Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Spherecast, presented by Atlas, the podcast where innovation meets insight, highlighting the people whose ideas are shaping our world. I'm your host, Jamie Myers, bringing you conversations that uncover fresh perspectives and highlight the people turning bold thoughts into real impact.
Speaker: We'll take a deeper dive into what happens on the ground and behind the scenes with those who work to make your life better as they help create thriving cities and healthy communities. So whether you'll be tuning in from work or home or stuck in traffic wondering what can be done to improve the natural environment or built infrastructure that gets you from here to there, you've come to the right place.
Speaker: Today's episode is a conversation about leadership, influence, and the long view of impact across the industries that shape our world. We're joined by our very own Atlas CEO, Jackie Hinman, whose career spans more than three decades of transformative leadership.
Speaker: Jackie brings over 35 years of experience in the engineering industry, having spent nearly 20 years with Fortune 500 engineering firm CH2M, where she held multiple leadership roles, including president of several divisions and most recently chair and CEO before its acquisition in 2017.
Speaker: Beyond Atlas, Jackie is a highly respected board member currently serving on the boards of Dow and International Paper. She's a Maryland native, a civil engineering alumni of Penn State University, and a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program.
Speaker: Jackie recently spoke at this year's groundbreaking Women in Construction event in San Diego, where industry leaders gather to tackle today's most pressing challenges in project and people leadership.
Speaker: As we reflect on that important discussion, we're honored to explore her perspective on what it means to lead in this moment and why mentoring the next generation matters now more than ever.
Speaker: Jackie, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's really a pleasure to be here. We're so excited you took the time. You're one of the busiest ladies I know. I think we're all busy, just saying.
Speaker: Let's the Atlas way. Yeah. Let's jump right in and just talk about a little bit about your vision to legacy. So you've led through major shifts in the industry, from large-scale organizational change to evolving client expectations.
Speaker: How have those experiences shaped the way you lead today, especially in a time of so much complexity and change? Yeah, you know, and speaking of complexity and change, ah one of the things I can say that I have noticed throughout my career is that the pace of play always seems to increase. I think if any of us think back, you know, geez, I thought I was busy 10 years ago and now I feel even more busy, right? I think all of us feel that way.
Speaker: In fact, you know, listeners might think that there is an unreal amount of complexity and change now, But I was thinking back, imagine what it was like to work when there weren't cell phones or computers or the internet. Now, many people on the call won't know what that was like, but I remember that.
Speaker: And changing from no cell phone, no computer, no internet, to a time not over a long period of time when we had all those, the change new change involved in that was mind-boggling, if you think about it.
Speaker: And then we can think about a very recent example. Think about how fast technology and the way that we work changed with the pandemic. Right. I mean, we wouldn't even be doing what we're doing now.
Speaker: Right. Many years before the pandemic. So one thing I have learned is that people can adapt to change easier than they think. In my experience, and frankly, even for me personally, sometimes it's the thought of change, not actually going through change.
Speaker: That's the harder part. But that said, your question was about, you know, how do they shape the way I lead? How do they shape the way I lead in the industry? There's a few simple truths, I believe, about success in our industry.
Speaker: If you think about the work that we do what we do, it's about a people business. So we need to have a service that clients want. We need have people that clients want to hire. And we need to offer our services in a way that is easy and pleasing for our clients. But frankly, it's easy please easy and pleasing for them to work with us. And it's easy and pleasing for us to do the work.
Speaker: So it's pretty simple. And our project is really is our brains, right? Our thoughts, the ideas we come up with, how our people do that and the solutions we develop. In turn, each of our people is different and unique, but I think that the magic, frankly, the A-team, right, the Atlas team magic, is when we work together in a way that makes us happy and that makes our clients happy.
Speaker: So I found, to be honest with you, that it's about the basics about leadership that matter now more than ever, especially in increasing pace of play and change, right? seeing Things like communicate simply.
Speaker: Be clear about goals and expectations. Bring as much of your full self to work every day that you can. Give people room to grow and to thrive.
