More Than Just Making It Pretty: The Value of Strong Brand Aesthetics

In this episode of PGA's ‘Breaking the ICE’ video podcast, host Gordon Greene, PE is joined by Marketing Director Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM and Graphics Manager Ryan Tyrrell. They discuss the journey and evolution of PGA's marketing and branding strategies. The conversation digs into the unique path that led both Katie and Ryan into marketing for an engineering firm, the importance of marketing in the AEC industry, and the value of high-quality branding materials. They also highlight the growth of their team, the internal and external communication strategies they use, and the way they have leveraged social media and an award-winning website to support recruiting and business development. The episode showcases how PGA integrates its core values into its marketing efforts and continues to innovate and expand its reach.

Tune in to hear from:
Gordon Greene, PE | Co-Founder & Executive Vice President (Host): He’s the embodiment of a competitive spirit, and that motivation has powered his drive as an engineer, business owner, and civic volunteer for the past 25 years. He also loves talking to people about how these interests converge! Come join the conversation!

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM | Marketing Director: As Marketing Director at PGA, Katie Batill-Bigler has spent the past seven years growing and leading a team that's become central to the firm's marketing, communications, and creative strategy. What began as a group of three has grown into a 10-person powerhouse, expanding capabilities and deepening impact across the firm and for its clients. With a background in journalism, public relations, and environmental communications, Katie brings a strategic lens to pursuit planning and brand development — all aligned with PGA’s long-term growth goals. She’s also an active voice in the AEC industry, serving on the boards of SMPS, Engineering Florida, and ACEC, where she champions marketing leadership and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Ryan Tyrrell | Graphics Manager: Ryan joined PGA after making the jump from Upstate NY to Florida in 2020. With 15 years of creative experience under his belt, he kicked things off as PGA’s very first graphic designer and has been helping shape and grow the Creative Group ever since. Ryan's background spans from fast-paced advertising agency life to freelancing in the music industry, giving him a strong mix of versatility and creativity. He's passionate about delivering fresh, impactful design while maintaining a strong client-service mindset—whether it’s developing big-picture concepts or perfecting the finer details.

Check out behind the scenes footage and more moments at www.patelgreene.com/breaking-the-ice/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Introduction and Host Welcome

Gordon Greene, PE: Welcome to Breaking the Ice. We're Patel Greene and Associates, and we are here to tell stories about our three favorite things, business, culture, and engineering. Let's get to it.

All right, well, welcome back to the PGA Breaking the Ice podcast. I am the host, Gordon Greene, and tonight we have our marketing director, Katie Batill-Bigler, and our creative director Ryan 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Tyrrell. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Tyrrell, I really don't know. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: You had all these notes

Gordon Greene, PE: I have no idea why I just blanked on that.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It's a good start.

Gordon Greene, PE: Ironically, normally when I'm talking about it, 'cause we have like seven Ryan's here, I just go with Tyrrell, but for whatever reason, information left my brain. 

Journey into AEC Marketing

Gordon Greene, PE: All right, so this week's episode, or this month's episode, um, is really gonna focus on marketing and branding. So that's why we got Katie and Ryan here.

We're gonna talk a little bit [00:01:00] about the, um, the sort of the beginning and the growth of the marketing group, how PGA thinks and approaches marketing and branding, um, and where we're gonna go with that into the future. So maybe to start, uh, we'll get with, 'cause uh, marketing folks in the AEC industry, you don't typically go to school for that, so you kind of end up here one way or another.

So, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: exactly.

Gordon Greene, PE: Um, maybe if we can get a little background on how you guys ended up working marketing for an engineering firm.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Sure. Yeah. Well, you nailed it on the head. I think just about everybody I know in AEC marketing, you know, fell into this industry because you're right, they don't, they don't talk about it in school, which is really a bummer because it's, it's this niche industry that really opens up a ton of career opportunities for folks in marketing and communications and, and creative.

Um, so, you know, just as you said, I, I, you know, cliff notes version, [00:02:00] um, I have been a broadcast news producer, I was in advertising, um, I've got, you know, education and journalism and, and public relations, and, um, when I moved to Florida now almost 10 years ago, um, saw a job ad that was like marketing and advertising coordinator.

And I thought, oh, hey, I must know what that, that I can do that job. Um, little did I know it was in an engineering firm and at the time they were mostly interested in, um, having somebody help with proposals. And I said, well, sure I can do that but, um, only if you're gonna let me also like do your website and external branding and um, you know, uh, social media and a slew of other things.

And so that's how I kind of got into it. And three years after that I was, I was at PGA and kind of starting that whole, that whole process over again. And not long after that, I, uh, we, we met Ryan here. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. So, um, [00:03:00] kind of like Katie said, like, you know, they don't teach you about this in school. Um, this was not an industry that I ever thought that I would end up in now, that that's a bad thing.

But, um, you know, my background, prior to coming to PGA, was working in the advertising world. I worked for an agency up in New York. Um, prior to that I did a lot of freelance work with, like, in the music industry. And, um, I also worked for, you know, a bunch of random, uh, companies, like wholesale companies and stuff.

So anyway, point is I never thought that I would end up, it just kind of happened. Um, I moved to Florida on a whim. I kind of hung around for six months and was like, I wanna take a break and network. And then. Um, I just, I saw the job ad, I think on, I think it was on LinkedIn or Indeed. And I remember, and I had, uh, reached out and then Katie and I connected and it just so happened that we both, um, were from upstate.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Oh, that's right. Yeah. We're both from Syracuse. Yeah. And we'd worked at agencies that were like right down the street from each other.

Ryan Tyrrell: I know. That's so funny. So weird. [00:04:00] But yeah, it was just kind of funny how it just happened, just kind of fell into place. So, yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: And, and the timing of that. You know, we, of course when you start a PGA, um, you kind of do all that stuff on your own, you know, the marketing and the whatever graphics you can come up with.

Um, and we kind of had a little thing going. We had someone take over a business development role and we actually hired, um, proposal coordinator and we hired Shelby, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: hi Shelby,

Gordon Greene, PE: um, to, to help with some of that. And then that person left. And so, um. 

Building a Unified Brand

Gordon Greene, PE: It was a good opportunity to bring in, like, you know, someone with a real marketing background.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: And of course we ended up, um, with Katie, um, and, you know, we knew from the interview that that was gonna be a, a great fit. So you were able to come in and you had a, a little bit of a team started. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah, Devin and Shelby were here. 

