October 11, 2022, Presentation: In this tight labor market, who better to get information from on what candidates are looking for than a recruiter?  The Adelphia Design Alliance invited AECIQ, a service-infused technology platform that finds, analyzes, and makes warm connections with your most highly-desired passive candidates, to host a presentation entitled “Recruiting Best Practices & Trends”.  The discussion provided guidance to our members on the items most important to potential employees, how the recruiting process has evolved, and tips to make your firm’s recruiting process more successful.  AECIQ also described their unique recruiting platform, which differs from traditional recruiting platforms, and its benefits to the recruiting firms.

November 8, 2022, Presentation: Jen Newman, FSMPS, CPSM founding Principal of Elevate Marketing Advisors and Nici Stephens, Strategist and Campaign Director with Elevate shared their knowledge with Adelphia members by presenting on “Marketing Campaigns” and how you can stay focused and relevant with your marketing and recruiting tactics through the development of campaigns.  Marketing campaigns are organized, strategized efforts to promote a specific firm goal, such as general brand awareness, recruiting, or raising awareness for a firm expansion or acquisition. Campaigns aim to reach clients and prospective employees in a variety of ways and involve a combination of media. Marketing campaigns are a connected series of operations designed to bring about a particular result. Great marketing campaigns follow a consistent theme and promote a single or focused idea or goal.

June 9, 2020, Presentation: The first presentation we hosted in our series was entitled “Trusted Advisor” presented by the Chief Growth Officer for our member firm T. Baker Smith. The presentation discussed what it means to be a trusted advisor to clients, the components of the trust equation, and the 5 stages of developing a trusted relationship.

July 28, 2020, Presentation: Continuing in our presentation series to inform and improve our member firms, Adelphia Design Alliance’s founder, Dwayne Johnston of Infracor, hosted a presentation entitled “The Designer’s Role in Public/Private Partnerships and Design-Build Procurements.” In this valuable presentation, we discussed Types of P3 models, P3 components, P3 procurement timelines, and P3 and Design-Build contractual models. This presentation also provided insight on the various positions that engineering firms can take in the pursuit of P3 work, the role of the designer in a design-build consortium, and the various positives and negatives of P3 work – with a particular focus on the Design-Build contract.

October 13, 2020, Presentation: In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Adelphia Design Alliance tapped into the expertise of Paul Banks, Principal of member firm B2Q Associates, who delivered a presentation entitled “COVID 19 Mitigation of Transmission: Indoor Environmental Control.” This informative presentation demonstrated the impacts of dilution ventilation, humidity, and air distribution effectiveness through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling and the likely impact that COVID-19 will have on the design of building HVAC systems.

February 9, 2021, Presentation: Understanding the market is critical to implementing sustainable growth strategies. To help us understand the market outlook, the Adelphia Design Alliance enlisted the expertise of PricewaterhouseCoopers who presented to our members on “AEC Market Insights” including the market outlook, the competitor landscape, and trends in digitizing operations and delivery to improve efficiencies.

March 9, 2021, Presentation: Retaining our key employees and growth and succession planning for our firms is critical.  To assist us in exploring how we can be more effective in these areas, the Adelphia Design Alliance invited Northwestern Mutual to host a “Company Owner Planning” presentation for our member firms that covered three topics of interest: 1) How to design compensation/bonus plans for owners and key employees; 2) Exit/succession planning and understanding business valuations; and 3) Different strategies to approach funding buy/sell agreements.

May 11, 2021, Presentation: In today’s digital society where doing things better and faster is not just a goal but an expectation, the Adelphia Design Alliance invited Mark Goodale of Morrissey Goodale, LLC to host a lean strategy presentation entitled “Stop Failure Demand! It’s Killing your Company” which provided guidance on 1) Optimizing the use of your people, capital, and systems over time; 2) Delivering services your clients need in a timely, responsive way; and 3) Anticipating and leading change in your target markets – not just copying other firms.  Our member firms gained valuable insight on how flow efficiency, continuous improvement, and respect for people play a role lean operating methods.

September 14, 2021, Presentation: To stay abreast of the status of the impending federal infrastructure bill and position our member firms to meet client infrastructure needs once funding is available, the Adelphia Design Alliance invited Matt Reiffer, Vice President for Infrastructure Programs at ACEC, to provide our member firms with a “Federal Infrastructure Bill Legislative Update” regarding the most recent activities related to the infrastructure bill and other ACEC advocacy and communication efforts pertaining to A/E firms. He also briefed our group on the developments of the congressional budget package including potential tax components that could impact firms.

November 9, 2021, Presentation: In an increasingly competitive market, making a great first impression in your proposals increases your chances of winning.  To provide our member firms with the tools needed to make a good impression and win more proposals, the Adelphia Design Alliance enlisted the expertise of Jen Newman from Elevate Marketing Advisors.  Jen delivered a presentation entitled “Killer Cover Letters” that shared the strategies to write a cover letter that balances efficient deliv­ery of key information with a persuasive, well-substantiated pitch, demonstrating a clear understanding of the client’s needs and your solutions for the project.

February 8, 2022, Presentation: As cyber attacks increase across the A/E industry, the Adelphia Design Alliance tapped into the expertise of Nick Espinosa from Security Fanatics, a cyber security/cyber warfare firm, to advise our group on how to best protect themselves from a cyber attack.  Nick’s presentation entitled “The Basics of Ransomware Defense” discussed the challenges our firms face due to ransomware and specific types of products and network designs needed to defend our firms properly and significantly decrease the risk of a cyber attack.

April 12, 2022, Presentation: Continuing our mission to help our member firms improve their businesses, our speaker for the month of April was Greg Bosworth from VHB who presented on the “Technology Trends in the A/E Industry”.  Specifically, he discussed how to identify opportunities to capture value from your technology investments and evolve Information Technologies from a support group to a strategic partner in your organization, moving them from a cost center to a profit center.  It was a great presentation and gave us all much to think about regarding leveraging technology within our own firms.

June 14, 2022, Presentation: Delivering projects efficiently and cost effectively is the goal within the A/E/C industry, and we utilize multiple software programs to assist us in accomplishing this.  The question is, “Are we maximizing the capabilities of these programs to streamline project workflows?” Adelphia members were eager to hear from Clarke Morrison and Stephanie Rindosh from Microdesk, Inc. during our June membership meeting who presented on “The Autodesk Collection – What it is and How to Leverage its Capabilities”.  Clarke and Stephanie gave overviews of the flagship products and tips for leveraging the various programs to improve workflows and project efficiencies.  They provided case studies on how they have helped firms get the most out of the Autodesk Collection both internally and across teaming partners.