comprehensive training for every aec need.

Ideal Audiences: Field Leaders, Emerging Leaders

This two-day foundational program equips current and future leaders with the skills to lead with clarity, presence, and consistency—no matter the environment. With a focus on communication, decision-making, delegation, conflict resolution, and accountability, it’s built for those who lead teams on-site or across departments. Through practical exercises and field-relevant scenarios, participants strengthen their ability to set expectations, resolve tension, and lead people through day-to-day challenges with confidence. Perfect for superintendents, crew leads, facilities managers, and emerging professionals taking on leadership roles for the first time.

Ideal Audiences: Executive Teams, Corporate/Operational Leaders, Emerging Leaders

Today’s leaders must guide both people and technology. This program explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping collaboration, decision-making, and strategic planning—and what leadership now demands. Participants will gain practical insights into AI’s impact on teams and processes, explore new ways of leading distributed and tech-enabled workforces, and develop the confidence to make future-ready decisions. Ideal for executives aligning strategy around AI, senior managers integrating AI into operations, and up-and-coming leaders who want to stay relevant through digital disruption.

Ideal Audiences: Field Leaders, Corporate/Operational Leaders, Emerging Leaders

Effective delegation is the key to scaling leadership—and this program teaches how to do it without losing control. Participants will learn how to assign tasks with clarity, set expectations, build trust, and create accountability systems that let work move forward without constant oversight. Especially valuable for field supervisors managing crews, department heads managing staff, and new managers struggling to let go. This training builds confidence in others while helping leaders focus on the work only they can do.

Ideal Audiences: Executive Teams, Corporate/Operational Leaders

AI is not a tech project—it’s a strategic imperative. This seminar guides leaders through the steps of developing an AI strategy rooted in business priorities, team readiness, and long-term value. Participants will explore frameworks for governance, pilot projects, training pathways, and change management. This is your roadmap for moving from scattered experimentation to structured, confident adoption across the firm.

Ideal Audiences: Corporate/Operational Leaders, Project Teams, Executive Teams

AI isn’t just a single piece of technology. It is a systemic shift in how work is organized, assigned, and evaluated. This seminar explores the larger operational impacts of AI adoption: fees, contracts, insurance, oversight, upskilling, reskilling, change management, client values, etc. Ideal for firms that must get their arms (and brains) wrapped around new business models and workflows, this session helps you prepare for the effects of AI transformation throughout your business and turn disruption into competitive advantage.

Audience: Technical staff, all types of staff in the A/E/C industry

AEC professionals face intense pressure—from shrinking budgets and accelerated timelines to rising safety demands and growing uncertainty across teams. In this high-stakes environment, leadership is the most critical skill for navigating complexity, yet it's often the least clearly defined or developed. At the heart of every successful professional is strong leadership, and at the heart of every strong business strategy is a compelling vision. But which comes first—leadership or vision?

Drawing on the research behind The Architecture of Vision, co-authored by Barbara Shuck and Craig Park, this session explores insights from over 100 industry professionals and 18 in-depth leadership interviews. Participants will assess their own leadership experiences, examine 18 key leadership traits specific to AEC success, and begin building a leadership path that supports both personal growth and their firm’s strategic vision.

Audience: Marketing and Business Development professionals, firm principals and executives, technical staff leaders

From entry to beginning to senior levels of experience, we all are challenged with how to manage our careers and achieve our goals and aspirations. In this interactive workshop, professionals will learn 67 Leadership Characteristics and 5 Pillars of Leadership necessary for enhanced career success. From the initial identification of traits to an interactive discussion and exercises about effective ways to hone these characteristics, attendees will benefit from a new perspective and leave with valuable insight and a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm. This session promises to deliver a thoughtful analysis of Leadership Characteristics that will improve chances for promotions and career advancement.

This session includes a valuable worksheet that sparks attendee engagement, personal reflection, and professional action-planning.

Learning Objectives
• Offer observations about career activities that lead to achieving goals and satisfy aspirations.
• Identify fundamental characteristics and pillars of leadership necessary for success.
• Examine essential leadership traits and methods to hone them.
• Create energy and enthusiasm for leadership development.