Gordon Greene, PE: But then your, so we had, you know, uh, resources here to help crank proposals out. Of [00:05:00] course we were growing and that was, that was, we'd already identified that as a need.

You had too many proposals to just rely only on the engineers and 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Sure. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Whatever to get that stuff done. Um, so you identified as your first need? 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Someone with a graphics, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: graphics background. I remember in my interview I was like, I wanna be really clear, you know, that I am not a graphic designer.

Like, that is not my forte. Like I can, I can fudge it. If needed that I got maybe one. 

Ryan Tyrrell: You do a decent job. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: One, one option. You know, for any one design. I'm like, you want modifications on that? Tough. I got, I got no other idea. I got one idea for you. So, so I, yeah, I knew, I knew we wanted like especially, and I think it was about, um.

Year, maybe a year and, and few months when, when we pulled the trigger to start looking for a graphic designer. Um, and it was, it was a big deal. You know, there's, there's this really [00:06:00] important consideration when you're talking about, um, aesthetics, even in, in our industry, um, you know, as much as, especially in the public sector, you know, as, as.

S uh, standardized as, as scoring criteria are, you know, when it comes to pursuits, um, as, as stringent as guidelines are when it comes to delivering plan sets or whatever, you know, if you have the, a human, that's human nature to draw a, um, a parallel between the aesthetic of a deliverable and the caliber of the, of the work that you're delivering, you know, the technical, um, quality.

So if, if you have, you know, and this is again on the, especially on the marketing side, but like if you have two pursuits that, that are put in front of a client and may detail out the exact same approach, the same, um, levels of experience of, of the staff that are being proposed or whatever. If, if you have.[00:07:00] 

One that looks, eh. So, so, and you have one that's, that's really clean, that's easy to read, um, that, that takes you through the story that, you know, stands out, the, the, the most important pieces. I, 10 out of 10 times that one is going to convey a stronger, um. You know, consideration of the quality of the work.

So yeah, so, so that has always been at the forefront of my kind of consideration for, for, for aesthetics. And so, you know, a lot of times, well, and, and hopefully less so now, but, but it, it, it is not uncommon to hear somebody, somebody say, oh, you know, here's our marketing folks. They make things look pretty. And, you know, and it's kinda like, well, yeah, they do.

And you best be grateful for that because it goes a really long way in the, you know, in, in terms of, of the impact of, of the work that you're, that you're doing. So, so, yeah. Um, you know, when, when we [00:08:00] said, okay, it's time, and, and, and we found Ryan, and, and he was, he was awesome. I mean, that was, that was clear right off the bat.

Um. And I wanna, I wanna give him an opportunity to kinda talk about like, what that looked like for, for you when you came in and what you saw as terms of where we were at and, and how you envisioned going from there. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. So, um, when I first came in, there was no standard. It was just, you know, um, I mean, you guys had a logo.

Um, it was great. And, um, but

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: it's a great logo. 

Ryan Tyrrell: It's a great logo that's sacred ground. I have not touched that yet. 

Gordon Greene, PE: I appreciate that. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Um, but yeah, I mean, like, you know, there was a website and there were brochures and there were, was social media, but it didn't all connect like there was different colors being used, different fonts, different, like, it just, it all looked like it was like three different companies, you know?

Um, so that was one thing I identified right off the bat was like, we just need to unify everything. And part of that was developing the style guide. Um, and the style [00:09:00] guide is sort of the bible for the marketing group and also the company a whole, you know, for. Just defining like how we do things. Um, you know, setting things like color palette, typeface.

Um, even a huge portion of that is, um, a writing guide, like in our voice. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: And how we, you know, uh, deliver, um, you know, uh, content through our writing. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Ryan Tyrrell: But, um, you know, so that was step one. So like, let's develop the style guide and then from there we can build off of that. So then, you know, after that, um, one of the other big things was report templates.

So I know that like, big thing here was, um, delivering, you know, reports to clients. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Right. 

Ryan Tyrrell: And so like one of, I remember it was like one of my first big projects was de uh, developing report templates, uh, specifically for like the turnpike. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Our. Um, and those were all Microsoft Word based templates, which as a graphic designer, I hate Microsoft Word, but you know, I've learned to work with it a lot.

Gordon Greene, PE: Right. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Even in the past I had a lot of clients that wanted everything in Microsoft Word, 

Gordon Greene, PE: you can't train everybody in InDesign, unfortunately. 

Ryan Tyrrell: [00:10:00] Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately you can't. But you know, that'd be my dream. But it's so, um, so yeah, so I kind of started developing from there, and then I think like, kind of as people learned, like I was here and this is what I could do.

It just continued to spiral from there and just like, oh, we need this, we need that. And um, yeah, five years down the road there's been thousands of projects we've worked on. So, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: and you know, we didn't, we have, we brought some things I forgot about like to show sort of the progression of the, the PGA design, the aesthetic here.

So this was, this was pre Katie, pre Ryan. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And says 

Gordon Greene, PE: Zoom in on that. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: This is, I call this the highway to heaven, uh, layout. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Sort of like obituary. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: They're very imperial. They're glowing. It's, yeah. Um, so that was, that was, that was Gordon's D2. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yep. For the record. I did that and they're making fun of it in front of me.

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah, for, for those came from the original website, I think, right? Or,

Gordon Greene, PE: Well, I think that 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: that was a takeaway 

Gordon Greene, PE: that was some propaganda, [00:11:00] like some marketing material for District Two, but you're right, that's basically what our homepage of the website looked like. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: So we, you know, kinda copied that deal.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And then, oh, so then, so there's that. And then I came on, and then this was, this was actually, this piece was something that I was like, really, I wanna zoom in here. This piece was something I was really proud of because we, we created this, it had our ice core values, integrity, commitment, and excellence. Um, and what they, they mean on one side.

