students come out today and honestly had no clue what I wanted to do with my career. I knew a lot as a broad range of opportunities in civil engineering and I was just kind of looking for really learning after school what are some areas of interest that kind of get me excited. So I started right out of school with Mead & Hunt 35 years ago as an airport engineer. I had flown once in my life at that time and had never been around airports or in aviation. But it looked like an interesting area to start and my qualification as a civil engineer allowed me to do that. Back in that day, you looked at a newspaper ad and you applied by snail mail. So it was a whole different world. So I started with them as a guy in the design side doing construction inspection, designing free CAD and then about a year after I started, we actually got into the CAD off paper type format. So a lot of technology changes in my early career days. So I stayed with that aviation team all the way through leading it as a department manager, ultimately as group leader and led that from, I think I started, we had four people in that department. We had 72 people in the company. Today we have 200 people in the department and 900 people in the company. So lots of change. We had one office back then. Today we have 35 offices in 17 states. So seeing a lot of changes in 35 years, all been fantastic. But the one thing that hasn't changed is honestly the values of the company and the foundation that we had. It's a 125 year old firm. So a lot of history there. So about nine years ago, I seceded my group leader occupation on the aviation side and opportunity to assume the president's position here at Meadon Hunt where we took the CEO, who's CEO and president and split that in two as part of a transition plan. And then as of two years ago, I assumed the president and CEO position combined and we'll look at splitting that up here in the next one in your term. But when I say assumed, the way we operate Meadon Hunt, everything is competed for. So I would just given it. It wasn't crowned either of those positions. We competed internally for that. It was a very healthy competition. We don't lose anybody. Everybody got it. We all learned a lot. But it was a competition which makes you feel like you really deserved it and you put your all in. So today I'm sitting here today as president CEO of a 900 person firm with operating in 17 states with about 35, 37 offices throughout. So lots of changes in my career. Wow. That's a really interesting journey. And we're going to dive into that a little bit more. But before we do that, you are sitting here, as you said, as CEO of this company and times have changed. And we're dealing now with this COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Pretty much everybody in the US is working from home at this point. And as you just said, hour by hour, more states are shutting down. And so as a leader of a civil engineering company during this time, how have you approached it? What are some of the things that you and your leadership have taken to plan to steer your company through this crisis? Sure. Probably not different than other areas of business, but certainly in civil engineering also, everyone's looking at the leader for the reactions. And so number one was staying very calm, very collected, showing a lot of stability and lots of communication. So early on, as of even three weeks ago, I saw my initial email blast out. We had all company meeting for all 900 people to call in and just talked about what could be coming very early on the stages. Our focus at that time was getting prepared for remote at work, knowing that ultimately we probably 100% remote. We're very fortunate from an IT standpoint that we're really set up for that very well. We have some high production computers, things that people have to do. We can do all that cloud-based. The computing can be done in cloud, so people can work on slow home lines to still do fast computing in the cloud. So we started at that time phasing in, at that time, we're probably at 20% of our population work remotely anyway, with probably 40% that could. So we started slowly phasing that in almost west coast to east coast as a virus kind of spread. So gave our technology folks an opportunity to get ready to not get overwhelmed and help desk requests and getting the right software hardware. And we started working for that. So along that way, though, lots of communication. We put together a great communication plan of weekly all company meetings, weekly manager meetings, leadership team meetings, an email blast by me at least once or twice a week, and taking questions from anybody. And honestly, you're on seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I was taking phone calls, emails from individual employees, even as of three weeks ago, just all worried, worried about a lot of different things. So being accessible, being transparent was key in really early stage of phase one. Now we're really entering what I'm going to call phase two. Today we're 95% of our staff are working at home. A few people who are not are just because the essential jobs they have in the office is kind of key things humming, but they have the ability to do that if they need to with the government side, we have to do that in particular states. About one third of our states we're housed in right now have gone to some type of work at home or shelter at home type restriction, which really didn't impact us because we're already there. So along that way, it's just really leaving stress on the staff. It's a big change, a lot of isolation being at home. So lots of communication plans we've got remote happy hours going on. We've got every day staff checking calls for each department, every