Courtesy / Woodard & Curran
Doug McKeown is CEO of Portland-based engineering firm Woodard & Curran.
Updated: April 21, 2020
Maine engineering CEO is trying to keep 1,100 employees busy despite slowdown
Courtesy / Woodard & Curran
Woodard & Curran is a Portland-based engineering firm with 1,110 employees. Projects include the design-build for the cIty of Portland's Curtis Street Pump Station, shown in this photo.
As CEO of Portland-based engineering firm Woodard & Curran Inc., Doug McKeown manages a 1,100-person workforce from Bangor to San Diego. He's determined to keep all of them busy as the public health crisis drags on.
"I believe our company is here for our employees, and we will run at lower margins before we take any drastic measures," he told Mainebiz.
At the moment, he said they are all fully employed even if they are not fully busy, while some have voluntarily asked for reduced hours.
But McKeown is trying to be realistic. "We do see some things slowing down, and have developed a financial dashboard to track more accurately the impacts on the firm, so that we can stay ahead of any significant challenges," he said.
"There will be a recessionary environment that follows this COVID-19 response environment we have right now, so we have to think about and plan for that, as well as a return to a robust economy to follow ... We did well during the Great Recession, and I am confident we will manage through this together."
Woodard & Curran, an integrated engineering, science and operations company, ranked No. 3 among engineering firms in the 2020 Mainebiz Book of Lists, behind WrightPierce and TRC Solutions, based on the number of Maine-licensed engineers.
Of the engineering sector in general, McKeown said he expects a revenue drop of anywhere between 5% and 30% but said that's as hard to predict as the weather.
Managing a remote workforce
In terms of workforce management during the public health crisis, McKeown said that transitioning employees from work to home in different geographies posed some challenges
"We were reacting to closures in California very early on," McKeown said in a recent interview with Mainebiz about how he — and the privately held company — are adjusting to the new normal.
"As each week went on and governments were making decisions to shut down their states, we had already been working in this mode," he said. "I announced it on a Friday, and told folks to think about it over the weekend." As a result, he explained, everyone had the ability to make the transition in a planned way and not in a reactive way.
New communication cadence
Woodard & Curran also established what McKeown describes as a new communication cadence, with a COVID-19 assessment teams that meets every Monday morning, provides the executive team input with what's been learned over the past week or weekend, which is shared in an email to management every Monday afternoon.
Every Tuesday, McKeown also puts out a 5-minute video message to all employees, while business groups have weekly check-ins.
"We're putting a premium on the human side of this," McKeown said. "We really need people to stay connected." That means using video as well as the phone, and making sure that managers are helping people plan their days. "That's an important aspect of keeping employees connected emotionally."
McKeown, too, is adjusting to a different schedule, remarking recently to his wife this has been the first time in a dozen years he's been home for weeks in a row. He usually travels extensively for business, staying in about 100 hotels a year, he estimates.
"For me there's some personal upside of not being on the road," he said, "but the downside is not being connected."
He has also started to think about what the future office setup might look like when things return to normal, saying: "No plans yet, but we are currently evaluating the quality of the work mode for our employees and our clients, and do anticipate being able to operate from a smaller footprint, which provides an additional benefit to the environment."
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Anonymous
May 1, 2020
Still, the right man in the right place at the right time. Inspirational!
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