Audience: Professionals at all stages of their careers

Every professional’s career has peaks, valleys and even hairpin curves. The summit journey can be difficult, challenging, invigorating, and rewarding. This session provides interactive learning, so everyone walks away more knowledgeable, insightful, and motivated to take crucial next steps. We will investigate how Awareness, Acceptance and Action impact career development, and each module will have an exercise for personal reflection and growth. Through insightful stories, compelling examples, and engaging group discussion, attendees will gain a better understanding of how these three A’s affect their career route and contribute to firm success. Each attendee will look at what’s behind and what’s ahead on their career journey and see how they prioritizes time, evaluate their current situation, and then act based on new perspective and insights. The speaker promises to deliver sound guidance and helpful resources that compel attendees to chart their leadership paths beyond this conference session.

Learning Objectives
• Share career experiences to gain insight from shared achievements and challenges.
• Explore a career journey mapping process to gain personal insights.
• Practice concepts to develop career goal-setting strategies.
• Create a career planning toolbox for ongoing professional satisfaction and personal fulfillment.

Audience: AEC professionals, technical staff, human resources staff

What do you do when you’re at the intersection of your values, your profession and your being? How do you respond when you hear something that shakes you to your core? This TED talk session explores how a seasoned professional endured feedback from a boss that resulted in deep personal introspection and a new appreciation for the value of peer insights. Learn how summoning serenity, courage, and wisdom led to a new direction on living a passionate life with intention and purpose. We’ve all heard it before: “You’re just too passionate.” Now, hear the rest of the story. After the moving story, we will have a facilitated discussion with audience participation to dig a little deeper.

Learning Objectives
• Assess career situations that created life-changing doubt, fear, and frustration.
• Examine elements of passion can be barriers and opportunities for personal and career satisfaction.
• Use a new set of insights to address current and future career challenges.

Ideal Audiences: Project Teams, Corporate/Operational Leaders, Executive Teams

This seminar delivers a grounded, eye-opening look at how AI is transforming the architecture, engineering, and construction industry—right now. From planning and pre-construction to facilities management, participants will see real-world use cases, understand the benefits (and limitations), and explore how AI is reshaping collaboration, workflows, and client expectations. Designed for AEC firms ready to cut through the hype and gain practical clarity on what AI can do, where it fits, and how to move forward.

Ideal Audiences: All Staff

This non-technical, approachable session introduces the fundamentals of artificial intelligence in plain language. This session explores the evolution of artificial intelligence and connects the dots between historical patterns, today’s rapid advancements, and the future trajectory of AI in business and society. Participants will learn what AI is (and isn’t), how it's being used across industries, and what it means for their roles and workflows. Ideal for anyone who feels behind or overwhelmed, this seminar builds confidence and understanding—creating a common language and mindset for AI integration across your team.

Ideal Audiences: Corporate/Operational Leaders, Executive Teams, Emerging Leaders

Leadership isn’t just about people anymore—it’s about systems, tools, and transformation. This seminar helps leaders understand how AI impacts their responsibilities, decision-making, and influence. Topics include AI literacy for leaders, how to lead AI-integrated teams, ethical and cultural implications, and where human judgment matters most. Ideal for those charged with steering strategy, guiding teams, and maintaining trust through technological change.

Ideal Audiences: Project Teams, Corporate/Operational Leaders, Field Leaders

From chatbots to copilots, this session explores the growing toolkit of AI-powered platforms that support project delivery, communications, documentation, and more. Participants will get live demonstrations, tool comparisons, and insight into which tools are worth exploring—and which to approach with caution. This seminar is ideal for those eager to experiment with AI but unsure where to start or how to vet what’s out there.

Ideal Audiences: Executive Teams, Corporate/Operational Leaders, Project Teams

AI adoption brings powerful capabilities—and new risks. This session addresses the data vulnerabilities, compliance considerations, and platform pitfalls that come with integrating AI into your business. Participants will learn how to evaluate tools, protect client and firm data, and build guardrails into daily practice. Critical for firms handling sensitive project data or navigating complex client relationships.

