Our past shapes us all.
I grew up with my dad running his own General Construction Company (I also grew up with my brother and I as his ever-available full-gamut laborers).
Homes, subdivisions, office parks.
Recessions. Retreats. Rebuilds.
Decades-long high-impact high-stakes entrepreneurship.
A family business. A business family.
Nature and Nurture.
Civil Engineering was an logical extension of my upbringing.
My first job was for a for three-person Survey and Engineering Design office (The Owner/Principal Engineer, an Engineer four years my senior, and me). We did it all, from Topo Surveys to running the design plans down to the airport for the contractor. Effort with clear direct impact.
As the economy was shrinking, we even got on the phone cold-calling developers.
Founding my own business was inevitable. Nature/Nurture.
At first a single long-term contract, implementing Intergraph Civil Design software (InRoads, InSewer, InFlow) and integrating InSewer with the citywide GIS system.
Once you see the power of integration (extension!) and see your Impact Horizon scale from family (or office of three) to one of the largest cities in America, those genies never go back into the bottle.
What next?
Address the global market.
Business Plan. Curriculum Design. Produce. Market. Deliver.
Lead migrations at the state-level.
What next?
Address the global market with resources!
When Bentley came a-calling, "How would you like to develop training content for InRoads full-time for us?", I didn't refuse (I couldn't refuse).
At Bentley Systems, Inc., the focus is Innovation at the systems level - the enterprise level, the government level, the multi-national level. Top to bottom, the workforce loves to solve problems (which is very common among engineers), but they are engineers who through Innovation and automation love to help people. There is a joy in their work that I have never seen elsewhere; they'll always be my professional family.
After a decade my need "to not just know, but to do" led me out of training development, back into consulting (including meeting with drainage department leads of multiple states DOTs, guidance them on upcoming OpenRoads Drainage and Utilities implementations). Ultimately leading me back into production, this time at a scale and integration level I had not experienced in my previous engineering stints.
The big thing I learned back in the production trenches was that I was no longer primarily an engineer. Engineering production really requires marrying a project, an all-in commitment. Principles bent to confirm to clients. You have to be very connected to the client. Any important relationship requires sufficient commitment.
I found that I don't like being constrained at the project level. Everything I learn at the project level is applicable to many if not all projects. I chafe at valuable information not being shared amongst all those who can benefit. Ultimately, I need - again, still - to maximize my impact, to scale the value of what I know and what I've learned.
I've been a one man shop before, but I understand the power, the reach, of a talented, aligned team.
My entrepreneurial instinct knows to not crowd an already crowded market, but to find growth sectors and industries and bring innovation to them.
Service is a calling. Either through nature, through nurture, or through reward-filled career, it becomes inescapably you.
Innovation is a lure, a siren-call. Once you've seen the breadth and depth of its impact, it's unsurpressable. Once you've served Innovation, everything else is just a placeholder.
Driven to Drive Innovation. It's inescapable now.
It's just a matter of with whom and for whom.