office, making sure people are communicating. And then really phase two is looking ahead. We are looking at contingency planning of what might be. Is this a three week impact? Is it a two month impact? Nobody knows. So we're checking with the clients, getting a sense of what projects will move forward. Fortunately, the vast majority of our jobs today are moving forward. Clients get that infrastructure needs have to be taken in place. Some clients are looking at opportunities for stimulus funding down the line of having plans on the shelf ready to go. So we've got clients that are pushing projects even faster. So we're very, very fortunate that we haven't seen a significant impact yet on workload. We're primarily in a public sector as a majority of our work, which makes a bit of a difference. So now we're really setting a look at what are, what are, you know, where can we cut capital costs anywhere from large expenditures to, you know, really halting any office expansions right now. We haven't had any layoffs at this point, but that's always a tool we have to, we have to use. We're looking at everything from staff reduction to salary reduction to everything's on the table, but we're just looking at what tools we have available, but nothing at this point. So really looking ahead of seeing what are the, what's the impact is going to be? What are some solutions? We're an employee-owned company, very employee-focused. The last thing we want to do is lay folks off or really impact them from a job standpoint, but we have to be ready for all of that. So it's really a lot of contingency planning, scenario planning this week and next week, and then keep that communication flowing with all the employees. Well, I mean, it certainly seems like you're collected and, you know, confident going through this crisis. And I think what you said there at the beginning was really important is that people are looking for your reaction as the leader, and that applies to, you know, Andy, of course, but all, you know, leaders in different companies and different industries, and even quite frankly, at every level, like parents, right? I mean, you know, I know I have three kids and they're home from school and they're kind of like, they're looking at you to see like what your reaction is in terms of how much they need to be worried or stressed about it. So I think that that's, that's really great advice right off the top. And I think it's kind of like one of these issues where you really have to, like you said, you're 24 seven because these are issues that are going to affect the company, they're going to affect maybe the careers of your staff and also like just going to affect people personally, whether it's someone getting sick or whatever the case may be. So it's really not like this is something really different than what, you know, a leader in a firm might have to deal with it. You know, if you're talking about crisis is a lot of times it might be, you know, there's a recession or projects coming in, things like that, but now you're dealing really like far reaching. So it's something that's definitely, you know, mostly interesting, but like, you know, challenging on many different levels. So that's something that is it's good to hear you talk about some stuff. How has your staff so far responded to all of these things, Andy? Really, really well. I've had an amazing number of outpouring of support from the staff of all different levels, emails, voice call, you know, voicemails, texts of thanks for the transparency and the word transparency, I think can't be stressed enough. We've been wide, wide open with everybody from very day one of what the plan might be and the word layoff came into a conversation today with our all employee meeting. You can't shy away from that. They're all it's in the back of their mind. So you just got to be, you got to be frank with people to say, you know, get prepared. We're hoping we don't have to go there, but you got to be, you can't ignore it. And I think you have to face things head on. So once you open a door, I think it made people feel better that, you know, we're doing everything you can to prevent that, but that transparency piece is huge. And again, at the time, we're sitting in a good spot. Financially, we're a very solid firm. We have a lot of real up. So we have a record backlog, new works coming in that the angst is the uncertainty of the timetable, you know, whether it's three weeks, two months, whatever. And that's that's the, from a leadership level, it's tough to plan when you honestly don't know what that timetable is. This is a hurricane or tornado. You could deal with it. You could look at the timetable and really react to it and have a long-term plan, but you really have to have a short, mid and long-term plan in this case, and really keep your ear to the ground with the clients. How are they going to react? You know, can they still process bills? Can they process invoices? Is consultant selection going to continue? And what's that impact going to be in July, August, September, if you get a slowdown in New York? So you really got to look at short-term, mid-term, long-term, and at the same time make people feel comfortable that we're doing everything they can to keep. In the end, you want to have a company that's viable and stable for them to come back to. And I think they get it. So I think they've embraced it as we're all, it's all, they all get a kick in something. We all have to make some sacrifices and working at home and whatever that might be. It's our company. So let's keep this baby running the best we can. And it's not my problem. It's our problem. And I think that's resonated well and people appreciate the frequent communication as I don't think you can communicate