How Leading AEC Firms Are Winning the Megaproject Era

How do you see the AEC consulting industry shifting away from kind of the the legacy model firms used to run on kind of like what you mentioned earlier with the when the founders [music] started here towards how leaders are operating today? >> When I started I I looked this up a little while ago cuz I was interested but at the time [music] they're going over 30 years ago the largest engineering consulting firm at that time [music] I I believe had about 7,000 staff. So our engineering consulting industry has really matured and developed and continues actually to mature and develop uh since [music] that time. And now you know there's much larger firms firms are operating and what I see as I look into the future [music] for our industry is really a continuation of those trends. I see uh firms continuing [music] to expand their their global reach. I see firms in our sector becoming [music] much more sophisticated around technology. Obviously there's a lot of discussion around here. >> For decades AEC [music] consulting firms grew by following a familiar playbook. Build the client base, take on more work, and scale steadily over time. But today's mega [music] projects don't play by those same old rules and the firms still clinging to that legacy model are quietly falling behind the ones willing to rebuild from the ground up. Joining us today is Derek Amadon, licensed professional engineer, chief operating officer at GISI, and chief executive officer [music] at GISI Consulting Group. GISI is a company that works on iconic projects. Derek has held senior leadership roles at Tetra Tech, WSP, [music] Halff, and Healian Aldrich and now leads strategic planning, M&A activity, and long-term growth initiatives across GISI's operating companies. In this episode, [music] we're going to get into how the legacy model of AEC consulting compares to how leading firms operate today. [music] What's driving the added complexity in today's mega projects and where Derek sees the biggest opportunities [music] for growth ahead. Now, before I jump in with Derek, I do want to tell you about AECPM Connect, a series of in-person events that we've created at EMI for AEC [music] project managers and the leaders who develop them. If you want to stay on top of PM trends, elevate your team, and deliver stronger project results, [music] these full-day events are built for you. We're coming to Kansas City this October. Learn more and register [music] at aecpmconnect.com. I'm your host Anthony Fasano, and [music] this is The Civil Engineering CEO. >> [music] >> All right. Now, I'd like to welcome our guest onto the show for today. Joining us today is Derek Amadon. Derek is a licensed professional engineer, chief operating officer at GISI, and chief executive officer at GISI Consulting Group. Derek, welcome to The Civil Engineering CEO. >> Well, thanks, Anthony. I'm very uh glad to be here on your show. >> Now, we're happy to have you, and I think a good place to start will be tell us about GISI, and then I want to hear your role there, but tell us how it's structured, kind of your role in the company, just to get us going here, Derek. >> Yeah, the GISI story is a fascinating uh story. I joined here about 3 years ago uh in part uh because of the of the amazing story here. So, if you roll back uh 10 years ago, uh some of the uh the most well-known and most successful entrepreneurs in the engineering consulting uh got together. Uh Dick Newman, Rick Newman, John Denice, and Jeff Kissel. And they These are guys who had your decades your 40, 50 years of experience uh in this industry. And they they got together uh as I said 10 years ago, and they uh they realized that they'd learned many uh critical important lessons over their careers. As they looked at the industry, they thought, you know what, there's a better way to do business and engineering consulting. They thought that these lessons that they had learned could be put to good use if they formed a new a new business, which is exactly what they did. And so from those kind of humble beginnings 10 years ago, we now have a business that is on track to exceed more than 21 billion dollars in revenue. >> Wow. >> We're going to have pretty close to 17,000 staff. So it's been quite a growth trajectory over the past decade. And I'll just tell you a little bit about my role and a little bit about how we're structured. So the way we're structured is we have our parent company is G&SI Inc. And G&SI Inc. has two platforms underneath it. One is our construction platform, which we call STOBG, and the other is our consulting project management and engineering firm called G&SI Consulting Group. And so my role is I'm the chief operating officer for the entire enterprise, and I also am the CEO for the consulting group. >> Okay, that's a great introduction for us just for us to try to you know understand the background and and being someone who's a civil engineer and entrepreneur myself when you were rattling off the names of the founders, those are like Hall of Famers. >> I've heard of I've heard of all these guys and they've done amazing things in the industry. So I'm not surprised. I mean, I'm kind of surprised just cuz 21 billion is a massive number, but I'm not surprised when you understand you know the people involved and kind of what they've been able to do here. Which I think is great. And before I kind of dive in a little bit cuz we do want to talk of course about the business. I'm going to ask you some questions about the industry. I want to hear a little bit about your journey because a lot of our listeners are civil engineers Derek and you know when you start your career as a civil engineer, you don't know that you're necessarily going to be CEO or COO or kind of where you're headed in your career. So I was wondering if you could just take a few minutes to tell our listeners a little bit about that journey from kind of civil engineer into leadership into executive leadership. You know, what was it like for you? How did it unfold? You know, was it something that was kind of a goal of yours from early on? Maybe you could just share a little bit about your journey. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I I decided to become a civil engineer about 35 years ago in part because uh my father gave me some advice about uh the industry and that uh it was an industry that was made up of that time quite a few smaller firms. And I remember my my father kind of advising me saying, you know, this is an industry where you can be both an engineer and an entrepreneur. And that's exactly uh the path that uh that I've been on the last 35 years. And so, I I started as as many civil engineers do, very technically focused uh early in my career. But fairly rapidly started to evolve. Although, technical the technical aspect of project delivery has always been really from from [clears throat] day one till now part of what I do, part of what I'm focused on. But this focus on growing businesses, uh mentoring, developing staff, and creating value for shareholders is something that I've found very exciting uh as a civil engineer. There aren't that many industries where you can, you know, essentially do it all. And that that's one thing that's a little bit unique about about civil engineering. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and it's just again, I think a lot of civil engineers, they start their careers, they just start designing, right? Like you said, doing the technical work and then one day maybe you become a project manager, right? And then, "Oh, I kind of like this." Then maybe you become a department manager and so on and so forth and it can kind of unfold. So, I think the big message to civil engineers out there listening is just to keep working on those non-technical skills, right? In addition to your technical background, the communication skills, the leadership skills, because to Derek's point, there's just a lot of opportunities in our industry for leaders, right? And as civil engineers, there's huge infrastructure projects, there's all kinds of opportunities for you to grow those leadership skills and I think Derek is a good example as we dive into this conversation with him. So, Derek, let's talk a little bit about the industry. How do you see the AEC consulting industry shifting away from kind of the the legacy model firms used to run on, kind of like what you mentioned earlier with the with the founders started here towards how leaders are operating today. >> Yeah, you know, when I when I started and I I looked this up a little while ago because I was interested, but at the time, you know, they're again, over 30 years ago, the largest engineer consulting firm at that time, I believe had about 7,000 staff. So, our our our engineering consulting industry has really matured and developed and continues actually to mature and develop uh since that time. And and now, you know, there's much larger firms, uh firms are operating uh globally in a way that they they didn't at the beginning of my career. And what what I what I see as I look into the future uh for our industry is really continuation of those trends. I I see uh firms continuing to expand their uh their global reach. I see firms uh becoming in our in our sector becoming much more sophisticated around technology. Obviously, there's a lot of discussion around AI. Uh and I'm sure we'll get to that >> at a later in our discussion today. So, it is the single hottest topic uh to talk about. But, you know, as as I there again, as I look into the into the future, I I see an industry that's going to continue to present great opportunities uh for new civil engineers coming into the into the industry. And as you'd mentioned, uh there's there's different paths. All right, there's that's the the one thing I love about this industry is there there's paths that are technical for for staff. There's paths that are for the leadership from a business development perspective. Our our our industry, our our business uh is so complicated and sophisticated in many ways that there's there's many different roles and there's many paths as people work through their their careers. And I and I see that kind of continuing as we move into the into the future. >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And in the AEC industry, skilled project managers are the backbone of success. EMI's [music] AECPM Certification offers tailor training, ongoing support, and exclusive access to premium content that keeps your team sharp [music] and effective. From foundational training to advanced leadership tools, set your team apart with certified growth. Learn more at aecpm.com. That's aecpm.com. >> Before we do get into AI, cuz I do want to go there, what would you say is driving kind of we see this added complexity in today's mega projects, right? They're just they seem to be so much more complex than when I started in civil engineering, you know, 25 years ago. What is driving, you know, what what's creating that added complexity? And and how is that