Speaker: Be a trustworthy leader. I try very hard at that. And then in turn, trust the people that you work with. Hire people that are competent and that share your values, right? That matters a lot to us in Atlas.
Speaker: People that want to succeed and people that surround themselves with the people with the same qualities. Do what you say you're going to do. So I know that sounds really simple, but yeah almost in a way, it's it's sort of a ah real contrast because there is complexity and there's change. But to me, getting back to the basics is actually the way that we keep that thread going.
Speaker: mean, to be honest, it's really the stuff that we learned in kindergarten. That's the way I think about it. I love that. I love that. And there's so much value in the simplicity of it so that everyone's able to adapt and learn and really live those values out every day.
Speaker: um i love what you said about communicating simply. I think as... you know, this shift is happening with technology and the way we're consuming information and the way we are communicating um is changing.
Speaker: I hope we can stick to that truth, that clear, concise communication um gets the job done every time and it lets everyone be more authentic in their work.
Speaker: I agree with you. We're trying really hard at that at Atlas. I love that. the a team. Let's go. Okay, so leading with people in mind, you talked about this being a people business, which it absolutely is. No widgets here, just people in our beautiful minds.
Speaker: um So our industry is often defined by deadlines and deliverables. How do you, Jackie, prioritize a people-centered culture here at Atlas? And then from there, how do you create space for the growth, trust, and cohesion across an organization that's moving as quickly as ours?
Speaker: Yeah, really, really good question. So you started by saying an industry defined by deadlines and deliverables and then talked about people-centered cultural. So you know deadlines and deliverables are short-term activities in the scheme of things.
Speaker: Growth, trust, cohesion, and culture, I think are earned over the longer term. Love that. So I think about our culture and our strategy and our commitment to our people as the road and the journey that we are on.
Speaker: You know, we know where we want to go. We generally know how we want to travel, who we want to travel with, and how we want that experience to feel. I mean, if you think about the analogy for each of our personal lives, right?
Speaker: We think about what do we want our lives to be. We think about that journey. We think about the people we're traveling with, right? Our family, our friends, our work colleagues. We think about what matters to us and how we want that experience of this precious life to be.
Speaker: Now, sometimes we hit a bump in the road, we might find a road that's closed and we have to take a different path. That happens in life, but that also happens in our work, right? But overall, what we know what we expect the journey to be like. And frankly, when you come to work for a company, you've chosen that journey, right? The total journey that that company offers to you, hopefully because you're drawn to it and it's it's the journey you want to be on.
Speaker: So when we think about deadlines and deliverables of the fast-moving organization, I think of those as stops we make along the road or the speed that we travel. You know, every single person and every single activity doesn't have to be at a fast speed.
Speaker: And, you know, sometimes when we're traveling, you know, this travel of the work we're doing, we have to make a stop somewhere or maybe, oh my gosh, I've got a deadline. I've got to go really fast to read a specific destination or get something in on time, et cetera.
Speaker: but So those are those kind of stops we do. But when we think about culture, right, that to me is the longer term goal. To make sure we're doing the things that allow people the room for growth. And as you mentioned, trust and cohesion. So things like time for our teams to co-create.
Speaker: Offerings for learning and development. flexibility for our people to deal with their personal issues because they are people that have personal lives too, not just work lives. Those are the things in my mind that inform the way we feel about our journey. And then of course, we've mentioned our values as a company, living those values, right? The, how does that ride feel?
Speaker: So, you know, in the simplest form, I keep in mind a quote that I read 30 years ago, and it's really appealed to me over time. And that quote is, happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a method of traveling.
Speaker: I think of culture in the same way. So the culture is how you feel along the ride. not the stops or the things you had to feel on any given day or moment.
Speaker: Love that. And I think with culture, to your point, Jackie, it's ever living. You don't ever actually reach that destination there. um You're feeling it along the way. And our journey is certainly fast paced and filled with lots of energy, lots cool projects, lots of fun things always happening.
Speaker: Right. Right. Which is the way I like to be. Okay.
