Bartlett & West values experience and relationships
James Landenberger is the Delivery Leader for the Water Resources Service Group at Bartlett & West. He started his career at the company as a project engineer in 2003 before moving into project management.
We talked with James about the opportunities he sees at Bartlett & West for those who have built years of experience, knowledge, and relationships, and the ways he feels empowered to lead our communities to a better tomorrow.
When new employee-owners come on board at Bartlett & West, what do you do to help them?
We want to get them plugged in right away. … We understand we're all individuals, but we're all working together, and if you have an idea or a thought, share it with the group. This is a safe environment. Let's work together for our common goals and values.
What seems to be most surprising for new employee-owners?
I think our flexible work environment is the most surprising thing to new employee-owners. We want you working in an environment that suits you best. Whether that's a combination of being in the office and at home, or 100% from home, we’re flexible.
What can you say about the training and professional development opportunities you’ve had here?
Unique to Bartlett & West, we have what we call the Bartlett & West University, which is internal training, mentoring, and coaching for individuals who aspire to be great employees or even leaders in the company. We've also set up unique programs, like emerging leader opportunities for our employee-owners if growing within the leadership arena is of interest to you.
What advice would you give to someone considering a career at Bartlett & West, especially someone with 15-20 years career experience?
When you think about people at that stage in their career and they are wanting to make their mark or take ownership of a project, experience is key. Whether it's technical experience, or the experience and relationships they have with folks in the community or other clients they can bring to the table, we value that. (Hear more from James about unique job opportunities and abilities to grow at Bartlett & West.)
We want to be able to leverage your experience as best we can, both for projects as well the ability to build on relationships and look into business development-type opportunities. We understand that experience is extremely valuable and we want to be able to figure out where we can plug that person in and best showcase those abilities.
We are a growing company: we've grown geographically as well as in the service areas that we offer. That growth allows people to work on a variety of different things and find what you are passionate about and what are you interested in. A company of our size allows that better than some of the larger companies.
The fact that we're 100% employee-owned is kind of the icing on the cake. (Hear more from James about how employee-ownership is unique at Bartlett & West.)
Can you give some examples of how Bartlett & West leads communities to a better tomorrow?
The easy answer would be the projects that we work on, day in and day out. That's what we do. Improving infrastructure, improving lives and safety.
I'd like to pivot to what we do outside of our day-to-day project work if I can. At Bartlett & West, we promote community involvement. Our company allows our employee-owners to focus on what's important to them, the causes they are interested in and passionate about within the community. We want employee-owners to go out and seek those opportunities but we ask that you bring your fellow employee-owners with you and get involved as much as you can.
A couple months ago, about a dozen of us early one morning bagged up rice for the Great Plains Food Bank. Not only are we working with community and charitable organizations in person, but we're also donating money and encouraging employee-owners to get involved in those community opportunities.
Do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on in your time at Bartlett & West?
The Devils Lake Outlet Project, which is a flood control project in northeast North Dakota. Devils Lake is a closed basin lake, and there were a lot of flooding issues for the communities around the lake. We worked with partners to construct two very large outlets that help control the flooding, which allowed us to be a part of that solution for the State of North Dakota. I actually started on that project before coming to work for Bartlett & West, when I was employed at the North Dakota State Water Commission.