NSBE - Convention 2010 - (Page 12)

dwayne James of Jacobs Growing with an Industry winner By Lynette Locke I n a time when who you know too often gets you farther than what you know, there are still those who make their way up the corporate ladder by learning a business from the ground up. This is the story of Dwayne T. James, P.E., Structural Design engineer/ senior Inside Sales coordinator for the Jacobs Engineering Group. James is a civil engineer specializing in bridge superstructure and substructure design, and has worked on a wide range of bridge projects for local and state clients. His superstructure design experience encompasses a variety of steel and concrete “The company is global, and you have a real chance to grow with this organization.” technologies, including steel plate, prestressed concrete and through-plate girders. He is also experienced with substructure and retaining wall design issues and has provided design for pier and footing substructure, abutments, semi-deep abutments and substructure inspection and condition assessments. However, seeing that his expertise could be used elsewhere, James rotated into Jacobs’ Inside Sales group, where he prepares responses to requests for proposal (RFPs)/requests for qualifications (RFQs), specifically for Department of Defense and Mission-Control pursuits. He is also involved in the preparation of business development documents and presentations. Folks have a saying, “He got it honest,” for someone with an inherited, natural ability. And Dwayne James certainly did. His grandfather is a retired mechanical engineer, his father is an accountant with more than 45 years at Jacobs, and his brother is an architect. This early home environment helped James develop an eye for troubleshooting and a nose for engineering, a subject he found very satisfying. “People in general like to have a sense of accomplishment. You see a problem and find a solution to that problem. Engineering is like that,” he says. With an M.S. in civil engineering from the 12 • nsbe magazine University of Missouri–Rolla and a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Kansas, James came to Jacobs in 1994. He started as a project engineer calculating quantities. Later, he moved up to lead engineer managing the structural design portion of projects then to project manager responsible for the successful delivery of construction documents to the client. What James says he likes most about working for Jacobs is its culture of developing talent from within. “The company is global, and you have a real chance to grow with this organization,” he says. Like many leaders in the workplace, James is also a driving force in his community. He is a member of NSBE and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and is a council member for the City of Ferguson, Mo. He volunteers at local high schools and fostered Jacobs’ sponsorship of the local inner-city St. Louis alternative middle school. James also founded a program to match engineering professionals with high school students to motivate the students to continue their education. For these and many other efforts, James was awarded the 2002 “Yes I Can” Special Achiever Award by the St. Louis Sentinel newspaper. James also won the Zone III Citizen Engineer Award from ASCE for his efforts in the engineering and general communities. In this environment of financial uncertainty, James is optimistic about the prosperity of the engineering industry as a whole and Jacobs in particular. He says Jacobs’ core values of being a relationship-based company, continuing to strategically grow the business and viewing people as their greatest assets helps to maintain that optimism. “Jacobs continues to do the right things to grow and sustain our business. Our client survey scores are averaging around 90 percent and delivered more than $2.4 billion in documented savings to our customers in 2009,” he says. Others are certainly high on Jacobs. The company was named the #1 Most Admired Engineering and Construction Company by Fortune magazine, the #1 Design Firm by Engineering News Record and the #12 World’s Best Company by BusinessWeek magazine. With Dwayne James as one of the public faces of the company, these accolades are no surprise. ■ www.nsbe.org • convention 2010 http://www.nsbe.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - Convention 2010

NSBE - Convention 2010
Contents
Get Involved
What Makes Us Great
Sandra Edmonds of Intel
Dr. David Freeman of MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Dwayne James of Jacobs
Jean Paul of Philadelphia Gas Works
Ernest Levert of Lockheed Martin
Bryan Agard of ITW
Bettye Moddy of Navair
International News
Chapter News
Region I Jobs Outlook
Engineering a Global Impact
Things To Do In Toronto
Career Fair Recruiters Speak
Golden Torch Award Winners
Save Our Kids 2010
CE Cover: Advanced Degrees
Employer Profiles
AE Members On the Move
Advertisers Index

NSBE - Convention 2010