enough. You could almost do it daily and it's maybe not enough. So keep the communication up for those who are in the same shoes. That's great. And as I said earlier, you do certainly seem to be, you know, pretty calm and staying collected through this and really communicating with your staff, which is great. But my question for you is, is that like kind of your personality or is it something that you've developed, like just going through experiences like this as a leader? How does one, you know, kind of, how does one get good, I guess, or be prepared for something like this? I'd say I've learned. I would, early in my career, it probably would have been more reactionary, probably would have stressed more. You'll learn that as you grow up in an organization, what matters changes. Early in your career, a project being delayed by a few days matters, or a project being over budget matters. And that's your world. As you move into department manager level, you're worried about the overall department. In the CEO level, you're worried about the enterprise. So the magnitude of the scale, you know, look at worst case, we're going to get through this. There's no doubt in my mind, we're going to get through this as a company, as in a country. And so you got to look at that. Now you got to step, okay, we're going to get through it. Let's take that off the table. Now, how do we step through it? The most graceful way we can. So I think that adds to the calm. But I would say I've watched a lot of good managers, leaders over the years. I've watched a lot of poor management leaders over the years and you learn from both. So being reactionary, being trite about this thing is not good. You're really picking and choosing the words you use. Every word is being scrutinized by everybody, whether it's written or verbal. And so I think that's critical to really don't underestimate the power of that communication. So it's been a lot of learning. Certainly I wouldn't have handled this early on in my career, maybe as well as they have now. But that's part of being a leadership development, a part of leadership training, whether it be official, and you're going to classes or you're just watching people around you, you should be a sponge. I'm picking up the best practices of good leadership folks that you've met. That's great. And I think that this advice from Andy, of course, is applicable to any kind of crisis or challenge that you might face in your career, whether it be something like this COVID-19 or something else, staying calm, really communicating with your staff. So I think that that's valuable beyond today. And that being said, civil engineers far and wide are going to be listening to this episode beyond the COVID-19 outbreak. So let's talk a little bit about your career progression. I know you gave us a little bit of overview. You've been with the same company, Mead & Hunt, for 35 years, which is great. You've gone through an engineering career and you're now serving as the CEO and previously served as the president. Was there, I talked to a lot of civil engineers that want to get to that point. They want to be an executive leader in a company and they have ideas of that early on was for you. Was that something that was kind of a goal of yours or did it happen kind of over time when you started saying, oh, I think this is something that I'm getting close to being able to do? Absolutely never a goal. I'm more of a, I look at the people around me and see what's the best, what's the impact I can do for that particular group. So when I first started, we had a small aviation team and my goal was let's make that the best aviation team around. Let's grow it from a state to a regional to a national practice. And that's where I sat on my site. So I wasn't getting clouded by visions of being a group leader or president or CEO. I had lots to tackle, lots to go. So for me, it was, I love this company and what can I do to make this the best company and what can I do to keep myself learning? As you progress through that, and even in those early stages of being an entry-level engineer or mid-level, that what you learn on the marketing side, the communication scale, you know, the crisis management of projects, the business side of managing the finance on Friday, all of that is such a huge amount to learn because you don't learn that in school. You know, you learn the technical side in school. You just don't learn the business side and the management side when it comes to communication skills. So lots to learn. You just kind of step through your career from mid-level to a more senior level. And you just don't look at other opportunities. Are you more prone for marketing? Are you more of a market lead kind of guy? You're more of a technical person. You really want to be a manager just because you're 15 years in doesn't make you want to be a manager. You want what's your passion? So follow your passion. And if that passion is being the CEO, awesome. That's great. And then start to prepare yourself. I really didn't look at that. I just kind of stepped through a very orderly process of leading the aviation team. I saw the opportunity for president come up. I looked around the company and said we've got a few good candidates. But I think I'm the best candidate. And for the best, for the best, for the best use of the company, I'm going to be that guy. So I dove into it, competed and with all my heart and not half-hearted and was awarded that opportunity and the same thing with CEO. And CEO came along and looked at the candidates said we've got a great group of candidates and all of us could do the job. I think I can do it better. And so again, I dove in with wholeheartedly and competed for that. Again, in a very positive way, everyone's on board. They