It’s been a little while since we last released a Bonfire, but this time of year always has me thinking about growth. As the summer heat reaches its peak, the area’s first crops are popping up at farmers markets and produce stands. In Indigenous culture, a variety of different tribes celebrate this time of year and these first harvests with the Green Corn Ceremony.
These annual events mark the arrival of fresh fruits, vegetables, and medicines, their growth throughout the year providing nourishment and strength for the community and its people with a season of bounty and continued growth. It’s with this appreciation for the seeds we’ve planted at the Bodwé Group coming to fruition that I reminisce on some of our accomplishments thus far this year.
New Faces
We’ve invested in sustainable growth in both leadership and support teams. With an overall staff increase of 15%, it’s been a time of expansion and expertise building. Seven Generations added a new Vice President of Operations in Ryan Odell, followed by the arrival of Steve Zimmerman to fill the newly created position of Construction Lead. Recently, Rachel Russell has joined the Bodwé team to support accounting services across the portfolio and will be a great help to Emily Davison and her talented team.
New Spaces
We expanded our WBK Battle Creek office, under the leadership of Justian Crane, to extend our civil engineering footprint further east into the Great Lakes region, and to continue to facilitate and strengthen the collaboration between WBK, 7GAE, and Steelhead.
We also opened an office in San Antonio as we’ve assembled an impressive collection of talent in the area, including several regular A/E staff professionals as well as a group of seasoned federal contract employees. Led by Ivan McPherson, this expansion into a new geographic region presents a variety of new opportunities to continue to grow our talented team and providing them a shared space to work collaboratively was an important step.
New Skills
Additionally, we’ve made a commitment to continued education for our staff, with Revit training to elevate our technical skills with the latest design tools across our companies. While coordinating among a variety of teams and office locations can be challenging, our commitment to a learning culture and continual training creates significant value for the entire Bodwé team and our clients.
New Projects
Our commitment to integration and forward progress has been evident in our ability to work together as a family of companies on a variety of opportunities in 2022 thus far. We’re excited to be working together on meaningful projects such as a unique endeavor to create an entirely new secondary school campus for an Indigenous Nation in Arizona. All four of our firms are involved in this great opportunity to truly demonstrate the Bodwé difference.
We’ve also seen some great partnerships between individual firms, as Steelhead and Seven Generations teamed up for several projects with Four Winds Casino, WBK has led a variety of municipal projects with support from Steelhead, and Steelhead has collaborated with D.A. Dodd, a sister company within Mno-Bmadsen. Lastly, we’ve seen Blue Star lead efforts in Oklahoma and Alabama with strong support from both Steelhead and WBK.
Replenishing the Field
It’s been a great year thus far, with triumphs and teamwork abound, and I’m enthusiastic about the months ahead. Just as a field must be re-seeded after each harvest, we will continue to nurture future growth and opportunities with energy, focus and resources to ensure continued success.
