IN THIS ISSUE

** "Ownership Transfer" Seminar Scheduled with November CECO Membership Meeting
** Colorado Engineers Provide More "Ideas You Can Use"
** The Origin of Stupid Specifications
** Almon Heads CTE Tulsa Office
** Would You Serve on an ACEC Committee???
** Revolutionary Marketing Newsletter For A/E/P Firms

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"OWNERSHIP TRANSFER" SEMINAR SCHEDULED WITH NOVEMBER CECO MEMBERSHIP MEETING

Ownership Transfer Techniques That Work will be the special Business Practice Seminar held in conjunction with CECO's next regular General Membership Meeting on Thursday, November 18, 1999, at the Oklahoma Engineering Center in Oklahoma City. The luncheon meeting will begin at 11:45am, and will be followed by the Seminar at 1:00pm. The CECO Board of Directors will meet earlier in the day, beginning at 9:00am.

Guest speaker for the luncheon will be ACEC Vice President Cathy Ritter. Cathy is ACEC's Liaison Officer for Oklahoma, and is President of Constellation Design Group in Timonium, Maryland. Cathy is serving her second year on the ACEC Executive Committee, and will update CECO members on ACEC activities and initiatives.

Corey Hessen, P.E., senior consultant, FMI Corporation, Denver, will be the featured speaker for the seminar. Formerly a senior field engineer with one of the world's leading manufacturers of fastening and demolition systems, he was also a department manager for one of the nation's leading suppliers of ready-mixed concrete, sand/gravel, asphalt and highway and street construction. Corey also served as a department manager for one of the nation's largest providers of geotechnical and construction materials engineering. Corey is a professional engineer with registration in the state of Colorado. He graduated from Marquette University with a bachelor of science in civil engineering, and holds a masters of business administration from the University of San Francisco.

If you are like most firm owners, you have some ideas about how to transfer ownership and management of your firm, but you do not have a plan in place. Simply stating your vision for the future in no way ensures that your objectives will be realized. YOU MUST HAVE A FORMAL PLAN. At the Ownership Transfer seminar you will learn everything you need to know about transferring ownership and management ­ smoothly and profitably ­ to the people who will carry it on.

Corey's program, Ownership Transfer Techniques That Work, will address core issues such as, Corporate Survival Issues, Case Studies, Setting Personal Goals, Valuation of the Corporation, Techniques for Transfer, Professional Liability Implications, Finding and Training Successors, and Implementation of Board of Directors, plus, How to overcome obstacles when changing leadership; Ways to adapt your management style and develop qualified successors; The impact of recent tax reform legislation and regulations; How to get your equity out of your company; How to value your company; Proven creative approaches to ownership transfer; How to motivate and reward key employees; How to get the most out of your life insurance; Tips and techniques for keeping and developing your key managers; Why you should have a Board of Directors and who should be on it; Issues that can kill the best plans; Action steps you will need to implement your plan; and How to manage the professional liability exposures in ownership transitions

WHO SHOULD ATTEND THE SEMINAR? Company owners, chief financial and financial officers, future owners/managers, and other key members of the firm.

Registration information has been sent to all members, and is available on the CECO web site: http://www.cecok.org.

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COLORADO ENGINEEERS PROVIDE MORE "IDEAS YOU CAN USE"

At the joint Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas Annual Convention earlier this year, an "Idea Exchange" was conducted among the attendees, from which some 23 "Ideas" were gleaned. Those were printed in the July, 1999, edition of the CECO Report.

Recently, ACEC/Colorado conducted a similar "Idea Exchange" during their summer conference. We thought we would share with you the Colorado "ideas" to add to our list of 23.

1. Employee Annual Retreat - All firm members and their spouses embark on an annual retreat, where they can get to know each other and develop mentoring relations in a neutral setting.

2. Time Bank Hours - Employees are given X number of hours per year to utilize any way they wish - from sick leave to vacations and "mental health" days.

3. Cafeteria Benefits Option - Employees are offered this progressive benefits package which allows them to contribute before-tax dollars to a fund that may be used for miscellaneous expense from child care to prescriptions.