And then at the time it had our first five year strategic plan. Um, goals. And in our mission and our vision. Um, and what was really nifty about it was that we had, it's actually five layers of paper and you can't see it here. Um, and if you're listening to this podcast, um, just know it's, it's very 

Gordon Greene, PE: It's amazing.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Very snazzy, and it has these delicate layers of green and blue paper that make it this really fixed, sturdy piece. So everybody had one of these at their 

Gordon Greene, PE: It's a piece [00:12:00] of art. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. It's, it's, it's very nice. But, but the, admittedly, the design is, is somewhat simplified. So then, so, you know, years down the road, fast forward and Ryan has crafted all kinds of awesome things for us.

And one of the pieces we could find here in the Bartow office was, um, was this this folder that we use now for all of our new hires. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. It's got our, um, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Oh and I love, these treatments that we're doing. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Our, uh, not our, our ICE. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It's like our recruiting. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Slogan. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Slogan in here, it's got a business card holder, so when people start, they've got their business card set and they're ready in this folder, and then the bag, it has our, our ICE values.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. So these are actually very kind of comparable in terms of the message consistency throughout. I love this, this design that you see in the mid, in the inside that we've started, this element that we've started using with the street maps on so many things, um, for different areas of Florida that we, that we're doing work in.

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. We've started developing like [00:13:00] individual graphics so we can have more targeted visuals toward like, you know, deliverables for, for, you know, proposals for specific clients or specific regions and stuff like that. So we have a whole folder full of, uh, different roadmaps now. We try and incorporate through everything, um, on our website, folders, brochures, all that fun stuff.

So just small little elements like that that kind of, you know, add to the, the visual value of stuff, but also help create consistency across the board, which, to me, is like one of the, the most important things is like, you know, you can have something that looks really cool, but if it's not consistent, like if, you know, if you got a really cool brochure here and then a website that looks nothing like that at all, but it's still cool looking like you lose value in there.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: So 

Gordon Greene, PE: Is it my turn for show and tell? 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Go for it. 

Gordon Greene, PE: All right. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: What're you sharing? Oh yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: yeah. So this is gonna seem odd, but it's a trophy. It's gonna seem like some sort of brag, but it's not, I mean, it kind of is. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Humble brag. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Humble brag. All right, so this is a ping pong trophy [00:14:00] that I won. So coming up as a kid, and even as an adult, you play ping pong in the conference room or you mess around with your friends.

I'm usually the best one. So if I'm playing with just friends or other engineers, I'm, I'm a pretty good ping pong player, and so this is going somewhere. So I catch wind in Lakeland, which is here in Polk County, um, that they got like a, like a table tennis club. And I'm like, I wanna try that. And my son was getting into it.

We'll go try it. I'm not sure they'll be good enough. It might not even be fun. So we go and it's mostly old guys and I think, yeah, I was right. This is no fun. So we're messing around and the whole deal is you go around and you play little pickup games with these guys. And the first time I try any of them,

Any of them, I got absolutely destroyed. These people are like Olympic level table tennis [00:15:00] players and I realized I might be good compared to other engineers, but compared to real table tennis players and not even real table tennis players, just like hobby tennis, table tennis players. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: At Johnny, 

Gordon Greene, PE: I'm not that good.

So this trophy 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: recreational tennis 

Gordon Greene, PE: I'm not sure we can zoom in enough. This is from the uh, contender class. Which is their nice way of saying, you're gonna be with the old people and the children, and good luck. Uh, I, I was defeated well by people I shouldn't have been defeated. Young people. Old people, it doesn't matter.

But I got third place, so I got a trophy. The reason I bring that up, that's, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: I imagine, what is this? Like the first and the second? 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. They're about the same size, you know? That's, that's just the way it goes now. I was proud of that. Here's the reason I bring that up. Like I was pretty proud of this that Ryan showed.

And I would say compared to other engineers, I'm a pretty good graphic designer. We put together cool graphics and presentations before [00:16:00] Katie and Ryan started. Plenty to be proud of. But when I, when we hired Ryan and I saw what he could do, I could go, oh. That's what a real graphic designer is capable of.

I see. Now I'm just gonna go over here and I'm gonna let Ryan do his thing. And I realized, uh, there, you can mess around with this stuff and get decent at it, but you're never real. The real thing. You gotta have like natural born talent. And that's what Ryan has. And, um, we got the real deal and I've, I've loved it ever since we've hired Ryan.

What did I tell you Katie? 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Huh? I know. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Favorite. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Well, yeah, I know there was, yeah, there. This was a couple years ago, we do 360 reviews and I got, I got Gordon's input on, on Ryan, who just celebrated his five year anniversary with us. Woot woot. Um, and yeah, and I'm reading it and he is like, oh, Ryan's awesome. You know, he, he does all these great things.

I'm like, he's my favorite. I'm like, this is my boss. Wait a second, 

Gordon Greene, PE: Wait a minute. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: [00:17:00] And I'm thinking, well. 

Gordon Greene, PE: You hired him. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah, I'm good with it. I, I can't argue it. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Well, and here's the thing, like, here's how I knew, like, I would, we're not always so great at like, like explaining what we really want, but we go, I kind of want it to look like this and whatever.

And, and in the side you thinking, uh, it'll be something and then, you know, we'll go from there, right? And then, I mean, without fail, it comes back and it's like. I don't know how you read my mind. That's,

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: I didn't know that that's what I wanted 

Gordon Greene, PE: that is better 

than what I thought it would be. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Oh yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Like it happens all the time.

It's, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: we always joke that like my way of, of asking Ryan, it's more of like an like an interpretive dance of like, I'm looking this thing that makes you feel like this. And then he comes back. and then I'm like, yeah, yeah, that, 

Ryan Tyrrell: yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And I tried to do that with other people and it never, it never panned out as well.

And I'm like. Yes, it's gold. It's great. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. I, [00:18:00] I will say, um, that's one, one of the big challenges coming, you know, here and working in this industry is that, um, I'm not an engineer, right. And you're surrounded by engineers and try, I mean, the biggest hill for me to get over was like kind of learning the engineering world when I'm not an engineer, right?

And like, so trying to learn like the technical side of things to a certain degree, um, enough to be able to convey these concepts, accurately, um, that works for everything. I mean, both like proposals, uh, technical submittals, and then also for public involvement, public engagement work, and conveying that stuff to the public.

So, yeah. Um, you know, that's definitely been a challenge, but it's something that I've learned to work with and, you know, it's, I think so far it's true.