all got it. So you really got to decide where's your passion and follow that. But I can't say my passion more step by step or so looking way up the chain of saying I need to be or I want to be the CEO. But that's kind of the culture of our firm also. We're focused on the company as a whole and people really take opportunities that best help the company versus best help themselves. And I think that's part of how we operate. That's great. I like that philosophy a lot because I do talk to maybe like a lot of younger engineers that they might say like I want to really be a partner or an owner or a CEO of the firm. And they might not really understand completely what that means yet. And so I think having a philosophy of do your job, be the best you can be on your team right now for your clients and continue to, if you take that approach, a lot of times what happens is you'll end up getting into leadership positions because you're delivering that value to the people that really needed from you. So I think that that's important. What do you see in terms of what different, are there any big differentiators that you see in engineers that do hold leadership positions? Is there skills or characteristics that you find in a lot of engineering leaders that allow them to be in those leadership roles? So if I'm a young engineer and I'm saying, there's some skills I need to focus on, if I do want to be a leader, what might you recommend to them? Sure. I think engineers are, as I work around them, and I've got a son that's engineer and my entire, most of my associates are in that area. So it's interesting to see how common a lot of the traits are. So from a real positive standpoint, I think engineers tend to be very deliberate, very linear thinking, tend to be not over reactionary, not panic stricken. They've dealt with risk when it comes to design risk. So dealing with that, from a hard dimension standpoint, they get it. Some are pretty good business people. They tend to be fairly good, but also in a very conservative way. So that's kind of the traits that help most engineers up. Again, they vary for sure. Every personality varies. Where they struggle with is probably communication or understanding the value of communication. Some folks are good marketers. They get out there, communicate with clients, but not everybody understands the value of communication with a staff and a team. And that bonding and that transparency, that's a challenge. Again, communication isn't stressed in most engineering curriculum, so it's always a challenge to kind of get people used to that. Some business applications may not be as stressed either unless you have an MBA or some other areas you may or may not be in tune for that. And when I look at really, really good engineers that are leaders, they've got a great technical background. They really understand the work that they do, they understand the clients, but then they balance that against the real business and communication aptitude. And having all of those, it takes time. And you probably don't have all those at any time in your career, but you're always developing. Myself included. You're always looking at what can I do better? I'm always looking for input from my staff, from peers, from others. How did I do on this particular presentation? How did I do on... I'm getting feedback during this crisis. I'm asking for it. Did I use the right words? Am I communicating correctly? Because none of us are perfect. We haven't gone through a lot of this before. So constantly looking for feedback, I think is also a good sign of a leader because you're opening yourself up, showing a lot of empathy. Not all engineers are overly empathetic when it comes to staff. That's just not their nature in some cases. They're kind of hardcore or hard shell. They have it deep down the side of them. They probably show it at home, but they may not show it in the office. And so kind of softening and showing some vulnerabilities is a challenge for a lot of us. And it took me a while to understand that it's okay to not know everything. It's okay to be vulnerable. And I think people appreciate that transparency when you show a little bit of vulnerability to the team. Yeah, that's great. I think that's really important because I do see that, especially engineers younger in their careers, you feel like there's stress that you need to know everything. And so that idea of asking someone a question can make you feel like a little bit less or that comes off as a weakness. But I think as you get older, you start to realize that you kind of have to ask questions for a lot of reasons because you don't know everything and you can do a better job, quite frankly, to Andy's point, even with this crisis, maybe as common collected as Andy is, he's certainly out there seeking advice and feedback on all of his actions to make sure that they're the best that they can be really for his people. And I think that that's my experience as well. I mean, we're having the same conversations here at EMI. And I'm certainly open to asking feedback, which isn't something that was always that easy to do. So Andy, you're also just to switch gears a little bit. You're pretty active on LinkedIn as well in terms of social media, which I think is an important thing, especially for kind of engaging the youth out there in our industry today. What's your philosophy on kind of social media and how an engineer, an engineering firm should utilize it? Sure. So I'm not not a LinkedIn or social media junkie, and I'll claim to be one of them. I do appreciate the the opportunities it provides, but I need to push. So I really engage the team early on as president CEO to see how we've got some communication people push me to be more active on these sites, because