going to impact, you know, the future of these projects? Meaning like the infrastructure funding that's going to come down the pipeline. Like it seems like projects keep getting more complicated and our infrastructure's crumbling at the same time. >> I think that's absolutely right. And I I think, you know, projects and client organizations, just like as I mentioned in in our consulting engineering industry, become larger and more complex. Our clients have also trended to larger and more complex. >> Mhm. >> And the projects that they tackle have followed suit. Right. So, if you if you look at kind of average project size, there again, go back at the beginning of my career compared to now, >> Right. >> there's so many more project mega projects, projects that dwarf, you know, some you know, there's always been large projects, of course. >> Sure. >> There's I think there's more large projects uh now, um and there's you know, there's technical complexities that have emerged for certain projects because they were never tackled before. They're being tackled now. There's there's complexity politically. There's complexity from a regulatory perspective. >> Right. >> So so the complexity is just kind of naturally kept pace, I think with with just as the world has become more technologically advanced, as legal risks have morphed and changed over time. They're going to be beginning of my career, I think back to the contracts that we would negotiate on projects, they were vastly different than the types of risks that we take on contracts today. >> Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's a really good point. I'm sure there's data out there that if you were to look at an engineering company, you know, 20, 30 years ago in terms of the number of projects that they worked on that maybe had a construction cost of over a hundred million dollars or whatever, pick a number, versus today, I would imagine of course that that number today is larger, which introduces a lot of the complexities that you mentioned. And, you know, at EMI, we do a lot of project management development training and programs and and also people leadership programs. And I always tell people when I started the company 13, 14 years ago, you know, that our phones weren't necessarily ringing off the hook. And now they are. And I think the reason is because of the complexity of the projects also requires your project managers to have many more skill sets that maybe 20 years ago weren't as important as they are today, right? In terms of communication, you know, presenting, handling difficult conversations, negotiating with people, you know, being on the lookout for scope creep, right? Because scope creep on a one million dollar project versus scope creep on a hundred million dollar project is a much bigger animal. And so, I think that the mega projects will require larger organizations, right? Like your organization and other organizations that are out there that have all the skill sets and technical expertise to handle these projects, but they're also going to ensure that these companies are investing in their leaders and their project managers to make sure that they're well-rounded and they can handle all of these complexities that are going to be thrown at them because one thing I'm sure about and I'm sure you'll agree. I know when when we went to undergraduate, they weren't teaching us a lot of the skills you need for the parts of the projects outside of the technical pieces of them. >> You know, Nathan, I think I think that's very insightful and it you know, one of the things that we've been focusing on within GIS and GISI is building uh stronger competencies with our project managers and I I think that is such a critical effort for for every uh consulting engineering firm that's that's you know providing project management services or working on large complex projects. You've got to be able to develop your staff to keep pace with that complexity that you're referring to. And that takes a lot of effort. >> Yeah. >> Many you know, civil engineers as you'd mentioned, you know, early in their career they aren't exposed to certain things that as they become a more senior project manager as they work on larger projects that they're going to get exposed to. And so it's very uh I believe strategically important for civil engineering firms, engineering consulting firms to put a lot of effort and investment into making sure that their project managers have those skill sets to keep pace with that that change. >> Yeah, and and I love that you used the word competencies. That's such an important word when you think about learning and development, right? Really thinking through the competencies and the different skill sets that your professionals are going to need at every level of your organization to deal with these complex projects and clients as you suggested, right? Your clients' organizations are becoming larger and more complex as well, especially if you're dealing with government contracts, federal contracts, right? That's kind of a whole 'nother skill set, if you will. So, that's interesting to me. So, so let's dive in a little bit here to AI, because as you said earlier, it's one of the hottest trends in the industry right now. So, where are you seeing AI make the biggest impact on hiring, workforce planning, just I guess the industry in general from from your from GISI's uh perspective? >> Yeah, you know, I I get this question question asked a lot. It's It is, you know, the hottest uh I think topic in our in our