4. Billable Hour Contest - This idea rewarded those employees with the most billable hours for the month due to workload and project performance.

5. New Employee Mentor - New employees are assigned a mentor when they join the organization. The mentor is there to help the new employee understand the culture and the personality of its existing employees and professional dynamics of the organization.

6. Monthly Project Progress Boards - This valuable tool presents a visual communication to employees that describe different projects in-the-works within the organization. It provides employees with an understanding of a project's scope and progress on a monthly basis.

7. Monday Memo - Utilized as an internal communications tool, the Monday Memo provides employees with events, project information, client information and general "need-to-know" information on a weekly basis.

8. Bonus Year / July-June - This program allows bonuses to be given in July rather than December to prevent people from "spending" their bonuses for Christmas before they actually receive it.

9. Monthly Employee Meetings Sans Principals - These meetings allow employees to meet as peers without the intimidation factor of the presence of principals. Communication is more open and issues are more openly discussed.

10. Flextime - This is one of the most popular ideas and keeps making the list each year. Flextime offers employees the option of arriving at work between, for example, 7 and 9 am and departing between 4 and 6 pm as long as the employee picks a set schedule and adheres to it.

11. Traveling Art Shows - Local University art shows are provided free of charge to a business and are placed in the office for a length of time. The shows bring a different aspect of creativity into the consulting engineering environment.

12. Parking Reimbursements - Businesses reimburse employees for up to $50 per month though expense reports, which eliminates the problem of parking allowances being lost in the salary.

13. Netmeetings - This type of meeting allows remote offices to communicate via the internet and utilize a "telestrator" so both parties can review a set of drawings simultaneously.

14. www.net2phone.com - This site allows employees to communicate by telephone on the internet at a standard cost of .84 cents per minute.

15. Project Manager Marketing Budgets - This is a unique way to manage a firm's marketing budget. Each project manager sets up his or her own marketing budget. This help should the project manager accountable for those marketing dollars and allows for a more hands-on process for managing marketing dollars.

16. Client-focused Work Teams - Multidisciplinary work teams are created to manage three to four clients. Clients build relationships with a team of individuals. Utilization of each individual is increased. Overruns are decreased. Project Team Managers manage teams as a business providing mentoring and direction to members and improving overall client relations.

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THE ORIGIN OF STUPID SPECIFICATIONS

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. Now that is an odd number and one cannot help but wonder why that particular gauge was used.

Perhaps it's because that's the way they built railroad in England, and the first U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why do you suppose the English built them like that? Perhaps its because the first rail lines in Europe were designed and built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Well then why did "they" use that gauge? Because the people who designed and built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used the same wheel specifications.

Okay, why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, when they tried to use any other spacing, the wagons were prone to breaking down on some of the old, long distance roads, because otherwise, the wagons would not fit the spacing of the existing wheel ruts.

So who built these rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads had been used for centuries. And the ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying the wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots.

Since the chariots were all made to specifications from Imperial Rome, they were all alike with regard to wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the origin question -- The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification (military, as it were) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.

But one "nagging" question still remains. Why did the design of the Roman army war chariots incorporate that specific wheelbase?

Answer: Because the chariots were designed to be just wide enough to accommodate two warhorses.

So, the next time you are handed some odd ball specification and you assume that some horse's rear-end was responsible for coming up with it, you may be exactly right!!!!!

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ALMON HEADS CTE TULSA OFFICE

Consoer Townsend Envirodyne Engineers, Inc., (CTE) has announced the hiring of Steve Almon, P.E. to manage it's Tulsa office.

Steve has over 28 years of experience in private practice, having been previously associated with architectural and engineering firms in Oklahoma and Texas including Dewberry Design Group and the Benham Group.

Almon is a past president of the Oklahoma Society of Professional Engineers, and recently completed a six-year appointment on the Oklahoma State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors.

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WOULD YOU SERVE ON AN ACEC COMMITTEE?????

ACEC has begun the process of selecting and appointing ACEC Committee members for the 1999-2000 year.