it's not my inclination. My inclination is to talk to people to send out emails, conference calls, in-person meetings, I visit every office a couple times a year. That's very natural for me. Natural is not being on LinkedIn or something like that. So I need to be pushed. You have to be organized. It's not as spontaneous. But that being said, the value of it's tremendous. I think the couple of things it's done for me and Hanson also from our peers is, A, it's a great communication tool to let people know the values and the culture of the company, not advertising, but letting people know of what we value in the company. It helps in recruitment. It helps in whether it be mergers acquisitions, kind of getting the word out there of what how we operate and what the firm. So we use a lot of it. So my at my level, it's a lot of that. It's how we handle our staff, how we treat our staff, kind of the culture and the environment of our company. Secondly, I think it's a great educational tool for other firms and even myself. When I look at people, what people are posting, I get great ideas from other firms and how to operate, how to handle different situations. And I would hope that people get the same information from myself for others when we post. So I think it's a real valuable piece there. And lastly, it makes you relevant. I mean, you need to be out there. You can become very irrelevant very quickly, whether it be from a client standpoint, whether it be from peers and associates, just being dark on the LinkedIn or other social media. I question over time, if you are going to be, are you up to speed? Are you innovative? Are you state-of-the-art? So being out there, I think, makes a big difference on your relevance in the business. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. I mean, I know even for me, I've gotten a lot of help from our team here in terms of putting stuff out there. And I'll go to conferences and people all the time will say, Hey, I get your podcast on LinkedIn. I listen to it all the time. That's great. I mean, I'm glad that it's helping us to get you that information. And even with the younger generations, I know sometimes people will say, oh, you know, they spend kind of too much time on the social media. And that may be true to some degree, but it's also a form to communicate with them. And we're seeing that through this virus outbreak that, you know, if the state or the government are trying to get messages out there to the teams or to certain levels of people, they can really access them through the social media. So there's, I think, like anything else, there's benefits to it, there's risks to it, but you kind of have to manage them. But it is good to hear from someone at your level about the importance of it and how, you know, you try to stay engaged with it to some degree, because I know that not all companies are that engaged in it, but it is definitely important, especially for that kind of recruitment side of things, the culture side of things, because that's where people can really be engaged. All right, before we jump in and put Andy on the hot seat to finish this one up, I got one more question for you, Andy. In terms of being an ESOP, you know, employees own the company, talk about how you think that impacts the culture of the company, because from some of the stuff that I've watched, you know, you have some videos on your website and stuff, it seems like it's a really critical component of the culture. Sure. So as I mentioned, so we're employee-owned, we're not technically an ESOP from a technical standpoint. We don't have a formal, it's not a, not all employees are owners, but we have about a third of employees are owners and they can be owners if they choose to be after in our programs, after two years of being with Mead and Hunt and a year in the business, they can apply to be an owner. And more than likely, if they're a good employee and they're dedicated, we're going to allow them to do that. And we help them out financially to actually invest in the company. So it is an opportunity for everyone to be an owner, but it's not handed as an ESOP would be. And I think the difference there too is quite critical. Like an ESOP can almost be like a 401k match where everyone gets something. In this case, you want it, you want to be an owner and you have to invest a little bit of your own skin in the game and then continue to invest. So there is a more proactive ownership piece of it. The change in the culture, I think is tremendous. I mean, everyone gets that they're, they have a part of this company, they've invested their hard-earned money, they weren't given this money, and they all want to make this company be sustainable, but not only sustainable, they want to keep it growing. It's an investment. It's like anything you see out there, you want to see it growing, you want to see it profitable, and they, and they're all part of making it be that way. So in good times, they, they celebrate, and when bad times they kind of hunker down and figure out, okay, what can they do to pitch in the sacrifice? So I think it's made this particular situation we're in today much easier for me than hot because it's not four or five or six people that own the company. You've got almost 300 people out of 900 that have skin in the game and that's growing. Last year we took on almost 30 or 40 new new shareholders now they'll continue again next year. So our plan is to keep opening that up, get the employee engagement I think in a situation like this that really helps because they feel like they owe it to the company to pitch in. If there's sacrifices to be made, they will make the sacrifices. I have no doubt about that because they know it's their company, it's not my company or it's