Interviewee Name: Jennifer Graham, Project Director
Company Name: M. Moser Associates Ltd
Website: http://www.mmoser.com, http://www.lmnopnyc.org
Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Jennifer Graham: I work as a project director for M. Moser Associates, a global firm with 650 employees worldwide, and I am one of 46 directors in the firm. Our work is primarily focused on corporate interiors. My role as project director is a combination of two roles – one is for projects and the other is having oversight for project staffing for the office. From a directorial standpoint I interface with the global directors for strategic process implementation and improvement across the firm.
I came to the USA specifically to study design, and I have a degree in interior design as well as an MBA. I was born in Barbados and lived there for 18 years. I came to the US 30 years ago – I am a single mom with twin girls.
Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?
Jennifer Graham: A typical day starts getting the kids up, breakfast, dressed, making their lunch and off to school. Two of the five days I drop them to school, the other days their Nanny. Then I walk to work where I interact and collaborate with a team of designers and architects on a variety of projects. At the end of the day, usually 7pm I head home, snuggle in bed with my girls; we all read and then go to bed. I often get back up at 9pm and work until midnight or later.
Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?
Jennifer Graham: I think I have an internal motivator. I rarely feel that I must motivate myself. Although by and large my work routine is the same, the projects and people I work with change constantly so I always feel refreshed by the new challenge. I guess I am motivated by the pleasure of interacting with others. It happens every day and every day is unique.
Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
Jennifer Graham: I might have worked with one of the larger firms during my early career. I would have insisted that I keep down time in my routine that included team sports.
Avil Beckford: What's the most important business or other discovery you've made in the past year?
Jennifer Graham: One can covert a Sketchup model into Revit. And that Revit Suite includes not only Revit, but a 2-D Autocad and Architectural AutoCad much like the now obsolete ADT. But I would not call this a business discovery.
Avil Beckford: What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?
Jennifer Graham: The further development of BIM (Building Information Modeling).
Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?
Jennifer Graham:
- The economy and lack of understanding, want or need for what Architects and Designers bring to the table in terms of workplace environments. I am working with a global firm so my opportunities are greater as global businesses value this attribute.
- The organizations that do not value what service providers bring to the table are the ones who retain you and then try to cut your fees or do not pay. I work with a firm that provides a holistic service approach and a design led application to projects so that provides a unique approach which makes us different from our competition and also provides value to our clients so they have an entity that takes the risk and is the single point of responsibility.
- Lack of competition in our service delivery method. One needs competition to help provide validity to a unique approach. (As service providers are not commodities). Working for a firm that is more interested in where things are going versus where things have been.
Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?
Jennifer Graham: IPD (Integrated Project Delivery) approach in a US northeast consultancy market.
Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?
Jennifer Graham: I was laid off before Christmas 2008. I was instantly energized by the fact that poor economies provide opportunity, specifically for companies who are looking to take advantage and hire experienced professionals when others are laying off. I formed an organization called LMNOP (http://www.lmnopnyc.org) to provide affordable professional development opportunities and networking opportunities for architects and designers. I learned how to step back before rushing into my next endeavour, and to trust my instincts and have a restrained persistence.
Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.
Jennifer Graham: My big break was being born into my family – so my parents and family gave this to me.
Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?
Jennifer Graham: Getting a ‘D' in accounting in grad school. I learned I am not defined by study that I do not master well. And that although it dragged my GPA into the mud I could manage to do well enough after so that I was not dismissed from the program.
Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its re occurrence?
Jennifer Graham: That I am not taking the time for myself to keep fit. I need to work towards this. (And I have started as of this summer! I am swimming two to three times a week).
Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?
Jennifer Graham: Retrospectively it was the decision to leave Barbados at 18 and move to NY. The positive impact is my success and happiness today.
Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?
Jennifer Graham:
- Leaving Barbados
- Completing graduate school, MBA
- The birth of my children
Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?
Jennifer Graham: That I can take care of myself and my family.
Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?
Jennifer Graham: Throughout my entire career I have always been mentored. The first mentor that was significant to me was Robert Burling, the person who ran Total Concept, which was my first major, real job in the US, and I am still in contact with him. He basically adopted me as a mentee in a fast moving firm in the mid-eighties when I joined them right after school. I always found that he was very supportive to someone who was just starting out. I think I was 21 at the time and we just clicked as individuals and he is about 20 years older than I am.
He was very specific about guiding me away from design into project management for my tenure at Total Concept. The first project I was put on I was fortunate to win a design award, however I think it was the planets aligning. I don’t think of myself as an inspirational designer, or conceptual designer, but I’m a good implementer and I think he saw that forte in me and pushed me into the project management track and provided me with all the support I needed throughout. In those days, you were not looked upon highly if you wanted to use the computer, that was supposed to be for secretaries, and yet I got assigned a computer that I could use whenever I wanted and basically started to do all my documents at that time on Word Perfect and Lotus – that’s a long time ago. I found using a computer as a tool really speeded up communication.
While I was at Total Concept I got great projects and traveled with the team, and it was good for me. Burling was the first and longest mentor that I had, and was part of my career for seven years. When I went to business school I didn’t have a mentor per se. I was left to try to figure our how to get through it. I did it at night time over a period of three years. I worked during the days on projects that had been passed on to me when Total Concept closed its doors, so I had a client, and I also had a private client that had been recommended to me. I didn’t have time to focus on mentors because I was too busy trying to figure out to how to get through graduate school and pay the bills.
When I went to Orsini Design Associates, even though Susan Orsini was not the mentoring type, she was extremely knowledgeable and focused on being an ethical businesswoman. She was a tough woman but I felt I learned a lot working for her for 9½ years, although I do not think she would describe herself as a mentor to anyone. The knowledge she had I was certainly able to absorb it, so she would have been my close second mentor. So that’s professional mentors.
On a personal level I go back to family members. I have so many of them in so many areas and specialties and feel that I can pick brains at any time that I want and also get unconditional support.
Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?
Jennifer Graham: Make sure you are doing what you’re doing for your own satisfaction because you hold yourself to a high standard. And if you hold yourself to a higher standard, many times it will meet the expectation of others, and I think having the confidence to know that you can do that is not something that would come easy for someone young.
Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?
Jennifer Graham: Pursue happiness, but I think you have to start with your own personal circumstance and that will allow you to do well professionally. Ethics should be the highest standard that anyone should aim for. If you are ethical you will have the opportunity to influence people within the small circle in your profession..
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