Education: MPP, Georgetown Public Policy Institute; BA, University of Oregon, Eugene
Why Savan Group
What brought me to Savan Group was the sky’s the limit opportunity, can do attitude, and a shared sense that our country is faces significant challenges that we—as a group—are uniquely able to address. When I first met my future colleagues, they asked me if I could do one thing to make our country better, what it would be. I replied that I would want to help our government improve its services to better achieve the real-world solutions—be they better health care services, better access to living wage jobs, or simply safer and better quality food—that Americans expect and deserve. I see that same dedication to building a better country and world reflected in the attitudes and all of the work that we do as a firm.
What I Enjoy About Consulting
What I love most about consulting is working with clients to identify, understand, and help address their biggest challenges. A good consultant is able to help clients step back from the pressure of daily responsibilities to reflect on and better understand their needs. At the end of a long day, knowing that I have been able understand and translate those needs into practical, easy to implement solutions to clients’ most daunting challenges, is what gives me the greatest sense of satisfaction.
Lessons Learned
The biggest lesson that I have learned in my work is how important it is to understand how a person or institution performs. As Peter Drucker explained so well in his seminal essay “Managing Oneself,” some people talk to learn, while others need time to read, reflect, and synthesize. Getting a sense for how others do their best work and coordinate my approach, or my team’s approach, to our interactions is essential to producing valuable change and better outcomes because it allows us to understand, plan for, and collaborate to achieve our common goals.
Off the Clock
On or off the clock, I am at my most fundamental level a dad and husband – my family is the center of my world and I love being with them. In addition, I am an avid home to work bicyclist, expert skier, and rough and tumble soccer player. In my life, I also like to take the time to explore and incorporate new ideas and ways of being into my routines: last year, I took a couple of amazing pottery classes with Sam Gordon at Hinckley Studios in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. Throughout the classes, I was struck by the parallels to, and contrasts between, pottery making and my daily consulting and project management work: to arrive at a successful product in either domain requires substantial practice, planning, patience, and focus.
