Member Spotlight | Courtney Dickerson
Posted by [email protected] on Oct. 9, 2024 / Subscribe 0
Courtney joined Horner & Shifrin, Inc. (H&S) as a Marketing Coordinator in 2014. She was then promoted to Marketing Manager in the spring of 2015, and now serves as Marketing Director. Her team handles proposal development, business development meeting materials, special events, internal and external communication for the firm and many other things. H&S is a multi-disciplinary professional services firm performing a wide variety of engineering design projects including, but definitely not limited to civil and structural engineering design for government infrastructure, MEP systems, and GIS and surveying projects. We offer lots of services in-house, which is what makes the firm unique, and the variety keeps the marketing work exciting.
Courtney has been a member of SMPS since 2015. She still looks back, wishing she had gotten more involved sooner. Her first involvement with the organization was joining the Board of Directors as Communications Director in 2020. She has remained a member of the Board ever since. Being a member of SMPS has provided Courtney with lots of learning opportunities and information to bring back to her firm, but the real value is in the friendships she has built, which she is forever grateful.
What are your thoughts about your presidency this year? What do you think was one of the most outstanding aspects of the year?
I’ve heard many other chapter presidents say it, a year just doesn’t feel long enough. It might feel like you are finally getting momentum on some of your goals for the year and then boom, your term is over. I definitely feel this, but we still had some great accomplishments. We had an awesome Board of Directors this past year, so I don’t have just one outstanding aspect of the year!
A major goal of the 2023-2024 Board of Directors was to increase member retention and provide more concrete benefits for our members. Our membership director, Jessica Davila, CPSM (McCarthy), led the charge of this effort and did an amazing job. Her development of the monthly Coffee Connections meetings was well received by members as good information-sharing opportunities, and she is continuing them into the new board year. We are working on adding a few of these events on the Illinois side as well!
Sponsorship director Melissa Bednarz (iSuite) kept good tabs on our sponsors and made sure they were utilizing their sponsorship perks to keep our members engaged and take advantage of their benefits. She also started the option of event sponsors for specific programs in the last board year, giving vendors the opportunity to sponsor an event to speak about their business and meet our attendees. This has been well received by those who have taken advantage of this option!
Programs and Education combined their committees to put on some excellent events this past year, offering various networking and educational events. Education Director Reagan Branham, CPSM (HERA laboratory planners), organized our member favorite Table Talk, Coordinator’s Club series, and the well-received Soc-AI-l: AI 101 and 201 featuring Kristin Kautz, CPSM and Lori Grubbs, CPSM of JAM Idea Agency. Our educational events offered 24.5 CEUs to our CPSMs and our chapter gained 3 new CPSMs. We applaud Sarah Kinnard, Kelly Garza, and Danielle Bergmann for their accomplishment of passing the CPSM exam! Programs, led by Luke Ducey (WSP), hosted some informative events like our signature 8-on-8 client event, and K-12 panel discussion, as well as some fun networking events, including a team-building escape room event and members-only happy hours. We offered 27 programs this past year with 565 total attendees!
Our communications committee, led by Kelli Manegre (McCarthy), launched a new website for our chapter and increased our social media presence with consistent content focusing on advertising for our events, as well as member and sponsorship spotlights. These spotlights highlight the cool things our members and sponsors are doing for our industry and share content that provides lessons learned from educational events to our website viewers.
What do you think makes the StL Chapter so unique?
Easily the group of people. Our members are so willing to help each other out, whether that’s help launching a new marketing campaign, providing a connection with a client you are looking to get in front of, or anything in between. Everyone is here to support each other, competitor or not, and I think that’s what makes this group of professionals so special.
I can’t leave out a few directors I didn’t mention in the question above. This past year wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the following people: Cheryl Vancil, CPSM (Oates Associates) - Immediate Past President, Julia Pluff (Farnsworth Group) - President-Elect, Megan Hinrichsen (Development Strategies) - Treasurer, Sydney Unnerstall (Vessel Architecture) - Director-at-Large, and Ashley Jenkins (Guarantee Electrical) - Secretary. They were the most amazing group of supporters along the way, always ready to lend a helping hand to me or any of the other Directors. I am so thankful for the time to work alongside each of them.
If someone were considering joining, why would you tell them to become a member?
Again, the people. They are welcoming and want to ensure your success in this industry, whether you are a marketer, business developer, technical staff member, or other professional.
What has been the best advice to help you stay centered throughout your career in AEC when everything is going insane and hitting the wall?
When you have a million balls in the air and are feeling overwhelmed, take a hard look at which ones are glass and which ones are plastic. The plastic balls will bounce if dropped, the glass balls will shatter. This can pertain to personal and work-life.
When the deadlines make you feel like you’re firefighting or there are more events/meetings to attend than hours in the day, use this analogy to help you take a breath and prioritize which things need attention. There’s always plenty of work to do, but make sure you don’t lose sight of what you enjoyed about your job in the first place. The variety of tasks? The complexity of the projects? New and exciting work? Come back to that as you prioritize your tasks, and to keep yourself from getting burnt out, ask for help with those other plastic balls when you can’t keep up.
As a mom of young kids, I notice myself thinking of this analogy on a daily basis to help prioritize what’s important at work and at home and to avoid getting overwhelmed.
What do you love to do when you are not working?
I’m a mom of four young kids. What is free time? I’m kidding…I love spending time with them, my husband, and our boxer dog, Louie. Whether it’s going for a walk, running to sports games, or taking them to the park, we usually enjoy spending time outside. They occupy most of my time outside the office, so I usually try to run with them while they’re riding their bikes or pop into an exercise class for some self-care.
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