not the leadership's company. So I think the overall attitude helps a lot when it comes to pitching in, especially in a crisis like this. Yeah, I think it's great. I think just speaking from a career standpoint, I mean to me it's like the ultimate statement of trust from your company, right? Like they're giving you ownership in the company and to me if I'm someone that's trying to progress my career, what better than that to have my company kind of say you're rolling on this, you're part owner of the company and to your point, thank you for clarifying between the ESOP because to your point, I think it's great that they're saying I want in on it, you're giving them that opportunity and they're taking it and that kind of puts another level of accountability into it, which I think is really, really important. All right, so we're going to take a quick break here and then we're going to come back. We're going to put Andy on the Civil Engineering hot seat and wrap this one up. Stick with us. Now it's time to jump into our Civil Engineering hot seat segment. All right, we're back with our guest for today, Andy Platt, CEO of Need and Hunt. Andy, are you ready for the Civil Engineering hot seat? I am ready, bring it on. All right, first question. Are there any specific rituals that you practice every day? For example, do you have a specific morning routine or a lunch time routine or something that you do consistently on a daily basis that has contributed to your success? Yeah, I would say the most consistent thing I do is I work out pretty much every morning. I'm a runner, so I like to run, so whether I'm traveling or in the office, which I'm not in the office a lot. I try to do something every morning, whether it be some workout routine or running and try to do that six, seven days a week. I think staying healthy is a big part of what keeps me driven and keeps me focused on things. And honestly, some of the best ideas or different ideas I've come up with have been during those, those routines, get you out of the office, you get some me time, and they can focus on kind of thinking out of the box. I think it's imperative. And I think lastly, for the health, just keep yourself healthy when it comes to eating. You know, I never used to, as a younger person, I'd skip meals, skip breakfast, you know, get up late, run to the office and just kind of blow through, but it is important to eat three squares. It sounds kind of silly and elementary, but I think if you can keep your health up, as we're seeing around the country today, the value of that is imperative. And people are looking for that. They're looking at seeing a healthy leader or someone who's health conscious about things. You don't have to be over the top, but if you can kind of keep it and get into a routine, I travel three or four days a week normally, obviously not now. So it's a challenge. You got to come up with something that works with your lifestyle. And then you get to figure what that is. And everyone's got their passion. And when it comes to whether it just be walking or swimming or whatever it might be, so pick your passion, keep it in a routine and good, good at it and let people know you're doing it. Everyone in our company knows I'm a runner. They know I'm active. And I think I try to drive that as a role model standpoint to see people and see if it's okay to take time out and run in the morning or run at lunch, whatever it takes to kind of keep yourself going. So that's probably my fairly consistent routine that I like to do. That's great. I often tell engineers, I know sometimes you feel like if you take time away, you know, maybe you're going to sacrifice something else, but you know, staying healthy can actually make you more productive the hours that you're working. And like Andy said, maybe ideas come up and it contributes to the quality of your work. So you know, it is very important and it can, you know, kind of boost that productivity. All right, Andy, what's one book that you might recommend to engineers or just one book in general that you found to be extremely helpful for you in your professional or personal development? The book called Surfing the Edge of Chaos by Richard Pascal. I read it early on. I took SEI through ACC Leadership class this many years ago, and that's one of the first books I read. And some books resonate and some books don't. That one really did. And I think why it resonated around me is as an engineer, always trying to solve the problem, whether it be a corporate problem, and you'd rather love to solve it and just make everything, all the problems go away. And that's how we're wired as engineers. Surfing the Edge of Chaos really tells you it's okay to have those stress points. It's okay to have those problems because that's what keeps an organization interesting and alive. So as much as we love to solve a problem, stamp it, mail it, go away, you'll learn that it's okay to have challenges problems like this virus issue right now. It's a big challenge. It's going to make us stronger in the long run for sure, as a company and as a country. But it's hard to see that sometimes when you're going through it. So as a problem solver, I've learned that, okay, that's okay. And those stress points make this organization stronger and you're challenging it. So you kind of keep yourself vibrant because you're always saying on top of things, so personally challenging, but also from a company standpoint. People want to hear about changes. They don't want to hear about just a status quo. And I think that book, Surfing the Edge of Chaos, talks a lot about kind of running as a leader. How do you evolve around that world of chaos? And it's okay to have it. In fact, it's better than okay. It actually makes it a healthier