Ideal Audiences: Project Teams, Emerging Leaders

This practical, structured course helps teams lead projects from start to finish with confidence and clarity. Focused on planning, communication, risk mitigation, milestone tracking, and stakeholder alignment, the training is designed to help project managers and coordinators stay ahead of challenges and deliver successful outcomes. Participants will leave with repeatable processes and actionable templates they can implement immediately. Ideal for project teams that need more structure, and emerging leaders ready to step into project ownership.

Ideal Audiences: Corporate/Operational Leaders, Project Teams, Executive Teams

Designed for forward-thinking leaders, this course shows how to embed AI into project delivery while maintaining clarity, control, and coordination. Participants explore how AI can optimize planning, automate tasks, surface risks, and improve communication—without replacing human judgment. Includes use case walkthroughs, platform demos, and a framework for assessing readiness and integration strategy. A must for operations leaders and PMs looking to deliver faster, smarter, and more resilient projects.

Ideal Audiences: Field Leaders, Project Teams, Emerging Leaders

This course builds communication skills that bridge roles, functions, and locations—so work flows smoothly from the field to the office and back again. Participants learn how to craft clear messages across email, meetings, and collaboration platforms, with a focus on tone, accountability, and action. Whether you're coordinating with field crews, clients, or remote teammates, this training helps reduce friction and foster trust. Great for project teams, field leaders, and anyone whose success depends on getting the message right the first time.

Audience: Anyone working on proposals and sales materials

We love the thrill of the hunt—for project wins, that is. And then, the Solicitation or Request for Proposal lands in the inbox. There’s a lot at stake to develop a winning proposal. The deadline is fast approaching, and what are you supposed to explain in the Understanding and Approach? Proposal writing makes even experienced marketers and business developers feel overwhelmed with finding compelling “why us” and “why not them” content. Sometimes the task seems unbelievably daunting.

Effective proposals are easy to read, well-organized, and more than anything, very persuasive. In this program, attendees will gain practical and relevant skills to produce strong content that is well-written and stands out from the crowd. We will evaluate six persuasive writing strategies that help marketing and technical professionals. We will inspect examples, uncover writing formulas, and see how a one-liner statement captures the reader’s attention and sparks memorability. With new-found insights, your next proposal is bound to bring home the bacon.

Learning Objectives
• Offer observations about writing challenges for A/E/C practitioners.
• Examine writing strategies in the areas of strategy, persuasion, and readability.
• Practice writing strategies that simplify complex information and build reader interest and confidence.

Audience: Technical staff at all levels of experience, marketing and business development professionals, and administrative staff

Organized and easy to read so it meets the writer’s purpose and the reader’s expectations. In this workshop, learners will gain practical and relevant skills that produce technical written communications that inform readers in emails, reports, letters, etc.

This session focuses on writing skills for technical staff and includes relevant writing strategies, including focus on audience, simplifying writing, and improving readability. The content includes feedback from public sector clients about organization and clarity of technical content.

Learning Objectives
• Offer current technical writing challenges and insights so learning will apply to technical staff at all levels of their career.
• Apply technical writing best practices to reports, emails, and technical documents.
• Create technical documents that are clear and result in more wins outcomes and professional success.

Build the Talent, a forward-thinking legacy-building program, ensures that critical institutional knowledge is captured, preserved, and made accessible for the future.

Our process starts with humans—we work directly with your experienced professionals to extract their expertise in a structured, meaningful way.

Then, we leverage AI to organize and provide seamless access to this knowledge, transforming it into a powerful, searchable resource.

Finally, we train your internal teams to sustain and evolve this system, ensuring long-term continuity and workforce resilience. This approach safeguards your firm’s intellectual capital and empowers your next generation of talent, strengthening your competitive edge in an AI-driven future.

With Build the Talent, we don’t replace human expertise—we amplify it. AI + You = Super You. Combining human intelligence with AI’s capabilities creates a system where knowledge is preserved and enhanced, ensuring your firm stays ahead in an evolving industry.