Speaker: Breaking through setbacks. Let's talk about that. Looking back, and I mean, you've had a really, really dynamic um career. um Looking back, were there moments that tested your resolve or stretched your leadership in unexpected ways?
Speaker: Oh my gosh. Yeah, more than i more than I can count. And when I was preparing for this, I was thinking about, sometimes I share them and people are shocked by it, but they could see why it shaped. And so I'm going to share ah specific example and then sort of talk about how that how different examples continue to shape them. So the first big one I can remember was actually the first year I was working. So this is a long time ago, people, a long time ago. This would not have happened today.
Speaker: But let me explain it to you because you can see how how decisions and things you learn can affect you for the rest of your career. So I was serving as a construction manager, you know, right out of college. And the contractor team that I was overseeing didn't trust me because I was inexperienced.
Speaker: and And I wasn't experienced. i I mean, hadn't really managed a lot of construction before, and they pretty much ignored me, and they were pretty disrespectful to me. So I'd say, hey, we need to document this, or hey, I'm looking at that thing that you did over there, and I don't think it's right. and They pretty much ignored me.
Speaker: And I knew that in order to be successful, I had to earn their trust. Because they I knew they felt that I didn't really know what I was doing and who was I to tell them what they were doing.
Speaker: um So I ended up asking one of the foremen, who was a nice older gentleman, if to help me succeed. And I said, look, I am not going to give up on my career.
Speaker: And most importantly, I am not going to give um up on the success of this project and you and your team. But I have been matched with you and we need to figure out a way that we're going to work together for both of us. And I'm not giving up.
Speaker: I said, tell me what you think would make this be a better journey for us. And by the way, that was a pretty big vulnerability I was exposing because I was kind of the one that was supposed to be in charge. Right. He said he thought his team didn't respect me because, A, i was a young woman.
Speaker: i don't know if anybody would say this today, but it was true. He was telling me the truth. And B, that I didn't have the years of experience in construction that they had. But he said he could tell that i I knew a lot about the industry and that he thought I was pretty organized. And he he knew that he thought my heart that I wanted everybody to be successful.
Speaker: So I said, would you help me tell me what that looks like? And he said, the biggest thing is they don't think you know what you're doing. So he and I came up with a plan for me to learn, believe it or not, how to operate this massive dirt grater on this project.
Speaker: Big piece of a construction equipment. And after work every night, after his whole team that went home for two weeks, he and I met back at the site like 30 minutes later, and he taught me for 10 days how to operate a massive grader.
Speaker: it's awesome And then we devised a moment on site when I said, i don't think you guys have graded this correctly. And he says to me right in front of his whole team, he challenged me, he said, if you don't like it, let's see you go fix it.
Speaker: And then I got up on the machine and I did. Now, he had kind of set it up so that wasn't that hard a thing to do, but I knew how to do the machine. I want to tell you, those guys' mouths were open and they were like, rat oh, she does know what she's doing.
Speaker: And after that, the team adored me. So, I mean, that's a weird example. um By the way, do not try this at home. I'm not suggesting everybody go do that, right? But I don't, and by the way, and that would not happen today, but it was a case.
Speaker: And so what did I learn from that? Look, I surely wasn't going to go back to the office and say, those guys will listen to me. You have to make them listen to me, right? That's not going to work, right? I knew that I was willing to work hard.
Speaker: I knew I was willing to ask for help. And I figured if I was at least willing to work hard enough to try to figure out how to succeed. Now, by the way, I didn't know it was going to be that i would learn how to operate a piece of construction equipment and had to be tested on it.
Speaker: But okay, it worked. And by the way, I'm not a genius at any that stuff. I just kept trying, right? So that that's an analogy for the lesson that I come back to again and again.
Speaker: And frankly, I do things every day, like today, that I don't i haven't done before. I do it all the time as a CEO. You don't know everything you have to learn, right?
Speaker: But I've learned that not being afraid to admit when you don't understand something is powerful. And i admit that to people in this company all the time. I've learned that not being afraid to admit when you don't understand something is meaningful to others.