ACEC's committees are the backbone of ACEC. Over 500 members serve on some 40 committees, shaping ACEC's efforts in developing the policies that drive the government affairs program, designing programs to meet member needs, and helping in carrying out ACEC's many initiatives. ACEC Committees include: ACEC Political Action Committee; Budget and Finance; Business Affairs; Bylaws and Resolutions; Construction Liaison; Contract Documents; Engineering Excellence Awards; Environmental; Federal Agencies Liaison; Governmental Affairs; International Affairs; Interprofessional; Legal Defense Fund; Management Practices; Peer Review; Planning Cabinet; Professional Conduct; Professional Development/Human Resources; Professional Procurement; Professional Risk Management; Public Relations; Quality Management; and, Transportation.

CECO has a strong history of member service on ACEC Committees, although that has fallen off a bit in the past couple of years. We strongly urge you to consider serving on an ACEC Committee. It is a very rewarding experience, and puts you right in the middle of shaping your national organization.

Committee application forms are available from CECO and should be returned to ACEC by November 19th. Call CECO for your application form.

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REVOLUTIONARY MARKETING NEWSLETTER FOR A/E/P/ FIRMS

There's a marketing revolution sweeping the A/E/P and environmental consulting industries. Successful firms are using innovative and aggressive marketing programs to build name recognition and reputation, establish themselves as experts in a market sector, generate new leads, and improve closing rates. Now, there is a monthly newsletter from Zweig White & Associates, Inc. designed to help architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firm leaders ride this tidal wave of revolution.

REVOLUTIONARY MARKETING is packed full of news, advice, and success stories that will help A/E/P and environmental consulting firms implement a winning revolutionary marketing program. Each 16-page issue includes photos and analysis of three actual marketing campaigns, showing how architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms have put revolutionary marketing into action. In addition, each issue includes feature articles focusing on various aspects of revolutionary marketing.

Regular columns in REVOLUTIONARY MARKETING include:

* The Big Picture. Each issue leads off with our editors' hard-hitting look at the state of marketing in professional service firms.

* Nuts & Bolts. A how-to guide with easy steps to follow to implement an effective revolutionary marketing program.

* Web Trends. Web sites have become an integral part of marketing, and this column will show firms how to create a new web site or improve their existing one.

* The Friedman File. Gain insight on revolutionary marketing for A/E/P and environmental consulting firms from one of the experts- Rich Friedman. Rich is the principal in charge of Zweig White & Associates' revolutionary marketing consulting services.

* When Things Go Wrong. There's a lot to learn from mistakes, so we've included real-life horror stories to show you pitfalls that firms should avoid.

* People on the Move. Find out about the latest changes in marketing staff at A/E/P and environmental consulting firms.

"In our experience, virtually all successful, market-driven A/E/P or environmental consulting firms are doing something that the mediocre firms are not. They're developing a revolutionary marketing program that frees them from having to grind out proposals in response to RFPs or rely too much on the efforts of a few rainmakers," says Fred White, executive vice president of Zweig White & Associates and one of the publishers of REVOLUTIONARY MARKETING. "This hard-hitting new newsletter will provide A/E/P and environmental consulting firm leaders with everything they'll need to know to develop a successful revolutionary marketing program in their own firms."

A one-year subscription to REVOLUTIONARY MARKETING is available from the publisher for a special introductory rate of $195 (regularly $275). A two-year subscription is available for a special introductory rate of $325 (regularly $440). As a special bonus, subscribers will receive a copy of REINVENTING MARKETING, a 60-minute informative and entertaining video featuring management guru Mark Zweig- at no charge ($149 value). To order, call (800) 466-6275. Fax: (508) 653-6522. Write to Zweig White & Associates, 600 Worcester Street, Natick, MA 01760. Or, order online at http://www.zwa.com/revolution.

Zweig White & Associates provides unique management information and expertise exclusively to engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting firms through research, publications, education, consulting, and
other specialized products and services. The firm is based in Natick, MA, with additional offices in San Francisco, CA, Overland Park, KS, Washington, DC, and Atlanta, GA.

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