Beyond knowledge preservation, this initiative helps define the future of work in your organization. By integrating AI into knowledge management, you will begin to create new, essential roles that will be crucial in the very near future—such as Data Curators and Knowledge Officers—ensuring that your firm stays at the forefront of innovation, efficiency, and growth.

Audience: Marketing and Business Development professionals, technical staff (all levels)

For A/E/C firms, marketing is more than just a proposal and a cool website or Facebook ad. And now, business development involves a variety of activities—and various staff. No matter the size or setup of your firm, it’s time to take a look at your marketing and BD game plan. And a roadmap is just what you need to help transform your firm’s into a well-oiled machine.

This introductory module provides the big picture of marketing and business development in the A/E/C industries. We’ll dig into the definitions of marketing and business development and explore how they apply to any firm. In addition, we’ll show how the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Domains of Practice serve as pillars of an effective marketing program.

A good plan is necessarily agile, and this roadmap will help you plan, allocate resources, develop budgets, and measure performance.

Learning Objectives
• Apply the SMPS definitions of marketing and business development for all types of firms
• Sequence the three steps of business development and summarize how the SMPS Domains of Practice impact firm success
• Apply the framework to all types of firms, so marketers and business developers are equipped with the tools and resources that help transform business through marketing leadership.

Audience: Marketing and Business Development professionals, technical staff (all levels

Clarity wins. Confusion loses.
Keep their attention.
It’s all about survival and conserving energy.

If you’re like most architecture, engineering, or construction marketing/business development professionals, you’re frustrated that developing your company’s story is one of the hardest tasks on your long to-do list. If you knew what to do differently, you would—but you don’t, and so you feel stuck. Meanwhile, your revenue is lagging. Technical colleagues are confused. Your hit rate isn’t budging. And worst of all, you feel discouraged. Here’s the good news: It doesn’t have to be that way. In this workshop, Everest Marketing Services President, Barbara Shuck shares storytelling, aka “narrative,” principles and examples proven to engage clients, prospects, and colleagues. Attendees will walk away knowing how to capture your audience’s attention and compel them to respond.

Learning Objectives
• Share experiences with A/E/C communications and storytelling.
• Identify storytelling elements that organize information, so audiences listen and engage.
• Use storytelling steps to improve readability and memorability of A/E/C marketing pieces, including websites, proposals, brochures, and other communications that impact business development and marketing.

Discover how AI is transforming the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (A/E/C) industry, with the potential to revolutionize business development. Learn practical AI techniques designed to foster sustainable growth and drive strategic innovation within your firm and sales teams. The program showcases real-world examples, highlighting how AI integration can enhance business development strategies and deliver significant operational and strategic advantages.

Let’s start your BD efforts off with a bang! A little fun, a little serious, but always truthful, Kristin Kautz, FSMPS, CPSM will share a few inspiring stories, tips, and advice in her keynote. She’ll take questions to set the stage for a day of learning and productivity that in turn sets the stage for a year of progress and success. She promises you’ll think differently about BD! This is a 1-hour presentation designed as a kick-off to a BD conference or meeting and includes advice, stories, and anecdotes that will get your group energized.

Perfect for seller-doers, this wholly comprehensive business development training deep dives into all segments of the Project Life Cycle: Planning, Selling (Target and Position), Delivery (Proposal and Interview), Performance (Design and Service), and Maintenance (Client Satisfaction and Culture). This presentation also includes Customer Avatars, Client Capture Plan samples, Go/No-Go Process, Proposal Worksheet, Interview Worksheet, Project Debrief samples, and Client Survey samples.

If you need a concrete, real-life, honest-to-goodness formula to follow for writing a Business Development structure, you have come to the right place! We will walk you through the different parts of a plan, show you how to implement it (even without fancy equipment or a CRM system!), and discuss how to evaluate it. We like to call this PIE. Who doesn't like PIE?!?! A successful BD process is complex and takes a significant amount of time, effort, and resources...not to mention creativity, persistence, patience, resilience, and a personal touch. But it's not complicated, and we'll show you the ingredients and instructions to this powerful recipe.