SMPS SFBAC Sponsor Spotlight: Degenkolb Engineers
I recently had a chance to touch base with Laurie Lumish, Director of Marketing and Business Development for Degenkolb Engineers, and ask her if she could give some highlights about how Degenkolb has addressed current events and how their marketing team has risen to the challenge. Here is what she had to say.
“2020 was filled with a seemingly endless string of monumental events in the United States and abroad. Every company in the A/E/C industry faced these challenges, and some like Degenkolb were fortunate enough to weather the storm intact and make preparations to thrive in 2021.
When the first of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns occurred in our headquarters city of San Francisco, Degenkolb immediately sent all employees home from our offices. Coincidentally, we had done a test run of an “all work from home” strategy a few weeks prior to see if our computer systems could handle it. We did rapidly need to institute equipment changes and our IT department had a pretty rough first week. But after that we were all running full speed ahead. There was a lot of uncertainty. Would our clients be running full speed ahead? Would our workload continue to allow us to employ everyone? Would the Degenkolb staff, employees, and families be safe and healthy?
It turns out that Degenkolb’s business is as resilient as the community resilience that we promote and practice. Vertical market diversification, a strategy that we have cultivated for several years, allowed us to balance initial ups and downs of the economy. Our healthcare clients needed rapid responses; our commercial clients were shutting down projects then turning them on again; all at unpredictable speeds. On the marketing side, a communications plan that was hyper-focused on informing our clients, promoting our people’s passions, and staying visible kept the team moving along as RFQs came and went and lagged behind schedules by months. Employee engagement became even more important during 2020 as we worked to ensure that folks felt heard, and that they understood the status of the firm and thinking of company executives.
As our communities emerge from lockdowns, vaccine adoption becomes more prevalent, and hope springs eternal that we will see the end of the pandemic in 2021. Degenkolb is preparing for a growth year, hiring engineers to start in the summer, bringing on board a new HR Director, and looking at upcoming real estate changes to fit our new flexible work model. We missed celebrating our 80th anniversary in 2020, so we hope to be gathering in person soon and welcoming clients, partners, and colleagues to in-person interactions by the end of 2021.”
Tina Barni Aday is the Marketing Director at Lea & Braze Engineering. She writes for the Shortlist and is on the SMPS SF Communications Committee. She can be reached at [email protected].