organization. That's great. We're 140 plus episodes in and I haven't heard that book yet. So I'm always happy when we get a new, we get a new recommendation. So that's, I'm going to look that one up for sure. All right. So two more questions. First one, thinking back on your managers of the past. And again, not asking you to name names or anything, but if you think of maybe your favorite manager or a couple of your favorite managers, what was it that made them your favorite? What was it that they did? What was the skill that they had or an approach that they took that you might say, man, you know, I really remember that person because of this. Well, I've been in touch with so many great managers and I'll even say poor managers. And I think in my world, I've never found one that's got the whole package. And I'm not sure that one exists that has a whole package, right? And nor do I. So I look at what, what do I admire with anyone individual? They thought they really did well, whether it be a great communicator, whether it be some of them just, just want to give a presentation. They just, they're solid and knocked out of the park. So I'm going to dealt with conflict easy. Some, some are, some people are conflict avoiders and some people deal with conflict head on. So I've really picked the best of everybody that I've seen and I've learned as much about the weak spots and people as they probably have in the best spots. And I think that's, that's good advice for anybody out there. When you're, when you're working with people, not everyone's perfect. Not everyone's a perfect leader. Very few people are. Person doesn't even exist out there, but instead of getting down about it, learn what you can from the, from the pluses and minuses, and try to make yourself the best leader you can. And you're always improving by that. So that, so I think that's why we're, you know, keeping more, more of a hybrid model of, of picking the best you can. And as times change, leadership qualities tend to differ too. And then times of stress right now, different leadership quality are needed versus times when things are really well, really going well and different leadership quality might be needed. Yeah. And, and to Andy's point, I mean, that's really why we asked this question is because when you get into a leadership role, the best way to start maybe, let me look at the last, you know, five managers that I had and kind of pick out, you know, the stuff that they did well and try to implement it and look at some of the things they didn't do so well and maybe try to avoid doing those things. So that's a great point. All right. Last question here, Andy, and I know you've already given us a lot of great advice for our listeners. This one last question, we call it the civil engineering career elevator advice question. If you got into an elevator with a civil engineer and you had about 30 to 40 seconds with him or her to give them career advice in that short period of time, what would it be? Okay. I've had the opportunity to do this several times in and out of elevators. But first of all, you've picked a great career. I think civil engineering is just a fantastic career for the opportunities. It's a very broad career, whether it be water, wastewater, transportation, etc. So secondly, there's a lot of innovative opportunities going ahead. And we look at solving a lot of the problems that we have. So whether you're more of a sustainability person or you're looking at environmental resiliency and how to support structures around that, whether you're looking at different ways of saving energy, new transportation that's coming up with autonomous vehicles, etc. There's so many changes, so many challenges, but they're also broad and different. So you have an opportunity to really help this country out and help the world out, but also really be innovative and kind of think out of the box. That's what we're looking for. So it's not just about paving asphalt and paving concrete and what some people may think is building bridges. That's all still there. So you still have the ability to do highly technical work, but also I think you got an ability to really think out of the box. From advice standpoint, I just take in all the information you can. You graduate, you've been learning for four years, five years, whatever your time period was, but keep that learning going. It's not just jumping into a job and doing a job. Every job should be a career and treated as a career. So a career means you're learning every day on the job all the time and just be a sponge. Take every opportunity you can to learn. Take classes. Take company classes that are offered. Learn from others. People around you and develop yourself, as I mentioned earlier, is developing the best you can be and that current role that you're doing. And then start to look for those next opportunities and keep that progression going. If you do that, you're going to have an awesome career. It's a great opportunity for all of us to be a civil engineer and I applaud those who are going into it. And I'd love to talk with any of you who want to chat about that career option. Awesome. Once again, Andy Platt, CEO of Mead and Hunt. Andy, thank you so much for spending some time with us here today, especially during these turbulent times coming on the Civil Engineering Podcast. No, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast on YouTube produced by the Engineering Management Institute. We're always looking for new ways to help engineers become effective managers and leaders. You can view all of our content on our website at engineeringmanagementinstitute.org and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for our weekly videos. Until next time, please continue to engineer your own success.