Month: April 2021

Inspiring People & Places: Episode 5

Posted on by MCFA Team

Title: The World’s Most Interesting Person in Infrastructure Finance – Advisor to Presidents, Princes & Public Agencies

Episode Summary: In the following interview, BJ sits down with Jill Jamieson, President & CEO of Illuminati Infrastructure Advisors. They discuss Jill’s amazing path to becoming an internationally recognized expert on Infrastructure Finance & Public-Private Partnerships.

Host: BJ Kraemer, MCFA

Special Guest: Jill Jamieson, Illuminati Infrastructure Advisors

Click here to listen on iTunes.

Click here to listen on Spotify.

Click here to listen online.

Episode Resources:

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan

MCFA Welcomes New Team Member Colin Mottola

Posted on by MCFA Team

Please join me in welcoming Colin Mottola back to the MCFA family!  

As one of MCFA’s first interns in 2016, Colin is coming back after finishing up his education at Penn State and spending the last 3 years with The Norwood Company.  While at Norwood, Colin served as a Project Engineer and worked on a multi-phased hospital expansion project to add 60 intensive care rooms, a three-story atrium, and renovated operating rooms. In addition, he coordinated deliveries, invasive work, and shutdowns with the hospital staff to ensure minimum impact to staff and patients. In this position, he was also responsible for managing RFIs, submittals, and buyout of trades; assisting in creating and maintaining the project schedule; participating in weekly BIM meetings to help coordinate the installation for all MEP trades. Mr. Mottola’s skills include Bluebeam, ASTA PowerProject, BIM, AutoCAD, and Microsoft Office, along with OSHA 30 HR and ICRA 8 HR training.

Colin earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.  He will be supporting our Construction Management program, as well as a number of upcoming CM/PM opportunities.

When not at work, Colin enjoys golfing and cheering on the Penn State Nittany Lions and Philadelphia Eagles every weekend. Colin is also an avid lacrosse fan, playing from the time he was in 3rd grade to 4 years of club lacrosse at Penn State. He most looks forward to family vacations in Lewes, Delaware and just welcomed a lab/shepherd puppy into the Mottola family!

MCFA is confident that Colin will be a valuable asset to the company and our project teams.  

Welcome back, Colin! 

Inspiring People & Places: Episode 4

Posted on by MCFA Team

Title: Paying it Forward with Wes Guckert, Founder and CEO of The Traffic Group

Episode Summary: In the following interview, BJ sits down with his friend and mentor, Wes Guckert. Wes is the Founder & CEO of The Traffic Group, one of the nation’s leading traffic engineering, transit, and transportation planning firms. He is an expert in traffic engineering and transportation planning – a technical adviser in traffic analysis, traffic signal design, traffic circulation, access studies, automated and robotic parking systems, and transit planning. Since founding TTG, Wes has played a major role in more than 8,000 projects; directing the design and implementation of traffic access systems throughout the United States and internationally, from Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas, to Indonesia, Dubai, South Africa, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and China.

Host: BJ Kraemer, MCFA

Special Guest: Wes Guckert, The Traffic Group

Click here to listen on iTunes.

Click here to listen on Spotify.

Click here to listen online.

Episode Resources:

Pay It Forward

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Dr. Ben Carson

Just In Time Talent

Posted on by MCFA Team

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
-Stephen King

Who is the most talented person you know?  

Think about it for a minute…do you have an answer? 

Maybe you thought of a friend or family member who was the valedictorian AND the all-American athlete.  Maybe you thought of someone you know who is the Top-Doc in your City or a 4-Star General. Maybe you thought of one of your kids?  

If you thought of someone who seems good at everything they touch, you are not alone. If your follow-up question was “talented at what?” you are on the right track.  

So often, we confuse the word “talent” with “natural ability”…that person was “born to succeed.” Don’t get me wrong, Michael Phelps was born to swim, and Tom Brady was born to win, BUT how did they get there?

Not to the top of their sport but to the environments that allowed them to maximize their talent? After all, would Michael Phelps have won 23 gold medals if it wasn’t for Bob Bowman? Would Tom Brady have won 7 Super Bowls if it weren’t for Bill Belichick?

The answer is…maybe.    

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about and researching talent. How do you identify the best talent? How do you recruit them? How do you capture the excitement that comes with joining a new organization and ensure that person is onboarded and integrated? How do we train and manage them?  How do we avoid micro-managing them? How do we give them enough rope to “fail forward” but not so much that they feel lost?  

Talent management and Strategic Human Resources are HARD WORK! And in the consulting world, where our people are our brand AND our product, it’s really hard. And in small business, where we might not show a clear path to “upward mobility” (because we are growing the upward mobility), it’s really, really hard.

This week, I was reminded by this WSJ article that finding talent and uncovering talent is leadership business.  As said by Brene Brown, she de­fines a “leader as any­one who takes re­spon­si­bil­ity for find­ing the po­ten­tial in peo­ple and in pro­cesses and has the courage to de­velop that po­ten­tial.” 

So…How are you finding talent? Developing talent? 

BJ Kraemer, President