sector. You know, it First of all, it's very uh challenging to predict the future, right? It's It's uh It's a high-risk uh game to crystal ball the future. But, nonetheless, let me try. So, you know, as we look as we look at at uh AI, you know, I just know my own day-to-day routine, uh AI every day, every week, is becoming a tool that I rely on more and more and more. Now, the thing that that I'm finding uh for myself and I'm observing on our projects and with our staff is at least for right now, and I think for you know, the foreseeable future for the next few years, I I see AI being there again, just a tool, an important tool, but not as you know, some uh people have forecasted or predicted uh you know, essentially the the complete demise of the engineering consulting industry. I I don't see that happening. If it were to happen, it would be so far out in the future that it's going to be a long time before we get there. But, I do see AI tools improving. I see that essentially the power of of AI becoming more important. But, there again, as we've been talking about, you know, earlier uh just in our comments, our the projects have a lot of different complexities. There's There's technical complexities on projects that we deliver in in our industry. There's permitting complexities, there's regulatory complexities. There's so many different complexities that I see uh they're going to AI helping to make engineers more impactful and more valuable to and therefore being more valuable to the clients. And and so I see the end engineers value proposition increasing, not decreasing, if AI is properly used and is used they're going to as as a tool. So we have this saying it's expert plus AI. And I think that's at least for the foreseeable future, that's how uh AI is going to impact this industry. >> Yeah, I like that a lot. I think that you can almost use it as another area of thought leadership and expertise, right? For you representing your client, right? If Cuz a lot of our clients, let's be honest, they don't understand the AI, right? They may not know how to use it effectively. And they may be looking to us as the consultants to say, "Wow, you can leverage AI to do this on our project? You know, this is great. This makes our lives easier. This gives us more data, allows us to make better decisions." And so I think that that's another important thing. In fact, we run some PM Connect events where we bring project managers from different companies together in the industry a couple times a year and we've been trying to do some AI workshops to really hear about what firms are literally actually doing with the AI. So, you know, creating agents for certain things. And I I really like your point about being an expert plus the AI because I think that we forget that we're the trusted advisor for our clients, right? As consultants, as engineers. So they're looking to us for whatever value we can give them. And I think part of that value is not just doing the engineering work, but showing them how the AI and some of these technology tools can make their end product even better. >> Exactly. I think that that's that's exactly it. Now, at GISI we're in a little bit of unique situation, right? Our our situation around AI is that we have deep financial resources, right? We're a very substantive firm. >> Sure. >> in terms of the scale of our business. We have uh many opportunities to invest in technology, uh which we are uh doing, but we are working to be very disciplined. I think this is one of those uh situations where you could over-invest >> Mhm. >> in AI technology, which is >> changing, by the way, on a weekly, monthly, growing >> basis. You know, the tools are are are developing, and we're really at the you know, kind of early days here. Uh and so, I I think for us, the strategic focus has got to be figuring out where to make investments, how to apply AI tools, uh and to make sure that we don't get kind of ahead of ourselves and make investments that end up being uh poor investments. >> Yeah, it's a really good point, and I appreciate you, you know, mentioning that, you know, you have maybe some more money to work with than some of the the smaller firms leaders who might be listening to this episode as well, where they have to be, you know, they make one wrong investment in AI, they could literally be upside down, right? Or they could lose a lot of money on that. So, and you know, you're the second executive in the last few weeks that I've had the chance to talk to about this. The other one being Kevin Heaney, the CEO of Colliers Engineering and Design. And he And he was along the same lines as you, saying, you know, this can be a black hole in a sense that you could throw a lot of money into that still there's a lot of unknowns, and kind of he was mentioning how at CED, they try to go with like, you know, if there's like a Bentley, for example, that has programs, and they're kind of messing around with the AI, right? We can kind of invest in their programs, let them kind of vet the AI, and build off of something that's trusted and known, as opposed to something that maybe is not as well known. So, I do definitely think there's some strategy around it, and I think your point is a good one. Just because you have maybe more money, or some money set aside, doesn't mean you need to burn it all on AI right away because to your point a new program comes out tomorrow, right? And then the program that we bought is absolutely >> That's right. And and so what we we've been investing a fair amount of