2017 Year in Review

This past year was filled with many exciting changes for JEO.  Although 2017 has officially come to a close and a new year has begun, we wanted to reflect on a few of our favorite accomplishments throughout the year, as well as express our appreciation and gratitude to our clients and employees who made it a success.

Service is at the core of we do at JEO.  It can be found at the root of our approach to serving clients through education and understanding, and our philosophy of constant personal and professional development of our employees.  The newly formed JEO Foundation applies this same approach to positively impact our communities and members through volunteering, education, and charitable giving.

Since its launch in January 2017, JEO Foundation has focused on developing its core valves and operating framework, providing opportunities for members to volunteer in their community, and distribute funds to charitable causes important to members.  Highlights from JEO Foundation’s first year included:

Some of the highlights from the foundation’s first year include:

• Holding eight volunteer events benefitting five communities.  Volunteer events supported Habitat for Humanity, Ankeny Miracle League, and the American Cancer Society, amongst others.
• Establishing the Volunteer Committee, Finance Committee, and Terry O’Brien committee.
• Creating means and methods for employees to donate time and money to JEO Foundation.

In the coming year, JEO Foundation will continue to define its focus while providing its members with opportunities to volunteer and apply for financial distributions.  The ultimate goal is to support causes that align with the core values through the passion of the members.

Every day our employees work independently within teams, but ultimately toward the goal of creating a worthwhile, collaborative infrastructure consulting experience for both our clients and each other. While we have made a lot of progress toward reaching this goal, we know there is still a lot of room for growth.

Knowing this, we spent a lot of time and effort in 2017 extending our perspective and capabilities by adding over 20 new employees to our team. As a result, we have been able to improve our service offerings and add new ones, such as traffic engineering; increase our capacity for customer relations; and build stronger teams, all ultimately helping us to offer more comprehensive, client-centric solutions.

We are extremely excited to have these staff members on our team and look forward to growing with them in the future!

In addition to recognizing all of our new hires, we want to take time and also acknowledge the hard work of our existing employees. A special shout out to those team members that achieved professional accreditation for Professional Engineering, Fundamental Engineering, and Survey in Training this year. We applaud your drive and know that our clients will appreciate the added value this will bring to their projects in the future.

We believe that internships should be an experience built around growth and learning, not getting coffee and running errands. We rely on our interns, like other employees, to serve as teammates to help meet deadlines and provide meaningful contributions to real projects.

The past year proved to be one of our most promising summer intern classes yet, taking four projects from start to finish on intern teams, assisting in the development of new technology such as augmented reality, and providing us with a continually new perspective on how we approach the delivery of our services.

Thank you to all of the interns who helped make 2017 a great year at JEO. Wondering what it’s like to be a JEO intern? Here is a video from the end-of-year intern party, which, was, coincidentally, created by one of our interns.

When reflecting back on 2017, we are happy to say it has been one filled with growth, learning, and amazing client relationships. This said, we know there is always room to improve and are enthralled to continue this pursuit in 2018. From all of us at JEO Consulting Group, thank you to all of the clients and staff that made this year one for the books!