Gordon Greene, PE: I think you've doing okay. Really. I think you, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: and you learn so fast on it too, but it's, 

Ryan Tyrrell: yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It's, it's come a long way when I listen to you, like how you, how you work through like an assignment and like getting things prepped.

It's, it's really impressive now. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: I'm, you've [00:19:00] totally surpassed me. It's really great. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Well, thanks. I feel honored. 

Gordon Greene, PE: So one of the things that I get most often, uh, relating to our marketing is social media. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: I get compliments about it all the time. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: You guys are all over social media. You do such a great job.

I probably should relay that to y'all more often. Uh, but I'm doing it right now. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: No, it counts. And we hear, we do, we hear it from, from a lot of folks and they talking to clients and teaming partners, so that's great. 

Gordon Greene, PE: So what would you, what would you attribute that success like? Every, everybody's on social media, everybody's on LinkedIn, everybody's doing those things.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Why, why do you think we stand out against everyone else? 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Well, I'll tell you number one, when we, when PGA started, um, being pretty active on social media, um, everybody wasn't doing it in, in our industry. I mean, I think you'll agree, like engineering is kind of. We're a little behind the, the times of, you know, the rest of the world in a lot of ways, especially on the technology side.

And I think social media was, was part of that. So, [00:20:00] um, you know, I, we, we made it a conscious decision that's, that that was not gonna be an afterthought for us. And, and obviously we have served the public sector and the FDOT and cities and counties for so long and, you know, the way that we can reach those folks is.

Is somewhat, um, constrained compared to, you know, if, if we can't wine and dine clients and take, you know, box seats at, at lightning games or things like you could if you were just on the private sector. So, the most important thing for us is to, to maintain, um, a presence and, and stay in the forefront of folks' minds, teaming partners, clients.

Um, so, so social media was, was a really strategic thing for us and made sure that we. Had somebody on our team, um, Shelby, from the get-go, who was dedicating a good chunk of time to that and not just, not just pushing out any old thing, but, but really [00:21:00] being intentional about the type of content that we were putting out there.

Um, the way that, that we approach anything in terms of how we market PGA is, it's a very people-centric model. Um, we're very consistent about our brand voice. Mm-hmm. Who, who that is, um, what that is. And we have specific words in our style guide that, that dictate what that, you know, how that voice is going to convey and what that personality of PGA is.

Um. And then obviously the, the actual look, right? Like the look of of, of the, the, the posts and graphics that we do. And, and you can certainly speak to that. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. We've gone back and forth, I mean, I think we're probably on our like third or fourth iteration of like a whole, my team developed like a whole, um, collection of like, uh, social media templates that all have a consistent look and feel, but convey different types of messaging.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: You know, we have things from. [00:22:00] You know, anniversary posts to, um, you know, highlighting projects, um, highlighting new hires, um, things like that. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a lot of work to go back and forth and go tweak things because, you know, we don't think this looks as nice as this, or maybe it doesn't convey the messaging the same way or the way we need it to.

So, yeah, like we've put a lot of work and a lot of thought and effort into, you know, how we, how we display things. Through social media for sure. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. And, and I think, I mean, and on top of, on top of the, because like our goal is that you're going through a news, you know, you're scrolling on LinkedIn or, or Instagram and you want people to recognize a PGA post without seeing a logo.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Like it should be that look, that feel, um, that, that just. Somebody knows, you know, oh yeah, that's a PGA thing, and whether or not they actually read the content of the post, they're still a, there's [00:23:00] still an instant when they think PGA. You know, and then maybe that's a firm that's has a teaming meeting later that day, and I think, oh, who do we need to, to put on for drainage or traffic or, you know, or all of the above.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Wink, wink. Um, and, and they, you know, they think PGA because that's how, how we, we all do it, right? We sit in a room with, with the people who are gonna be involved in a, in a project or a contract, and we, and we go, all right, who, who can we think of? 

Gordon Greene, PE: They gotta know you exist. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. Um, so, so frequency is, is definitely a big part of it.

And the brand, you know, I always say the Apple is, is a great example of that, like. You, you, you hold a a from the packaging of a product to the product itself, to the store. Like you don't have to see the logo anywhere to know that something is an Apple product. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And so we kind of, um, strive for that same level of product recognition, um, and brand recognition.

Um, so yeah, so there's the frequency, there's the look. And then, um, we're certainly, [00:24:00] um, really intentional about the analytics, and, and looking at, you know, monitoring, analytics, what kind of content and posts are getting the most engagement? Shelby and Laura, who are behind the scenes manning our cameras right now because, because Ryan is in front of the, or in front of the camera.

Um, you know, they're our digital comms team now. We've, we've grown in that. Um, and they spend a ton of time figuring out, you know, what, not only just what we have to share with people, but what, what is gonna resonate with people and what's the value? Um, like what, what content we have that's gonna be valuable to, to our audiences, right?

So it's, it's not just, oh, we're doing this, or, you know, or, or, um, we won this project, or, you know, whatnot. It's, here are our people. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Here's what they're accomplishing, let's celebrate that, um, let's show you how they're working to improve [00:25:00] our communities. Um, so that's really, that's, that's really how we try to draw, drive our social media.

And like you said, I mean, I think it's really, um, it's grown so much. I remember when we got, Shelby probably remembers this, when we hit 1000 followers, that was like, Woohoo. And then. And now what are we over 3000? 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah, we're over 3000%. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Over 3000. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Wow. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: We're just going, keeps on going 

Gordon Greene, PE: Onto 10,000. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And beyond. So. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Well, I think, uh, that recognition, that acknowledgement of, um, how effective that is, it's not just in teaming like you're saying. It's, I think a big part's been in recruiting. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yes, that's a great point. 

Gordon Greene, PE: And that's 

because, uh, people get a sense of our culture through a lot of that. I mean, I, I think y'all are doing that intentionally.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Um. And it's palpable when it, when it comes through, people get a sense of what it's like to work at PGA because we do focus on the people and like we say around here a lot like the, the culture is the people. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: I [00:26:00] mean, you can't really have this culture with other people that buy in and, and feed into and make up that culture.

And it's also, I think, and, and we're gonna talk about, uh, website next, and it's gonna be the same story. It, it comes back to those core values like you have there, that excellence. Like if we're gonna do social media, we're gonna be the best. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: For sure 

Gordon Greene, PE: at social media, or that's what we're gonna be working towards anyway.