Speaker: Yes. Not just powerful, right? Right. And then asking for help makes people want you to succeed more. Asking someone their advice is enlightening for everybody.
Speaker: Our business, frankly, is not one of individual superstars. It's about teamwork and it's about cooperation and collaboration. So that's what helps me move through those moments. Back to your first point, what helps you move through those moments and come out stronger is not that I know how to outthink people. I generally don't.
Speaker: It's that I know how to ask people to work with me together on a solution. And by and large, I have found that collaborating as a team comes up with a better solution than somebody trying to power through it on their own.
Speaker: So true. So true and so powerful. And what I hear, you know, Jackie come resonates with me and is coming through in your answer is that that initiative. First, you took that initiative, which led to the opportunity to prove your to prove yourself.
Speaker: And someone was there and willing to help you. which I think is, I always talk about sponsorship and mentorship being so important when trying to move up the leadership um ladder.
Speaker: And we're jumping right into that next ah with mentorship. Hey, Jamie, let me say one other thing and ah along that point. It's a super good point. And sometimes that person that's going to help you may not come in the form or the package of what you think.
Speaker: Because that person that helped me had a sixth grade education. and and what And what he taught me happened to be something very specific about construction.
Speaker: But unknowingly, he taught me something that I have learned. ive I have worked with the rest of my life. Invaluable. Love that. Love that. So be open, certainly, to what that might look like. Yeah.
Speaker: Love that. So for mentorship as a leadership practice, you know, mentorship can really be a cornerstone in professional growth. um How have mentors shaped your own career? I've heard you speak about it before. um And how do you approach supporting and guiding others as a leader today?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I've had, you know, I'd say a handful of mentors. And and i think that the idea of mentoring has, I'm really pleased about it because the concept has developed more and more in the past 20 years. When I was starting out, you know, the idea of mentors, of course, had been around for a long time.
Speaker: um But it was a little bit more the idea of some formal, you know, like an apprentice model where there was some formal person that was a technical leader and they taught you how to do something. Right.
Speaker: I think a lot of times now education and working on projects, people get that. more technical or more business-oriented mentorship.
Speaker: um But a lot of times they don't have a way to think about success on their terms, right? A lot of times mentors say, well, this is this is how you do it. But look, nobody does things the same way, right? So I found that the mentors that I have had, and they weren't necessarily formal mentors, but they were people that I followed in my career that really helped me were the ones that I could ask advice oftentimes more about the softer skills or about how did you think about that or about how did you have that conversation or about how did you know this is what you would stand for and not fall for and not, how did you come up with the design of that retaining wall?
Speaker: You know what mean? Right. Yeah. So, I mean, it's much more about people and and thinking and emotion and judgment and not about detailed process, right, in terms of mentorship.
Speaker: um I would also tell you, this is going to sound funny, but I actually learned as much about some bosses that I have that were what I would consider the opposite of mentors. Like, oh man, I don't ever want to be like that person. And like, well, I hope we don't have a lot of that at Atlas. There is some value in our lives.
Speaker: of knowing what good doesn't look like, right? And so i've I've drawn and learned from both people that were really effective and helpful at teaching me things and that sharing their wisdom and also from well, don't want to do it that way, right?
Speaker: um I found that I looked at people I admired and I studied them. And sometimes I just study them from afar. Sometimes there are people I've met, had the opportunity to work with, had the opportunity to meet, and ive I've asked a few questions of, how did you do that? I mean, I will tell you that most people, you know, if you know them and you admire them, they like to talk about things you admire, right? So I have never been, i mean, I don't walk up to people I don't know on the street. That's a little bit weird maybe, but, you know, just people I've had come in contact with. Well, and by the way, they could be people way junior or me.
Speaker: I really admired the way you did that. How Tell me your thought process of how you went about doing that, right? So people do like to talk about themselves. um in You know, never about detailed things, as I said. Never about, you know, for example, never about, you know, corporate finance. More about how did you reach the decision to come up with that policy? How did you reach the decision to talk to your team in that way? What were the things that you weighed back and forth? Those were the kinds of things I've learned.
