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Engineers &
Surveyors |
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Designing with a PURPOSE |
Volume 1,
Issue 16, November 2, 2009 HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING |
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For two weeks in September, WGK
principal Greg Gearhart traveled to What is
EMI and what was the purpose of your trip? EMI is a Christian non-profit
organization that provides design services to overseas missionaries. It does
this by forming teams of surveyors, engineers, and architects for short-term
site visits (usually one to two weeks) and completing final designs when the
team returns home, normally over a six-month period. The purpose of our trip
to What did
this experience mean to you? It changed my perspective in a lot of ways.
It changed my heart. It proved (again) that I can trust God with risky
ventures – there had been deadly riots ten days before we went. It also forced me to come face-to-face with
the extent of basic human needs but not be overwhelmed by them because our
team had the skills to actually address some of them. This trip personalized poverty for me,
changed numbers and statistics into people with names and faces – people I
had come to know, worship, and play with.
I rediscovered that as engineers, we are gifted with skills to address
some of the world’s most pressing issues. Is there
anything you brought back from your trip which is impacting the business of
WGK? One thing that really impacted me is the
value of working on an intense, multi-disciplinary team while trying to
produce good work in an unfamiliar environment and culture. We had to work
very quickly and become sensitive to all the clues around us to insure our
designs would be transferable to the way Ugandans build things. I have been
in this business a while, and yet I found even for me, it was a maturing
experience, especially in the area of listening. I had to become a much more astute and
intent listener to make sure the needs of the orphanage were being met. It also gave me an appreciation for simplicity. We didn’t need the most complicated systems
to fulfill their needs, just the most workable. I think the trip also taught me the
value of our skills as design professionals – they are significant. The
results of our labors may be taken for granted here in the What
would you say to others considering such a trip? Do it!
Decide that you’re going to take action and then look for your
opportunity. As long as it remains a
“maybe,” you’re not likely to go. But,
if in your mind, you commit to take action and then look for your chance, God
will present a way. If there
are readers interested in finding out more information, where can they go? EMI’s website is www.emiworld.org. There you can find out more about upcoming
trips and ways to support the work of EMI.
Also, we are in the beginning phases of forming an EMI-Mississippi
Chapter. If you know of an engineer,
architect, or surveyor who would like to occasionally meet with other
like-minded professionals, have them shoot an email to Brian Standley at bstandley@wgkengineers.com
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An Audience |
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5 TIPS for |
Creating More Accountability |
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Here’s five ways to help build
accountability into your daily routine: 1. Declare goals publicly. This functions on many levels. In terms
of an entire company, it could mean publicly stating an ambitious goal and
tying it to a date. In terms of individuals, it can mean declaring your goals
in front of those you respect – your team, your inner circle of friends, or
your family. The moment that you tell someone else you ARE going to do
something, an outside gravitational force takes hold, making you feel more
duty-bound to reach your objective. 2. Share your planning documents and to-do lists. Whether it’s a
timeline with project milestones or a regular old list of to-dos, sharing
your working documents transparently with your team builds trust and
increases accountability. Essentially, it’s a passive way of publicly stating
your agenda and creating a powerful accountability mechanism for getting
things done. If your colleagues notice you are constantly missing milestones,
they’ll start asking questions. 3. Rewire your focus on short-term rewards. We love instant
gratification, which is why it’s so much easier to get the small, no-brainer
to-dos done than the big tasks that require deep focus and hard thinking. We
can spend our whole day just responding to emails, while we neglect the
long-term future of our businesses. Rewiring is about finding ways to take
pleasure in the long haul required to truly achieve great tasks and cause
real change. We can’t get rid of our desire for short-term rewards, but we
can be aware of it. The first step is identifying your long-term goals, and
setting up a series of short-term rewards that keep you moving towards – and
accountable to – those goals. 4. Leverage fighting to stay on track. In a work setting, we
often shy away from arguments, thinking that easy agreement (and not rocking
the boat) is preferable. But particularly productive teams actually encourage
healthy fighting, where coworkers duke it out to explore all of the possible
solutions for a given problem. While a quick consensus is comfortable,
vigorous debate means our teams will stay accountable to finding the best
solution. 5. List out action steps after brainstorming sessions and
impromptu gatherings. Accountability often slips through the cracks when we get
high on the rush of a good meeting or an ad hoc conversation about a new
idea. To ensure that these daily insights get captured, every meeting of the
minds should end with a quick recount of each person’s “action steps.” No
amount of talking about the future helps if we don’t ensure that we’ve
articulated the very concrete next steps necessary to get there. |
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CLIENT SPOTLIGHT ROBERT McIVOR
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H1N1 FLU – What
you May Not Know
What kills influenza virus? *What if soap and water
are not available and alcohol-based products are not allowed in my facility? What surfaces are most likely to be
sources of contamination? How should waste disposal be handled to
prevent the spread of influenza virus? What household cleaning should be done to
prevent the spread of influenza virus? How should linens, eating utensils and
dishes of persons infected with influenza virus be handled? Eating utensils should be washed either in a dishwasher or by hand with
water and soap. For more information please visit the Center for Disease Control website
at www.cdc.gov |
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Robert McIvor is an Area Manager for
Parsons Transportation Group. He has
been employed in their Robert has been married to Jean
Armstrong McIvor for 32 years, and they have two adult children Carrie and
Stephen. Robert and Jean are avid fans
of WGK has teamed with Parsons on a number
of projects for the Mississippi Department of Transportation including the
award winning US 90 over Biloxi Bay Bridge Replacement Design Build Project,
SR 304 (I-69) East project in DeSoto County, the I-59 Bridge Widening Design
Build project in Pearl River County, and the I-59/I-20 Merge Lane Extension
and I-20 Bridge Widening Design Build Project in Lauderdale and Newton
Counties. Some other projects Robert has been
involved in include widening I-55 from the Mississippi state line to I-240,
and I-240 from Lamar Avenue to Mount Moriah Road, both in Memphis; and two
projects on SR 5 – a 4-mile section
from Humboldt to Trenton, and a 7-mile section from Trenton to north of Dyer
in West Tennessee. Robert served on the |
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If something is happening in your town/city that you want to
include in this section |
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First Friday Weekends Through December 4, 2009 Every
first Friday evening from Historic
Downtown www.natchezdowntown.blogspot.com For further information please contact |
This event will be held on the historic Vendors will be selling hand crafted items perfect for holiday decorating and gift giving. Please see below
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Veterans Day Parade
& Celebration November 7, 2009 Veterans gather at the Chamber office and parade to they made possible.
Event is Free Call 662.773.3921
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Enjoy performances of the classical operas, The Best of Opera
Choruses, Renee Fleming: The Voice of the Thalia Mara Hall 601.960.1565 |
Friday, November 13, 2009 Enjoy a night at the beautiful One Hwy 49 at I-59 For more information |
601.649.2546 |
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