Um, and, and so that's, that's really, you know, what we've tried to do really in everything that we do to make sure that, that we are trying to do the best outta that we can be. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. And not, and, and that just means constantly evolving, right? 

Gordon Greene, PE: Right. And, and not just checking a box. Like we're not box checkers with anything where we go, well we have marketing group.

I guess we need to do social media. And the thing tells me I'm supposed to do, you know, one every week or something. I don't really wanna take too much time thinking about what I wanna do, so we'll just say happy, you know, apple pie day or you know, look that stuff [00:27:00] up and go, okay, well I, I, I put a post out, I guess I did my job.

Like, I remember the first time I saw one of those, I was like, of course you were way ahead of me. I didn't have to convince you. I was like, we will never 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: You brought that up in my interview. I remember that, you were like, I can't remember which one it was, but you were like. How do you feel about like National Popcorn Day or something like, is that something that you would post about?

And I was like, 

Gordon Greene, PE: Is that post worthy? 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And I was, and I would like, is this a, is, is this like a trick question? I was like, is he like really a like a pro? I a 

I, 

Gordon Greene, PE: few of questions like that, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: they like person and I'm like, I mean, it's your name on the door. What? But yeah, I think we've been, we, we, we definitely, we put a lot of thought into the content and I, and I think it's all, it's all really high quality and valuable.

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. Well, so there's no secret to being effective at it. It's just, it's just work. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It just, it's time. 

Gordon Greene, PE: It's just effort. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It's time 

Gordon Greene, PE: and care and [00:28:00] pride and going, if we're gonna do this, we are going to do it right. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And I think, and it's not, you know, I mean, our marketing team and our digital comms team is awesome at it, but it really does take the support of everybody at PGA, you know, all of the people that we feature, we're constantly relying on them to be sharing information with us.

Like as great as, as you know, and Shelby and Laura are, and as much as they know what's going on, um, there's stuff we miss, right? 'cause we got, we get, we're growing, we got so many things, you know? 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So, so many things going on. Um, so yeah, people. Are constantly sending us stuff, oh, we got this going on.

Hey this, 

Gordon Greene, PE: I'll get that sometime. Do you think they're willing to put this on social media? 

Managing Content and Creative Team Challenges

Gordon Greene, PE: I'm like, yeah, I'm sure they're always looking for ideas on content. Yes. Please get with Shelby. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah, and it's a good problem 'cause sometimes they we'll run through on Monday morning like you, everything we got for the week or for next following.

We're like, there are not enough days in the week. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: You know, 

Ryan Tyrrell: I know, there's a, there's a lot, a lot of content that goes out there and I don't know how those two [00:29:00] manage it, Shelby and Laura, because it's a lot, it's even on a lot on our end, just to develop the, the templates and the layout and stuff. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: On the creative team.

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah, on the creative team. So like just trying to manage. And also, you have to be organized, right? Because you've got this person telling you this and this person telling you this, and then trying to remember important dates to highlight and things like that. It's a lot. So I definitely give them kudos for being able to, you know, manage all of that.

So, yes. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah, we are, we are definitely known for it. 

Revamping the Company Website

Gordon Greene, PE: Alright, so let's move on, uh, to website. Um, really, yes, we redid a website and y'all, y'all can talk a little bit about how that went for y'all, but it's not really like social media. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Um, it's same idea, we wanted to be really good, but that was a whole different process.

That's, that's a different animal. I think we had by the time we did that, we moved on from the floating angel head website to some sort of Weebly thing that, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Don't say that word. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Don't say, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Don't say that word. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Don't say Weebly 

Every time that's mentioned, the old website pops back [00:30:00] up, that, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Remember, to like get that out of the cache across the border.

Gordon Greene, PE: Uh, well anyway, we did our best, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: The website that shall not be named, 

Gordon Greene, PE: and it was, you know, 

fairly clean and whatever, but it wasn't, you know, wasn't to the caliber we had, you know, brought everything else up to 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: So that was just, it was time and we did that and, and y'all did a really great job. But that, for that, but maybe talk through that process a little bit.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. I mean, that was like, um, as I, I think, well, firstly, I think just like how, how social media is an avenue to, to reach our, our team partners and clients because of the constraints of the public sector. I think you have to think about that on, on the website too, and how for a lot of engineering and firms and especially at that point, it wasn't a huge priority because you don't have, you know, clients, you, you don't have FDOT.

You know, transportation engineering firm like Bartow, Tampa, and then like, look at, oh, I'm gonna let [00:31:00] ask them to do the work. Um, so kind of it, it, it, it sat for a little bit. Um, and we knew, we, Ryan and I both knew we really wanted to tackle this. Um, and it was no small venture. And, and we went through, um, a really long vetting process.

Um, got somebody on board. 

Gordon Greene, PE: This is part of the story, definitely tell it. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Oh, okay. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Name, no name, name names. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Okay. Oh, no, I don't even remember their name. 

Ryan Tyrrell: I do, but I won't say it. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um, yeah. Well, we at end, this is a good origin story. I mean, yeah. So, so you had talked about our, our level of excellence that we demand on all things.

And, and this certainly held true for a website. And we had, we had a vision of what we wanted. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: We, and, and our goal, this was gonna be a recruiting tool above all else. Um, and to feature our people and our culture and, and to, again, when you're talking about aesthetics, like we wanted the, [00:32:00] the aesthetic.

Caliber of this site to resonate and, um, convey the caliber of the technical work that we do and the quality of our people. Um, so yeah, we had, we, we had worked and, and yeah. Built a deal, got a deal together with, with one, um, one, one agency 

Ryan Tyrrell: mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: To build the website. Um. We tried to convey all of that to them.

We got the first draft of a, of a design for the homepage back and it was less than, less than. Less than great. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Less than great. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Which is fine. Like whatever no big deal. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: You're right. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So, but um, realistically it looked like something that I could have done. Um, and, and so we, we, we tried to give them some good feedback coming back and, uh, they didn't like that, uh, they did not like the [00:33:00] feedback, 

Ryan Tyrrell: Do not like feedback.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So, 

and they got real offended. Really offended. And yeah, I've never, somebody, both of us coming from both served on the agency side and now we're on the client side, like have a certain expectation of what that relationship should look like. I can't imagine owning, owning a business and speaking to, to a client that way.