Speaker: um You asked specifically about, you know, how do I approach supporting and guiding others? So I look at a few things, right? i i you know ah I'm not gonna be able to guide our people on detailed aspects of engineering and construction. I mean, I know something about that, but gosh, I'm certainly not the smartest person or a company around that anymore. But I think I'm relatively good at communicating with people and with thinking about leading the people and with working with teams.
Speaker: So when i when I help others, i I look at a couple of things. Do they understand what success looks like? For them, there's no right answer of success. I mean, you know, maybe, of course, we have a strategic plan as a company. We have annual business plans. So we can measure if we're being successful. Did we win certain projects?
Speaker: We can measure that. But I'm talking about people. Do they know what their personal success looks like? Both their personal goals and, you know, what's their path? What's their journey to get there, right?
Speaker: Right. Do they have the right people around them to be successful? Now, they might be people that work for them or just work on teams. And by the way, that's not a judgment about individual people. It's about do you have the right team around you?
Speaker: Sometimes you need different skills for different things. So have you found the right kinds of people with the right kinds of spills skills in the company, outside the company, other people for us to be successful or you to be successful?
Speaker: I look at how they treat other people. right? Leading people means that you need to treat people well. Do they lead people? Do they work with people in a way that is elevating and lifts other spirits?
Speaker: So I look at all of those things. Now, look, i'm not I'm not the answer person for every individual. Sometimes people say, hey, I want to improve in this one area. Can you give me some pointers? Sure.
Speaker: Sometimes other people say, you know, I don't feel like I'm leading with as much success as I'd like, but I don't know how to think about that. Let's think about that, right? So there's a broad variety of things. But To be honest with you, I keep coming back to simplicity, right?
Speaker: It's sort of simple. Do you know what your goals are? If not, how would you find that out? Do you know what you're good at? If not, how would you find that out? In order to achieve those goals, what do you need?
Speaker: ah what Who do you need that can help you? If you don't know, how would you find that out? And How are you going to be on that journey, right? When we're in that car on that long road, are you the person I want to ride with?
Speaker: And if not, what are the couple of things you ought to do to help get all of us to, you know, have a comfortable journey together? So it's really pretty simple in a way.
Speaker: I love that. And I'm going to jump in. I love my Jackie-ism. I have it up on my board above me. It's ah activity with impact. That was one of my Jackie-isms. Jamie, you can be really, really busy, but are you really making an impact?
Speaker: So in one I want to ask the question, because I don't think I've ever asked you this yet, but what is would you consider is the top leadership trait that someone has to possess, especially in a position like you where you're tasked with this rapidly growing organization um and you're leading through, you know, transformative organizational changes. What is that number one leadership trait that is like, this is it.
Speaker: Jackie Hinman says this is where you the buck stops. So for me, I don't know. Well, let me give you a personality trait and then a leadership trait. OK, because for me, it's abundance.
Speaker: And what do I mean by that? So to me, the glass is always full because I see good and it could be awful stuff, but I still see good. And I think generally people are drawn to light and not darkness. so So true.
Speaker: And so you will see me from a personality trait trying to be uplifting, right? Sometimes I joke, sometimes I'm self-deprecating because I think people are drawn to abundance.
Speaker: Even when we have problems, everybody has problems, right? What's the good in what we're doing? How are we making a difference? What's the good in the stuff that we do every day? What are the cool things about the people you get to work with? So to me, it's the first thing I see every day. And I i think I'm just generally an abundant person, but I think abundance for a leader That people want, are you somebody people want to follow? They may not always agree with you, but are you somebody people want to follow?
Speaker: So I think that's one trait. I don't know if that's a leadership trait or it's a personality trait. And then i think that the other one is probably, it's probably a tie between transparency and communication.
