Marsh Lavenue believed so strongly in the company where he worked, INTERA, and the vision of its CEO that he pooled together his savings, 401(k) and money from a second mortgage on his house to buy the business.
“I had witnessed the significant benefit others had in owning equity in the company,” he said. “I believed in our CEO’s vision, and I felt comfortable in making a large bet on our team. Twenty years later now, looking back, it was the best bet I have ever made.”
INTERA is an international consulting firm of engineers and hydrogeologists focused on solving some of the world’s most challenging environmental and water supply problems. The company applies insight, creative thinking and scientific rationale to spur environmental innovation and stewardship, the company said.
Under Lavenue’s leadership as board chair and CEO, INTERA rolled out a new organizational structure in 2022. “In 2021, we had a down year and did not achieve our profit goals,” he said. “I realized that we had outgrown our corporate structure, and it had led to inefficient labor resource management driven by misalignment between our operations and sales. So I decided to simplify our structure so that all technical operations were reorganized into our three vertical markets (lines of business, or LOBs) and consolidated the business development and operations for these three LOBs under the leadership of three new LOB presidents.”
The changes were met with some resistance internally, Lavenue said, but it’s hard to argue with the results. Revenue is up 35%, profits are up more than 120% from 2021, and the company is growing again.
Lavenue prioritizes leadership growth and development at INTERA. Twenty of the company’s mid-managers have gone through the Vistage Emerging Leadership Program (ELP) in the last four years. ELP is a two-year program that develops interpersonal awareness and leadership skills.
The company also focuses on giving back. If they choose, staff can donate unused vacation hours, which INTERA converts to dollars to give to charitable causes, and the company matches those donations dollar for dollar. The company recently donated to the Club Q recovery fund in Colorado Springs and the GEM Environmental nonprofit to support STEM education for underrepresented communities in engineering.
“On mentorship, we have organized Technical Advancement Communities (TACs) within the company to foster the pairing of senior and junior staff and the collective assessment of gaps in our technical staff skills,” Lavenue said. “We measure impact through an anonymous employee survey which helps us quantify how well our staff feel our leadership team is leading with our core values and how well our team feels they are empowered to innovate.”