So we, uh, we cut that, those ties. 

Gordon Greene, PE: You're done 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Real quick. Yeah. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yep. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um, and fortunately, you know, and then we did, we did land on a local, um, agency or an Orlando based agency. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Orlando based agency. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Here. Um, and still, I mean, it was one of those things where just like anything, we had to work with them.

Gordon Greene, PE: We almost wore them out, but they were, they were good. They worked, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: They earned, they earned, uh, they earned their, their fee and, and we worked with them to get the design exactly what we wanted and to serve our purpose. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um. And yeah. Ryan, you, I mean, you drove that design. You wanna talk about like, what, and I [00:34:00] should, I should say this, our award-winning.

Ryan Tyrrell: Oh, award-winning, yes. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Website. Our, our Zweig first place, uh, website. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. So that was a, that was a big deal. Yeah. Um, nice to see. 'cause we put so much heart and soul and time and effort into that thing. I mean, it was a long project. But, uh, yeah, so like Katie had mentioned, we had a vision for what we wanted this website to be.

Uh, not just, you know, how it operates, but also how, how it looks and feels. Mm-hmm. And I'm all big about like user experience. Um, you know, and one thing we wanted to do was to tie the user experience and the look and feel of the website into. The look and feel of our offices. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: So that when you come to the website, it's like stepping into a PGA office.

Right. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: If you're a prospective employee, you're checking this out. You've got an interview the next day in the office. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah, yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: When you walk in there, you're like, oh yeah, this is, this is it. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: This is what I expected. 

Ryan Tyrrell: So, you know, for, for those who have not [00:35:00] been to a PGA office, it's very light and airy and, you know, lots of, lots of white space, which we've slowly 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: lots of waves.

Ryan Tyrrell: Waves, yeah. The waves. Um, but yeah, so, you know, we, we sort of, um, we wanted to convey that and so we sort of helped direct the design, um, with the agency. But they had a team that I think did a, a pretty good job and they were very open to feedback, which was great. So, um, so yeah, so we wanted to, um, um, tie that all in.

So there was a lot of work that went into, you know, thought and process of building the site. As I mentioned, it was a long project, so it finally got up, but it's a never ending project, right? Like, it's, it's always, you know, to your point about like excellence and like, it's always okay, how do we take excellence and step further, you know, so it's constantly being updated.

Another thing that, uh, Shelby and Laura are huge, uh, um, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Participants. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Participants, and thank you. Um, and so, um, but it's constantly, um, updating the [00:36:00] graphics and making sure that, you know, um, like on our homepage, slider, like we're conveying new and relevant information, like highlighting new offices that we've opened, um, you know, new staff that we've hired, new groups, service lines 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: mm-hmm.

Ryan Tyrrell: That we've started. Um, and then also, you know, there's lots of parts of the website, like individual pages that have things like blog posts and, um, um, you know, current events and things like that. So, you know, there's a lot of maintenance that comes with that as well but, um, but you know, I, I'm happy with the look and the feel and it's, we've maintained that pretty well.

'cause, you know, one thing, you know, working on the agency side, I used to see this all the time. We build what I thought was a really great looking website for somebody, and then they, the client, would go in and throw their own low quality graphics and photos and you're like, uh, I think they just ruined it.

So 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: None of that. None of that. And, and just like our, the social media approach, you know, this, it's a, it's a people centric like website. Like if you, if you check out [00:37:00] our website. You will know us. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yes. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: There are no stock photos on our website. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yes. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It is all us. And, um, I, you know, just like, we just like, we're doing this podcast like we, we do our own photography.

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: We, you know, we figure it out. We, we do it in house mm-hmm. And we learn and get better and better. Um, but all of that, it, it's our people, it's our work. And I think all of that is, is very well encompassed and packaged in, in that. And you get a true sense of, of who we are through the website. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Mm-hmm.

Gordon Greene, PE: Yep. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah, for sure. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah, that was definitely a big part of, before we started on any of that, we decided what's our primary audience and we decided, well, we want to grow. So it's, it's got to be recruiting. It's primary, you get a lot of information no matter who you're gonna, the website, but we really wanna draw people in.

Again, you get a sense of what it's like to work at PGA and, and people like it. And then maybe people thinking about applying for jobs. 

Future Growth and Strategic Planning

Gordon Greene, PE: All right, so we've covered a lot of ground. Uh, let's talk about kind of where we're at now. We've grown quite a [00:38:00] bit, and that includes the marketing group. So we've been able to really get into some specialization and, and build out the things that we as a company are able to put out, uh, through the marketing.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: So that's maybe, um, where we're at now. And then once we, you know, do that, maybe talk about even where we're gonna go 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Beyond 

Gordon Greene, PE: From here. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. So I think we kind of touched on this and if it was, if it wasn't super clear. So when we, uh, when I, when I came on board, uh, it was November, 2018. Um, so over six years ago, um, uh, Devin and and Shelby were here and, and they'd start, there was a little bit of social media, a little bit of pursuit support, um.

And then, so it was, it was the three of us for a while. We brought Ryan in, and then since then, um, we were really trying to be purposeful in, in how we grew in filling, filling different roles. Um, as [00:39:00] you know, a, a lot of that was, was pursuit capacity, right? Because as, as PGA continues to grow. We need to be able to feed those folks and, and, and then and get more to be able to continue to grow.

So obviously the pursuit demand was, was the biggest area. So we, we brought on, um, several more marketing coordinators and eventually, both, as those folks continue to develop and, and grow into, into marketing managers, and, and we brought in, um, some, some senior help too. Um, we also started being more intentional about the, the comms side.

So having, having. Digital comms as a specific thing. And now we're, we're, we're also, um, we have a dedicated comms team and, and, you know, looking at opportunities for external communication as well as, as well as the internal comms. Um, you know, like our newsletter, we're developing a new intranet. Um, a lot of different ways [00:40:00] that help support our culture at PGA, um, and making sure that everybody feels, you know.

Both included and tied into the same, you know, to one company. Um, and then we have our creative team. Mm-hmm. Um, and Ryan's grown that a good bit. You wanna talk about that? 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. So, um, obviously it start started with me and then we brought on, um, Rachel, who was, um, a really great hire because she's very multifaceted and she actually.