Speaker: Right. And so this is what's going on. Here's how I see it. Here's how I feel about things. You know, transparency and full disclosure are not always exactly the same things. There's a lot of stuff I know as a CEO. I don't have to spill my guts on every single issue to every person. Right. A lot of that's just my job to take care of.
Speaker: Right. It's like being a parent. You know a lot of stuff about your parent. You kids don't need to know half of it, right? You just, you move on, right? But you write you want to tell them what they need to know, right? It's the same thing in being a CEO.
Speaker: We need to give people information and be honest and transparent so that they can do their, they can have the most information with smart people and good people have the information they need to do their jobs.
Speaker: Amazing things happen. And then you can never communicate enough. And that we're trying to get better at that. You can never communicate enough so that people understand what our vision is so that they can then decide, is this the you know is this the car I want to ride in on this journey?
Speaker: Is this the place for me? Yes. I love that. And I always describe Atlas as if you, if it's you cruising down the road and in that car, you're describing Jackie, the top's not down and you're not relaxing.
Speaker: It's a Jeep. It's going fast. It's mudding through the rock the mountains. So you can get down with that, you can sit with us in that Jeep. There you go. There you go. Okay. So what's next? Let's look at what's next for the industry and leadership as a whole.
Speaker: Looking ahead, what developments in engineering and construction most excite you? How do you see you know leadership evolving in response to these changes? Yeah, I mean, I would say at the highest level, I do see the advancements of automation and artificial intelligence as exciting developments.
Speaker: Cool. Most people are goingnna say, oh, sure. And mostly because it will help us use our creativity better and be people better in the real world to solve problems. So most people are like, oh, I didn't see that coming.
Speaker: So here's what i here's what I mean by that. Look, AI and everything and technology, whether it's, you know, physic drones and construction technology and new materials, all this kind of stuff, right?
Speaker: You know, they, all of that stuff, machines can't figure out how to help a community. People do that, right? We are in the business of help making average people's lives better, right? Whether it's better transportation, better water systems, a cleaner environment, what better buildings, whatever it is we're doing.
Speaker: Machines and AI and all of that stuff don't do that, right? People do that. People do that with other people. So, you know, conversely, for me, technology is an enabler for people to do better with other people, right? It gives us more information to have better decisions, to think clearer about options, to think clearer about solutions, and to give us some better information about how to enable and how to implement those solutions.
Speaker: Now, Conversely on that, so that to me is pretty exciting as I've seen everything from visualization technology to, um you know, all the different stuff, you know, machine learning, all the things that can really help do a lot of the more commoditized stuff that frankly, a lot of us nobody really wants to go churn through a bunch of stuff anyway, really so that we can use our creativity.
Speaker: I think leaders need to learn how to judge effective use of technology for good, to enable and uplift, but not to replace critical thinking, not to replace what people need,
Speaker: and not to replace personal judgment of how we make the world better. So I think it's a it's a double-edged sword, right? We want to think about all of this new stuff available, particularly in the fields of engineering and planning and construction and materials testing and assessment and site work, all of the different kinds of things that we do.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of cool stuff going on But it does not replace our judgment of what we need to do to make sure that our solutions come alive. I love that. I love that you touched on leaders needing to use the technology wisely and that there really isn't going to be a replacement for people in a people business. Absolutely not.
Speaker: Like Atlas. I always like to talk we're local everywhere, you know, yes the United States. Our clients really benefit from our, you know, wealth of local knowledge, local relationships um that, you know, no technology can replace, but it can help us enable things to do do things better, faster, quicker.
Speaker: So I love that. That's right. So before we let you go, Jackie, we have to know, is there any recent lessons? Is there something you've learned or rethought recently, even with the decades of experience that you have, that sort of shifted how you lead or how you view our industry going forward?
Speaker: Yeah, as I've thought about stuff recently, um you know, it's actually coming back to more simple things. um And the main thing I keep coming back to is connection to people. So so let me explain what I i mean about that.
Speaker: It's going to sound old fashioned, but but it really wraps up, Jamie, your very first question talked about complexity and change and the pace of play and what's going on. and I want to come back to one of how our industry really affects the world and how we do our work.
