{"id":757,"date":"2015-03-20T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blogs\/?p=757"},"modified":"2017-07-25T09:16:27","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:16:27","slug":"womenexcel-creating-your-own-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/womenexcel-creating-your-own-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"#WomenExcel: Creating your own legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In celebration of World Water Day on March 22 and International Women\u2019s Day on March 8, Denise Laferte shares her career journey working in the water group at ArchTam.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like many of us at ArchTam, I entered the company through a legacy firm \u2014 mine\u00a0happened to be a 100-year-old water and wastewater firm.\u00a0 In 2001, I began working there as a field chemist on the New England (Region 1) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Remedial Action Contract (RAC).\u00a0 While my legacy firm specialized in water projects, my main duties were more environmentally focused as I was tasked with evaluating hazardous waste sites, collecting environmental samples and writing reports based on the results.<\/p>\n

Along the way, I was asked to participate in the re-compete of the EPA RAC project and demonstrated a flair for the business development process.\u00a0 The sales director from my legacy firm decided to give me a chance to work on other pursuits, and through that relationship, my mentorship program with him began.\u00a0 Working together, we won the EPA RAC contract, then a Global U.S. Air Force contract, and later, the National and Regional Brownfields contracts.\u00a0 While I continued to learn about the business development process, I realized that I had discovered a new career.<\/p>\n

Eventually, ArchTam become a single firm \u2014 One ArchTam \u2014 and firms were slotted into business lines, with my legacy firm entering the water business line. I was given the choice of either remaining with my original skill set in the environment business line, or following my mentor over to the water group despite having no background in water or wastewater. I decided to make the leap, and it was a fortuitous decision.<\/p>\n

When the ArchTam water business line formed, there was no federal program.\u00a0 I raised my hand and offered to coordinate our federal efforts with the other business lines, including our new (at the time) government technical services group.\u00a0 I realized that this would give the water group a seat at the table as we tried to build a federal program.<\/p>\n

Around that time, I picked up another mentor, and the three of us began building the federal program within the water business line together.\u00a0 We set a strategy and relentlessly followed up on developing the program.<\/p>\n

As a reference to our progress, in 2006, we had a single opportunity in Salesforce for approximately US$100,000. In 2014, we had our biggest year yet with multi-million-dollar revenue.\u00a0 And moving forward, our goal is to maintain this momentum and to continue to grow the program.\u00a0 We are especially excited for our work in fiscal year 2015, which now includes legacy URS, a federal powerhouse.\u00a0 Moving forward, there is no limit for what we can accomplish as we work together.<\/p>\n

While growing the federal program to a multi-million-dollar business has been gratifying in many ways, it is the lessons learned from the process that are the most remarkable. My story is one of senior leadership investing in mentoring staff, and of seeing that our periods of greatest turmoil are often our moments of greatest opportunity and that you can respect your past while creating your own legacy.<\/p>\n

What legacy are you creating at ArchTam or other companies?<\/em><\/strong> Please share your stories<\/strong><\/em> below, and be sure to use\u00a0the #WomenExcel hashtag when you share this post on Twitter, Google+ or Facebook.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Denise_Laferte_HS_BW_89x100\"Denise Laferte serves as the North America market sector leader for all U.S. federal work within ArchTam\u2019s water group.
\nLinkedIn: <\/em>Denise Laferte<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In celebration of World Water Day on March 22 and International Women\u2019s Day on March 8, Denise Laferte shares her career journey working in the water group at ArchTam. Like many of us at ArchTam, I entered the company through a legacy firm \u2014 mine\u00a0happened to be a 100-year-old water and wastewater firm.\u00a0 In 2001, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,84],"tags":[109,138],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employee-excellence","category-industry-insights","tag-womenexcel","tag-impact"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}