Um, has her master's degree in instructional design. And so we brought her on and, um, she started off as serving strictly a graphic design or role, and then we, she sort of transitioned out into an instructional designer, structural and multimedia design. So still a multifaceted role. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And she's video. She does a lot of video editing. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Video editing.

Um, graphics, but she also 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: She'll be editing this. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah, she'll be adding this probably she doesn't know that yet, but, um, but uh, she's also now building out our, uh, the PGA LMS, which is our learning [00:41:00] management, uh, system. And she's, uh, developing trainings, you know, for, for the company, for discipline specific trainings, HR related trainings.

Um, you know, she's got a very long list that she's working on. But, um, so we, uh, we brought her on and then we brought on, um, Elise as an additional graphic designer. There's so much opportunity. I mean, no matter how big we grow, there's always still more a demand for 

Gordon Greene, PE: mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: For graphics and things. So, um, you know.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And you do a lot of billable work too. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: You support a lot of our projects, um, develop you, you know, like whether it's a, a master plan document or, or renderings or safety, uh, videos for the 

Ryan Tyrrell: Safety videos, yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: For, for, for the, uh, district safety offices. Um, yeah. So we're, so we're 11 strong now across the whole marketing group.

Um, I think it's, so the, the industry average that I've been able to find documented [00:42:00] is something around 3% of, of a, of a company's, um, employee roster is, is comprised of, of marketing folks. Um, you will also find that in a lot of those, those companies where there's just 3% of marketing, that those are very burnt out individuals.

Gordon Greene, PE: Correct. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um, so. I have found that a, about a 6%, um, proportion to, to the company is, is pretty good. Um, and obviously there's ebb and flow and sometimes we have to stretch, uh, to 

Gordon Greene, PE: Right 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: To, to handle capacity when things get crazy, because things get crazy. Right. Um, it's what we signed on for, but. It's allowed us to not only handle the day to day, but be able to grow and expand and explore and, and do fun things that we wouldn't have had, you know, [00:43:00] and, and, and credit to, to Gordon and Hiren, and, you know, PGA leadership that there've been so many times where I'm, where I'm like, so I was thinking about doing this thing and like, what do you think we're doing this thing and it's totally off the cuff or random.

Then they're like, yeah, let's try it out. Um, you know, like our holiday videos. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Oh, that's fun. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um, yeah. With all the kids from all of our, of our employees. Um, so I, you know, I, I, I think that it's so important for a company to, for, for an AEC firm to understand the investment, um, the worthwhile investment in, in the marketing group and what you can get out of that.

Um, it's, it's. It more than just proposals and 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. You know, it's important to stand out, I think in, in those things everybody can get excited about. Well, I guess we've gotta do some sort of holiday something or another, or we've gotta, again, people just, I think too often just check the box to go, well, we've got a [00:44:00] marketing group, I guess we have to do these things.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: But I'm really not really that excited about it, so we'll do it. And it's a to, you might as well have not done anything. It's a total waste of time. It's lost in the sea of everybody else doing something mediocre. So when you stand out, you, you actually get the value out of it. So we're always striving to, to do a holiday video, bring people's kids in, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: An award winning holiday video.

Ryan Tyrrell: Oh, yes. 

Gordon Greene, PE: And we have a lot of fun doing it. We, yeah, we, we actually enjoy spending time with each other. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Most of it. Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Well, the time it's fun for us participating. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: What was that? I saw a meme earlier I shared with the group, it was a, it was a picture of a flag that it said like, we did this because 

Ryan Tyrrell: We do it, but not because 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: I'm gonna ruin this.

This is awkward. 'Cause we're 

Ryan Tyrrell: Not, because we love it. We do it because it not be easy. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: No, we, we do it not because, or not because it was easy, but because we thought it would be easy. 

Ryan Tyrrell: We thought it would be easy. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: And that's what we thought about the holiday video at first. And, uh, the, but again, it, [00:45:00] it takes work and you invest in it.

I mean, coordinating gosh, what, like 20, 20 kids between the ages of like six months and, and 18 and, and you know, get 'em all to be stand where you want and say the, the thing you want and 

Ryan Tyrrell: One room at one, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Put it all together into a two minute video. That is no small feat. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yes. 

Ryan Tyrrell: But we get the recognition for it.

People love our holiday videos. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: It's become a thing. 

I love it. I love it. 

Gordon Greene, PE: You gotta one up yourselves every year. Good luck. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. I don't know. I still don't know how that's gonna happen. We gotta be, gotta get really creative for that. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. We'll make it, we'll make it work. Um, 

Gordon Greene, PE: So what's ahead? So we, we got a pretty good, you know, uh, marketing was one of the areas.

It's part of our current strategic plan. It's about 2024 was certainly the case. It's about building out more of that infrastructure, so, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: You know, we're probably gonna have like a, uh, an episode with Kaitlyn here where we'll talk about all the HR stuff that we built out. You, you talked about LMS [00:46:00] and some of those things.

That was a big part of it, but also just building out that marketing team. I think we hired quite a few folks in the marketing group in 2024, or at least like maybe late 2023, whatever it was, it was quite a few. Yeah, just so like everything's in place so that as we continue to grow, we're not, we're not scrambling, we're not trying to catch up.

You know, we've got processes and we, we've got the team in place and, and the organization, which is what you were able to accomplish, um, uh, in large part in 2024. So now here we are. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: And we're running. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Absolutely. Well have you, I, I don't know if in the, um, podcast so far, have you talked at all about like our.

The 300 person org chart or beyond and beyond. 

Gordon Greene, PE: We haven't got much into that. That's a, that's a good idea. Someone write that down.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Well just, uh, 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Really, really high level. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So you've got this, this concept for how we're gonna grow into a 300 person firm and what are the, like you said, what are the, the [00:47:00] slots that we need to fill from an infrastructure standpoint to, to, to support us in that growth?

And so every discipline, every group, including marketing, has done this. Um, and so main keeping that kind of 6%, you know, thought in mind, I, I built out, um, you know, an initial map of, of where I'm, I'm hoping that we can grow and, and that that includes, you know, broadening the pursuit, the pursuit team across our offices.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So that, you know, it's really important to me that our staff, um, whether they're in Fort Lauderdale or Tallahassee, or, or Bartow or, or beyond Florida. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Knoxville. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Huh? 