Speaker: So look, what we do is being out, we is that we are out in our world, really. I mean, yeah, we come into the office and stuff, but the kind of work we do, you know, it's about touching the dirt that we test.
Speaker: It's about being out and looking at an environmental site. It's about sitting in a construction trailer with a team to solve an issue in the field. and And yes, of course, ah it's about a whole lot of other stuff and you know doing reports and working in the office and working with teams and all of that. But if you think about what we're about, right? We're about really implementing solutions in infrastructure and environmental practices.
Speaker: So when we think about that, it's about understanding that world and understanding that connection. Now, look, a lot of our people work and learn and connect like we're doing right now through a Teams meeting, through a cast, through a computer screen, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. It's frankly, it's super important. Connecting our people together um is is really the way we can really leverage all of the work that we do. Frankly, we couldn't do this 10 years ago. it was It was, you know, it was a lot of flying around. was I mean, it just that it really wasn't nearly as efficient as we did now.
Speaker: And it's a way that we could connect our real world knowledge, right? And frankly, this kind of technology and the way that we connect often is a way that allows us to really have a better work-life balance, right? Because people, sometimes for those people that aren' in the field all the time, right? They can work a little bit at home or they don't have to always go into an office a field site or whatever. So I love it for the holistic nature of it.
Speaker: But there is something about... There's all this technology, and yet what we do is about being out and touching stuff. Where we are really out implementing solutions.
Speaker: We're out with our clients. We're out looking at projects. We're out doing things. it's not just about the technical people, right? includes our corporate functions, right? Connecting maybe our billers and collectors with the client on the other side. I mean, maybe they're not going to go down and knock on their door, but it's the connection and the knowledge that we have out in the real world that is enabled through all of the different technology connections that we have.
Speaker: so So back to the very first principles of what we talked about. There's all this technology and there's this speed and there's this pace of play taking over. And yet I see more than ever people in our company, in our communities, in the world craving personal connection.
Speaker: Our clients tell us they hire us because they trust us and that we go the extra mile for them, that we connect with them, that we make their lives better.
Speaker: So for me, how do I shift about thinking and leading and rethinking and about everything that's happened? For me, it comes back to the basics. Connecting. Connecting people. Yeah, connecting through technology, but sometimes connecting in person and connecting out in the field and connecting one-on-one, right? That's the connection I want to build. It's that connection.
Speaker: right And the leveraging our teams and working with each other, connecting inside the company, but frankly, outside, outside the four walls of where we work for inside, outside of our comfort zone, outside you know into the environment.
Speaker: It's that connection to me that really helps us think about leadership next, leadership for the future, and the way that we can continue to evolve the way that we work in the field that we choose to make the world better.
Speaker: Love that. Love that. In a nutshell, Atlas is all about keeping you connected to what matters most. Um, So, yeah yeah, hey, you said it. You said it in four words. It took me like five minutes to say it. That was perfect.
Speaker: I totally cheated as I ran it as a marketing campaign like two years ago. What matters most. But it's so true. When you think about our industry, you know, our projects are devoted to projects of massive scale.
Speaker: But we're here connecting people and purpose to create these lasting infrastructure and environmental solutions. We're keeping you connected to what matters most. So I love that, Jackie. Fantastic.
Speaker: um And with that, we'll give you back your time as we know you're the busiest lady at this at this company. Jackie, thank you for sharing your insights and for showing us what grounded, visionary leadership looks like in action.
Speaker: It's a reminder that the strength of any organization lies not only in what it delivers, but in how it empowers, connects, and grows its people. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker: Great. Thank you. And everybody be safe out there. Appreciate it. And if this episode sparked something for you, share it with a colleague or a mentor. Let's keep the momentum going and keep raising the bar for what's possible in our industry.
Speaker: Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe, leave us a review and follow along as we continue spotlighting the people shaping the future of infrastructure and our environment. Until next time, keep showing up, keep reaching back and keep moving the industry forward.
