Jorn Halle

LIFE/CULTURE AT DEGENKOLB:

How would you describe the culture at Degenkolb?
What strikes me is how we encourage and support the coupling of an engineering career with that of running a business. It is like our recruiting ad campaign shows, we save the world and have run doing engineering but we also learn how to run our own business. Because we are a well planned, well run company, our people get high level training in both engineering and business. When we hire someone, I can honestly say that I want that person to become an owner of our business, to be a partner.

YOUR CAREER:

Why have you stayed at Degenkolb?
Because of the people. They are great. In our office, we feel connected to the larger mission of the firm. I didn’t set out to be a group director, but because the firm is full of diverse people, and we serve multiple regions, that opportunity was presented to me. And I really wanted to work for these people. I wanted to help our clients solve their problems and achieve their goals. I can do that by helping our people work opening and collaboratively.

YOUR PASSIONS:

What do you do to stay engaged?
I enjoy the tricky problems that are presented to me. The most rewarding solutions are to problems that my client and I worked together to solve. With your longer term clients you can develop friendships that are professionally and personally rewarding.

What do you do for fun?
I’m very active in my family community. I can go to a local school football game and see 50 people I know before I reach the seats. I love baseball and I am a director for the Pony baseball league in Walnut Creek. I also manage one of the teams. It isn’t always fun, but its fulfilling.

ON THE JOB:

Recount a memorable or favorite story about working at Degenkolb? Could be a friendship. Could be something that happened on a site visit.

As a young project engineer, I had the opportunity to travel to Kobe, Japan with David Bonneville. We visited to study the effects of the 1995 earthquake on the region. Through a former intern’s employer, we were hosted by a local construction company, which opened doors for us to see a lot of the damage and to really study with a technical eye the problems that had occurred. That was very eye opening, but more memorable was the experience of meeting locals and talking about the quake. When you are with David on one of these trips, you always get to see and do a lot in the local area. We happened to go to dinner one night and became engaged in discussion with some of the residents about the earthquake. These people had lost their homes and jobs due to the quake. We shared food and stories and I realized how extremely important what we do can be to communities and to the people who live in them.