Gordon Greene, PE: Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Okay. I wasn't, yeah, Knoxville, Tennessee. I see you. Um, but that, that they all feel like marketing is right there.

Supporting them and that, you know, they've got people one-on-one to help them through the, through the pursuit process. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Right. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um, but, but even, and, and making sure we're, we're, we've got that full [00:48:00] ladder stacked at all levels. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So that all those different areas of responsibility are covered. Um, and then, you know, expanding out on our other 

Gordon Greene, PE: areas can scale.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: There's an amazing there's so many things on the comm side that I want us to do. You'll be hearing more from us. Um, but, you know, I'm, I'm building that up. And then on the graphic side too. Um, I know, 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: A creative side. I know we've talked a lot about where we wanna go there. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. I think video, video is the big thing 'cause there's such a demand for them.

And we do a lot of video work on our, on our own as is. But you know, none of us are award-winning videographers. And I definitely think there's opportunity there to step that up a little bit. So I think that'll probably be our next hire would be like a videographer, dedicated videographer, you know, um, probably someone who understands, you know, some still photography too and stuff.

But, uh, yeah, there's just, I mean, there's such a demand for video, whether it's social media or through our website or, you know, just like the holiday video, um, you different email campaigns we sent out 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Projects, getting 

Ryan Tyrrell: Projects 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Being on [00:49:00] projects highlighting. Construction and then as-built and yeah. Get the drone footage going, 

Ryan Tyrrell: Getting, getting the drone out there, which we've, we've started doing, you know, we have a, a good amount of, uh, staff that are drone certified here.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Um, so, uh, you know, our plan, game plan is just to slowly start building up that library of, you know, drone, uh, footage of highlighting all our projects. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Exactly. 

Ryan Tyrrell: So we can use that to put together some really cool videos that showcase the great work, you know, that we do here. Um, you know, and find some other uses for that as well.

But, um, yeah, I think, I mean, you know, video's then is just, there's such a demand for it. It's just so much more you can do with video versus just like a static, like graphic, you know? So, and you can really tell stories through that. So that's what I think we really, really want to do. Um, you know, with the next step of growing the creative team.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Well, and I just, I mean, just in step with how, how, you know, the trajectory of how we've been going, five years ago, six years ago, I never would've, you know, it's hard to imagine what we looked like right when we're a team of [00:50:00] 11 for a, for a company of 160 plus folks. And, um, I think what's really cool is all of the areas that we don't even know yet.

Gordon Greene, PE: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: What are gonna be possible for ways that we can support PGA. Mm-hmm. You know, from. Um, from a, from, from a winning work perspective, from a, from a brand recognition perspective, from a recruiting's perspective and an internal relations perspective, and, and just having the, the ability, um, and, and the drive to explore all those different ways that we can continue to, to.

Elevate the company, elevate our staff and, and, and our clients as well. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So I'm really excited to see what the future holds. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Same here. Um, I know ever since we brought you on, I know that, that I can still remember a lot of the interview where I had this whole list of questions. Uh, 'cause we'd had a couple interviews before then and I wasn't getting all the answers I was really looking for.

Um, but you answered all my questions just like I wanted, and [00:51:00] you even brought some things up on your own. So I was like, okay, this is, this is gonna work. Um, because I think you got a sense of like, how seriously, like I took it. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Um, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: I could tell that from, from the job 

Gordon Greene, PE: and I think you kind of responded to that.

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: You knew that, that I was gonna, I think, support you and, and you know, we, we can and have had multiple like really great conversations. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Yeah. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Like think through these things where, um, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: With different perspectives on it too. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah, absolutely. Um, but you know, we both take it seriously. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Mm-hmm. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Uh, and I think that that really works great.

But, um, from then, from I mean, from the get go, I've always had such a trust in, you know, you to, um, to to pursue all those things and deliver those things. And of course, you've built up a team. Ryan's a great example, you know, having Laura and Shelby here, like everyone on the team, it is of course feeds off of, you know, the two of you and, and the rest of the team y'all, you've built.

Sort of microculture, even within [00:52:00] PGA, um, that, that feeds that. So it is a, like I told you before, it's a huge relief for me. I don't have to be like driving you all to like care more. And I fear that, that sometimes that happens at other firms where, um, it's just a job and, you know, I guess I gotta do these things and, and you know, just kind of get the job done.

Like you guys are always pushing. To, you know, get better and better and better and 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Well, I think it's because we understand, we, we see that there's, that there's an appreciation 

Ryan Tyrrell: mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: For the work that's, that we bring forward. Um, and that, that, I think that that's a, it's the standard that's set across the company.

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Um. And, and I, I know that I've talked to folks, especially at PMs, who we work with on pursuits and stuff who come in from other firms and they're kind of blown away, um, by the level of support that they get from, from our marketing team that it's a completely different level from what they, they're they've, they're used to.

[00:53:00] Um, and that, and they're just, oh, yeah. Wow. Okay. Like, I get it and yeah, I, I love it. That makes my day. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yeah. That makes me day. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: So, 

Ryan Tyrrell: yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it's always, um, I feel like we're always looking for new ways that we can support, you know, our PMs and other technical staff and stuff too. So, you know, um, obviously that's, that's what we're here for.

We're marketing is here to support the rest of the team, the rest of the company. So, 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: yeah, PGA is our client. That's what I always tell the team. 

Ryan Tyrrell: Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we treat it like we're an agency, you guys are the client and we are here to serve you and whatever, you know, whatever's needed. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Know you've got lifelong contracts, so sorry.

Alright, well I really appreciate the time y'all coming and talking through this stuff with me. Um, it was a lot of fun, uh, and I really look forward to the future. 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Thanks. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Everything we're gonna 

Katie Batill-Bigler, CPSM: Bye everyone. Oh yeah, we're doing do PGA. Wow. 

Gordon Greene, PE: We haven't done it right yet, so Yeah, we can try it yet. All right, so we're gonna see how this [00:54:00] goes.

Uh, we end this way a lot, so we're on the count of three. We're gonna do it so we can get it right this time. Alright. 1, 2, 3, Go PGA. Hey, we did it. 

Ryan Tyrrell: That was the first time. 

Gordon Greene, PE: Yeah.