resources is making sure that we are upskilling our staff to use existing AI tools that are available. >> Yep. >> We're we're also, you know, developing competencies around creating agents. So we're creating a variety of digital tools through these agents. We're also, you know, looking at GPT models as well. So you know, we are putting, you know, resources and effort and leadership attention into improving our our technology and our use of AI. But just like you said, it's got to be prudently done because you you can easily get yourself kind of drunk with with concern and misunderstanding and and waste substantial resources. >> Yeah, totally. And I really like what you just said there in that you're investing in your people to be able to use the existing AI tools, right? There are so many tools already that exist like in the Microsoft suite, right? Or just the co-pilot, right? The the tools that are right there on everyone's desktop and they're not even using those to anywhere near their maximum productivity. So I think that's another good point is before you start building up your tech stack with all these new programs and software you have stuff, right? Are you utilizing that stuff as best as you can um to really be able to leverage it and then you can and then you're also just kind of building your AI skill, your AI knowledge that you can then roll it into other new tools and platforms as they become available. But there's no doubt that there's a lot there that we may not even be maximizing today, quite frankly. >> That's right. And and you know, we are again ready when the time does come to make, you know, more investments and to move decisively and energetically. But right now, you know, like I said, we're putting a a lot of effort into understanding and upskilling, but doing it in a in a very thoughtful prudent, but not that doesn't mean in a kind of lackluster or slow way. Definitely uh prepared to we are moving we're prepared to move quickly as uh the technology develops. >> Yeah, I think you said it, you know, saying, you know, prudently, right? That's the way to do it, right? Be really smart about what you're doing. That's great. So, let's talk a little bit about acquisitions. You've obviously had experience with this. You've been involved in acquisitions. What do you look for when you're evaluating whether an acquisition is the right strategic fit for GISI? And honestly, it's kind of like we just talked about investing in AI, there's a lot of stuff out there. How do you know what to invest in? There's a lot of companies out there, right? When you're thinking about acquisitions and where do we go? So, tell us a little bit about your evaluation process. I'm interested in how you think about that. >> Yeah, so so we we we call them mergers cuz that word is better applies to how we view uh M&A. >> Okay. >> And so when we're looking for a what we call a merger partner, uh you know, we we look at the the things that many firms do uh around strategic fit. Uh we look at the strength of the of the leadership. Uh we look at the the technical competency of the staff. Those are kind of normal things for most companies or many companies to look at. But in addition to those items, uh we also look at certain cultural things. So, one of the structures or aspects of our business that's very important to us is our employee ownership. And so we're a little bit they're kind of unusual because we're we're such a large firm, but we're an employee-owned firm. We have more than 4,000 employee owners. And that that employee ownership, the interest and the passion for it is something that we look for. >> Mhm. >> Right. So, our our model is to to find excellent firms who uh have great tailwinds cuz they're in the right sectors, the right you know, the right markets, are offering the right services, they're in the right geographies, but also who have the leadership team who are passionate about the future and who are very excited about becoming uh a shareholder with us. And that shared culture of each one of us being an owner of the business uh shapes our our culture, I think, in a in a different way from, say, a a PE-owned firm or a publicly traded firm. And that And that uh employee ownership i- is is uh an aspect that has, I think, driven our performance. Here, we have superior organic growth to many in the industry. We also have superior uh success around M&A. Now, another aspect that makes us uh different than just about every other firm >> [snorts] >> is that we see a lot of value in maintaining the brand and the culture of firms that that join us. And And I don't know of many other firms uh that do this as as well. Uh so, when a merger partner uh you know, joins us, what we want to do our our preference that we do this uh routinely is we uh we make great uh efforts to to strengthen in fact, the existing culture that they have. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't, quote unquote, integrate that business, uh but to us, the word integration means something very different than uh you know, some of our our fellow firms in the in this sector. Right. So, I'll I'll tell Sometimes when you say what you don't do, that better explains what you do do. >> [laughter] >> So, let me tell you a few things that we don't do, right? What we don't do is we don't obliterate, you know, decades uh could be 100 years of of a brand. Uh we don't uh go in and and come in with a, you know, thousands of pages of policies and procedures and cram them down the throats of the new staff. We don't require uh you know, everyone that to uh kind of change their their business card. But what we do do is we we partner uh with the firms that that join us. We help them become better. We help fuel their growth. We help them focus investments on their staff and on their project managers. One of the things that we put a tremendous amount of effort in is our project managers. Uh we've developed a series of programs. We have one program uh that we call the Distinguished Project Executive uh program. And these programs are all around who we we think the most important role in a consulting engineering firm is the project manager. Right, those are the individuals that are at the tip of the proverbial spear. They're out there leading the staff. They're delivering the work. They're interfacing with the client. Uh and so we're looking for firms that embrace that concept uh as well. That embrace the concept of of, you know, client uh service, technical excellence, and are very growth uh focused as well. >> Yeah, that's great. And I I first of all, I love the end piece there about project management, of course. I mean, that's near and dear to our heart at EMI. We do a lot of PM development work. And it's great to hear when a company recognizes the value of the PMs. And I actually did do some reading up about your DPE program. I think I'm going to watch the video you posted about it on LinkedIn, which I think is great cuz I think one of the biggest pitfalls of consulting firms is that they do not share the knowledge of their project managers across the entire organization. And from what I gathered about your DPE program is it puts a big emphasis on bringing people from the different offices and different geographic locations together so that they are sharing that knowledge because I just think that that's the worst thing we can do is if we have someone sitting in Florida and someone sitting in California with the same problem or you know, one person solved it and the other person doesn't know about it and it seems like your program works really hard to create the pathways to share the knowledge. >> That's right and and and that that program I think is a good example of our our view around this term integration, right? So just exactly what you said. We are sharing knowledge across our nearly 11,000 staff in the consulting business. We're we're setting kind of common expectations around performance across every one of our operating companies and that that's what integration means to us is really making helping us all be better, helping us perform at a higher level uh and to be more successful collectively than we would individually. >> Yeah, absolutely. And for those of you listening DPE stands for distinguished project executive which is a program that GISI has to bring their PMs together and you know, I won't go into the whole thing but you get the point. It's it's really about knowledge sharing which is like I said, we find to be one of the biggest pitfalls with all the organizations that we work with when it comes to project management and leadership development. So it's great to see that and I really like what you said about you know, the shareholder piece of this, the entrepreneurial spirit of your employees. That obviously links back to your founders like you said earlier and you know, them I'm sure wanting to make sure that that entrepreneurial spirit is shared down throughout the organization as it grows and it sounds like with that ownership model, you really allow that to happen. So that that's exciting and that's that must be exciting for people that join GISI as well which is great. All right, so let's talk about growth for a minute here and I know before we talked about, you know, it's dangerous to kind of look into your crystal ball and make predictions but I'm going to ask you just generally speaking from what you're seeing in the indicators that you look at as an executive, what is your feel for our industry as a whole going forward in terms of growth? And then also for GISI, cuz I would imagine when you're this big, right, growing, you know, requires something [clears throat] different than if you're a 50-person company trying to grow. So, can you talk a little bit about like industry growth, your company's growth, what what you think that's going to look like going forward? >> Yeah, that's something that's a topic we think about every day. A good part of every day is how do we maintain our our superior growth rates? Well, I I guess the first thing I would say is, you know, I think the fundamentals of our sector remain very strong. Right, there's clearly uh if we just look at infrastructure as one example. Uh all kinds of infrastructure, right? Transportation infrastructure, uh water infrastructure, energy infrastructure, so forth. We're under invested in the US, we're under invested globally. So, there's a there's a backlog of work. Now, we have also a shortage of engineering talent. >> Sure. >> Every I I I assume all of our competitors are in the same situation that that we're in, in that we are constantly uh on the hunt in the market for talent. We're constantly looking for the best and the brightest uh to join us. And just by definition, when you're looking for the best and brightest, there's not a lot of them out there. So, uh those fundamentals of of strong tailwinds, uh kind of low supply of of talents in the industry, or a lower supply, I think is going to continue to drive opportunity and continue to drive uh a robust market. Now, of course, as we talked about AI is a factor here, uh but there again, my my view, just to reinforce it, is as it relates to AI, as it relates to growth is I think ultimately it's going to drive for some firms more growth. Now there clearly will be some losers. There'll be some firms in certain parts of the market who offer certain services uh who are going to be significantly disrupted. I I think that's clearly going to happen. But I think as an industry as a sector, overall sector, is going to benefit. And we're going to become continue to become more impactful and more uh important to our clients because we will be more powerful in terms of our technical prowess and our ability to shape uh not only design or construction costs but also operating costs through through better uh technical capabilities. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think to your point I mean the the infrastructure's not going to get better over time, right? Especially the existing infrastructure, we know that. But to your point there's less people that maybe can do the design if we're not putting out the same number of engineers, which is going to cause a bit of a a challenge. But I think the tools and the AI and some of the things that you and I have already talked about today could certainly help to close that gap a little bit. Um not that it's going to replace us uh people like we said, but it's going to help us to maybe do our jobs more effectively, maybe more efficiently in certain ways. So I think it'll be interesting to see how all of that unfolds, but I think regardless the industry, like you said, the sector looks very strong with growth in terms of the projects, these mega projects, the complex projects that we're going to continue to need. I mean water systems are in trouble or water quality, bridges, roadways. Um so it does seem >> infrastructure. >> Energy infrastructure, a huge one, of course, absolutely. So um there's lots to be And And there's even I tell people this all the time. There are jobs in our industry that don't exist today, right? That are going to exist soon with all the technology. Like I interviewed someone recently who was telling me about how now when you do roadway construction a lot of these roadways they're embedding sensors in the roadway they're going to talk to your cars. Right? I mean like these are things that didn't exist then now we're going to have more people in our company that are focused on the sensors and the technology and other things. So it's going to create jobs as well and that's something that I think we need to we need to keep in mind. All right, Derek. Last question I have for you for those firm leaders that are listening today and they're thinking about investing in their leadership team to support the growth of their organizations. What do you think they should be focusing on in terms of investing in their leadership to ensure that those investments translate into real business results? I mean we do a lot of learning and development training at EMI PM development leadership development. And it really you have to do it the right way to make sure that you know you're investing in people and it's returning for them and for the organization. What thoughts can you share about that from what you've done at GISI? >> Yeah, I want to go back to something you you said earlier in our discussion here and that is projects are becoming more complex, right? And that also means that the the industry that each company is facing a more complex environment. So my recommendation this is what we're doing is that for firms that want to be successful in this consulting engineering sector they really need to upskill their leadership teams and you need to have very good succession planning. Uh and it takes a fair amount of effort, time to develop truly effective and entrepreneurial leaders. But the the world uh I think in almost every aspect particularly in our engineering consulting uh arena will just continue to get more complex and if you don't have leaders who can keep pace with that complexity uh your organization is going to suffer performance. And so I that's something that you know from our perspective uh we are very focused on. and in fact uh we're spending you know I would say a part of every week on that very topic. How do we develop the next line of leaders and how do we help improve our existing leaders? >> Well, that's interesting and I I agree 100%. I mean if you want to grow you said it before as well in terms of the project manager role and how important that is at GISI and how much you invest in that and the same with just leadership beyond project management. Um they are growing your organization um especially when you have also you have the employee owner angle which is also great. I mean there's a lot of good stuff that you have going there in terms of supporting your growth. So once again Derek Amadon. Derek is a licensed professional engineer chief operating officer at GISI and chief executive officer at GISI Consulting Group. Derek I want to thank you so much for spending some time with us here today on the Civil Engineering CEO. >> Thanks Anthony. Delighted to be here. >> I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Derek. He's a great leader and GISI is doing amazing things. [music] We're thrilled to have him. I hope you enjoyed the episode and if you did please subscribe to our channel here. We do put out videos like this on a regular basis help engineers and technical professionals become better managers [music] and leaders. I'll see you next week. >> [music]