Last month, EMJ hosted our annual Summit meeting in Amelia Island, Florida. Each year the company gathers to invest time for training, team building, and recognizing our outstanding employees.
Managers arrived a day early in order to spend some time training and discussing EMJ’s strategy. Their time concluded with some healthy competition playing pickleball.
To officially kick off the Summit, employees were welcomed with a reception full of great food and fun lawn games. The next few days were included an encouraging word from Jack Bowen, EMJ’s President and CEO, safety training, teams spending time looking at their Gallup strengths, round table sessions with company leadership, a bike building competition in which the assembled bikes were donated to a local Boys & Girls Club, and an awards dinner. The denim-themed Jolley Awards, where employees were encouraged to wear everything from overalls to dressed-up denim, recognized employees of EMJ for exemplary performance and contributions to the company.
The Jolley for Outstanding Performance is EMJ’s most prestigious individual award. Employees are nominated for this award by office leadership, and recipients are selected by the Jolley committee. EMJ recognized individuals from all functions and disciplines within the company. The 2022 Jolley Awards recipients are as follows.
The Jolley for Outstanding Servant Leadership is EMJ’s recognition of an individual who exemplifies servant leadership as defined by EMJ’s core values. The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Servant Leadership meets the following criteria:
- Leads by example
- Inspires and serves others
- Exhibits EMJ’s core values
The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Servant Leadership is Lauren Purdy.
Lauren meets with every single new hire that joins EMJ and is kind, welcoming, and patient to all of them as they go through the onboarding process. She wears many hats, including IT Support in the Southwest office, to serve those around her. Regardless of the tasks at hand, Lauren is consistently a source of positivity and encouragement in the office and is always looking for ways to serve others.
Jack Bowen, President & CEO, and Lauren Purdy, Senior People Coordinator
Scott Lydick, Director of Safety, and Jim Inman, Senior Superintendent
The recipient for Outstanding Performance Safety meets the following criteria:
- Ability to plan ahead and foresee potential mishaps and intervene
- Ability to engage others in safe behavior and practices
- Ability to have a clean and organized jobsite
- Ability to manage difficult situations with servant leadership
- Ability to maintain documentation that is accurate, well-written and timely
- Ability to change the culture and/or attitudes of others towards a more safety-conscious mindset
The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Performance Safety is Jim Inman.
Jim exemplifies what it means to create and foster a culture of safety within those he leads. There is a noticeable difference in how he commands respect of this safety culture, and it is part of all his interactions on his jobsites. Those on his jobsites know what is expected and follow his safety leadership.
The recipient for the Jolley for Outstanding Performance Preconstruction meets the following criteria:
- Improved performance and/or range of responsibility
- Exhibited strong work ethic resulting in accurate and timely outcomes, including bid and buy-outs
- Developed junior team members
- Exemplified servant leadership within his/her team
- Demonstrated initiative and creativity in tackling difficult or unusual challenges
The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Performance Preconstruction is Katie Haberberger.
Katie seamlessly transitioned to a project mid-stream as the Preconstruction Manager and spent two months identifying valuable cost-savings alternatives for the client. Then, she moved right on to her next project which was kept under budget, and the buyout was worked through before the project ever broke ground. In addition, Katie worked alongside a senior preconstruction manager to identify nearly $3 million dollars in value engineering for another client while maintaining a high quality of subcontractor partners for predictable execution.
Jack Bowen, President & CEO, and Katie Haberberger, Preconstruction Manager
Andrei Korobkov, Project Manager, and Jack Bowen, President & CEO
The recipient for Outstanding Performance Operations meets the following criteria:
- Improved performance and/or range of responsibility
- Exhibited strong work ethic resulting in accurate and timely outcomes, including cost reports
- Developed junior team members
- Exemplified servant leadership within his/her team
- Demonstrated initiative and creativity in tackling difficult or unusual challenges
The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Performance Operations is Andrei Korobkov.
Andrei is very detailed in providing the knowledge needed to lead his project teams in the right direction. He has managed a full workload and taken the lead to support our medical office program, all while supporting additional projects as a project executive. Throughout the addition of these tasks and responsibilities, he has kept a positive attitude and continued to fulfill his role as a project manager. Andrei keeps his site project teams informed and stays proactive with things such as submittals and RFI’s, allowing them to keep projects moving forward for each client.
The recipient for the Jolley for Outstanding Performance Superintendent meets the following criteria:
- Improved performance and/or range of responsibility
- Excellent safety
- Exhibited strong work ethic resulting in accurate and timely outcomes
- Developed junior team members
- Exemplified servant leadership within his/her team
- Demonstrated initiative and creativity in tackling difficult or unusual challenges
- Played a key role in the profit maximization of the company through new or existing clients
The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Performance Superintendent is Orland Edmond.
Orland recently completed a very complex higher education project. He successfully navigated COVID-19 guidelines and kept a well-maintained labor force in a rural area of Tennessee. Amidst these challenges, Orland managed his team from start to finish with servant leadership and maintained excellent attention to detail.
Orland Edmond, Lead Superintendent, and Jack Bowen, President & CEO
Left to right: Erick Perez, Project Manager; Ryan Jarvis, Level II Superintendent; Williams Andrade, Project Engineer; Sandy Clevens, Project Accountant; Denver Moody, Senior Superintendent; Matthew Connors, Director of Construction. Not pictured: Bobby Bass, Director of Preconstruction; Bonnie Baer, Preconstruction Manager; Blake Poe, Level II Superintendent
Outstanding Project:
The Jolley for Outstanding Project is EMJ’s highest recognition of a project team. This award is given to one project team each year. The recipients of the Jolley for Outstanding Project meets the following criteria:
- Resource maximization
- Minimal or no staff turnover
- Excellent safety
- Valuable client experiences
The recipient of the Jolley for Outstanding Project is
H-E-B Frisco.
The H-E-B project in Frisco, TX was the first of H-E-B’s North Texas expansion. A highly anticipated launch into this market had customers and municipalities biting their nails in anticipation for over 30 years. The project team was engaged day one participating in design development, municipal due diligence, and full preconstruction activities. They adapted to bad weather, supply chain shortages, and last-minute municipal hurdles to ensure the store opened on time and were dedicated to the client experience activities that resulted in much of the success of this project.
Congratulations to all of this year’s Jolley Award recipients. We are proud to serve alongside those who demonstrate the principles of servant leadership, exemplify our team approach, and provide exceptional experience to our clients, partners and colleagues.
“It’s always great to be together and be reminded of why we do what we do,” said Jack Bowen, President and CEO at EMJ. “We only achieve our goals through our people, our most valued asset, and this was time well spent.”
