Dear Clients and Friends of Aquaterra,

I want you to be among the first to know about a very exciting merger that Aquaterra has entered into to better serve our clients throughout the Southeast and nationally. By joining forces with Terracon, we have expanded from our five-office network to a national geotechnical, environmental, construction materials, and facilities firm with more than 100 offices in 37 states.

You have come to know Aquaterra as a trusted firm with a drive to serve our clients and our profession. This merger will further enhance our ability to do both. As a result of this significant expansion, the combined team of Aquaterra and Terracon will offer the following enhanced capabilities.

• Continued working relationships with the same people, but with new access to experts across the country.
• Significantly increased staff and equipment resources, with the ability to quickly mobilize to address changes in workload.
• Ability to take on larger and more complex assignments, including multiple sites simultaneously.
• Knowledge of soil conditions across the country with our network of engineers and geologists who practice locally.
• Expanded relationships with regulators, building officials, and business partners.
• Access to Terracon’s National Accounts Program for clients who do business across the country.

We are very excited about the many ways in which this merger will increase Aquaterra’s ability to serve you better. But some things will not change at all. The appreciation of our clients’ choice to trust us with their important projects, and our devotion to being preeminent in what we do will remain steadfast.

Sincerely,

Victor R. Donald, P.E.
President, Aquaterra Engineering, LLC

To learn more about Terracon, please visit www.terracon.com

Coming into work this morning I heard an interview with Tom Bloch, former CEO of HR Block, who had stepped out of the corporate environment and become a teacher. He then opened a school that has a much higher success rate among students than most schools.

During the radio interview they asked him why there is so much success with his school.
The following quote was something that really stamped into my mind.

“People do not rise to low expectations.”

It is a simple quote and it is something we all already know, but like a picture on the wall eventually just blends in with everything else and gathers no attention, this is something each of us can be reminded occasionally as individuals and as a team. Much like the weekly “Aquaterrian” does.

He went on to say what we have heard so many times in the past about setting the bar low ends up with just enough effort to clear the bar, but to set the bar higher there is just that much more effort applied in order to clear the bar. I find this true as I used to consult competitive athletes in training and in my own training.  I find it true in the work environment. What I like about Aquaterra is I look around me and see not only a management that is trying to motivate folk to raise the bar, but I see individuals trying to raise the bar for themselves and what they do on a daily basis. I see it in the Atlanta office where Chanc is constantly raising the bar or the expectation to improve what we deliver to our client.

The manner in which the expectations have been inspired by the management is a pleasant method by planting seeds of thoughts in individuals to rise to the top rather than a harsh method I have seen in past work environments. In the Atlanta office, I see a team that seems to be inspired to work toward the raised bar. The suffering economy changes the aspect of supply and demand from what we have known for many years. Demand is low and expectations will be higher from those few that have something to offer to the many that want to supply.

“People do not rise to low expectations.”

…..anyway that is the quote of my week with some expanded thoughts that I thought I would share.

- Jesse Aldridge
Senior Designer, Woodstock, GA Office

Have you ever seen a textual graphic?  You know, a piece of text decorated in such a way to make it a graphic.  I stumbled across an interesting web site the produces  weighted graphic from organized text.  The site is wordle.net.  I’ll share a few with you.

Our landfill design and construction services capabilities:

Our standard geotechnical engineering report:

The Aquaterrian Blog (this site):

Interesting, huh?

To all our friends down in the more southern climes, check out Spring in TN (pic taken this morning - the day after Easter).

Dallas pointed this out to me today and I thought it might be a valuable resource for you all.  Go to http://maps.live.com/ , enter your (or any) address, then click Birds Eye View.  Pretty cool, huh?

We engineers, geologists, environmental scientists, and technicians are known to elude effective communication skills.  The gang over at lifehack.org have a good post on how to write effective e-mails.  So, check it out.  Do Your E-mails [Need Help]?  How to Write E-mails That Get Results.

If my e-mails need help, don’t tell me.  I read the article.  I’ll try to do better; I promise.

Jeffrey Gitomer in his weekly Sales Caffeine writeup this week writes about going the “Extra Mile” for the customer. This is something we focus on with our mantra “Exceed Expectations.” Jeffrey has an excellent dialogue for what the extra mile is, when it can be made, and how to be prepared to go it. Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

“The extra mile is an action or an expression that sparks a WOW! in the mind of the customer or a co-worker.”

“But before an extra mile is ever walked or executed, it has to be an attitude and a mindset from the extra miler.”

“The extra mile comes from YOU.”

“The interesting part about the extra mile is that it usually begins when something goes wrong or is in urgent need of attention.”

“The underlying element in the extra mile is your prevailing attitude at the moment an extra mile opportunity shows up.”

“Doing your best and having the right attitude is the only way the extra mile process works. It works because you make it work. It happens because you make it happen.”

Check it out here.

Check it out. Civil Engineering student Joey Chestnut has brought the world hot dog eating championship back to the United States. Chestnut beat 6 time champion Takeru Kobayashi by downing 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Kobayashi ate 63 dogs and couldn’t hang with the Civil Engineer. So, do you think he used a little Engineering Dynamics to figure out how to shove those dogs down his gullet, or maybe calculus to figure the volume of his stomach?

Gotta love an American 4th of July. So, how did you spend your 4th? Hot dog anyone?

John Bachner, Executive Vice President of ASFE has developed a blog. Checkout John’s post entitled “A client is a client is a client. Not so.” In that post, John’s also talks about expectations management. John says “By allowing yourself enough time, you can almost always deliver on or ahead of schedule. And by quoting appropriate fees and expenses, you can almost always deliver on or below budget. Doing that makes your client representative heroic, which makes you a hero to your client representative€¦ putting you well on your way to helping your firm develop a client for life.”

Check it out. John writes some good stuff.

One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, has posted several times about the importance of the receptionist to a firm. Other business authors, including Harry Beckwith (What Clients Love), share the same feeling.  I couldn’t agree more.

The receptionist is usually the first voice a potential or existing client hears when they call or the first face they see when they walk in.  If that first voice, or first face, is frowning (and a frown can be heard across the phone, as can a smile), that sets the tone for their engagement with the firm. They’re also often the determining factor in whether the client gets served - especially if the staff professional is out of pocket. So, check out what Seth says about How to be a Great Receptionist.  As Seth says, “start by acting like Vice President, Reception.”