SWA Group climbs to greener heights - San Francisco Business Times:

http://www.dirpros.com/authors/author-515.html
Yet as the employee-owned landscape architecture and urbab design firm hasexpanded internationally, it is watchin g the growth’s impact on an open culturer that has been key to SWA’xs success. The firm this summe named Kevin Shanley of the Houston office as chiefvexecutive — the first CEO in SWA’s 51 yearss who is not based in Sausalitpo or San Francisco — and it has opened three new offices in the past five years. “We had a concepf from the beginning ofminimizing hierarchy,” said Bill a 40-year veteran of the firm who moved from the CEO post to chairmanj this summer.
“If you get around 40 (peopler in an office), you need middle Then it’s half art, half business. It’d not a studio after When deciding who to add as a for example, the current principals don’t put the mattefr to the vote; instead, they come to a And the San Francisco branch, for one, downplayw walled-off offices, preferring open space in which the five principalsd work alongside associates. In all, SWA has 30 principalxs among its 190employees — twic as many principals as most firms. “The next generation’w bought into it,” Callaway said.
That is, in tied to the firm’s employee stock ownership one of the first on the West Coast when it startedin 1974. said René Bihan, managing principal of the SanFrancisco it’s because young additions to the firm are pairede with veterans. That’s helped keep turnover in the ranges of 15 percent to20 percent, compared with an industryg average of 23 percent. Along the way, SWA has turnee in solid, award-winning work.
The firm handled masted planning for the huge Shenzhen Bay projectin China, whichn restored native vegetation to a tramplede ecosystem while mixing in transit and pedestrian it oversaw landscape architecture and urban designj for Beijing Finance Street, an 18-block redevelopment in the hearf of the financial district of China’s capital; and it’d worked on local projects like Foundry Square and the “green atop the new . SWA is working on actived projects in more than25 countries, and the firm opened an officd in Shanghai, China, in 2003.
It’ a good time to be in the green Developers — swallowing the “green is mantra — generally believe that the greening of theirr projects makes it easier to win But that’s not always the case. “There’s sustainability, but there’ws also real estate values,” Bihaj said. “It’s all about figuring out the best use of the SWAbooked $32 million in revenue for the year endeed June 30, double its revenue for fiscalo 2004.
It is the second-largest landscape architecture firm in the United States, in addition to land planningg and landscape-based urban About two-thirds of that growth has come from overseaws projects, primarily China and the Middl East. As the firm picks up more work technology has helped bridgethe geographies, said principall Corazon Unana, who started at the firm 18 years ago. At the same that puts designers on call 24 hoursa day. For she said, a client in Indiza may need someone for what is a morning conferenced call there but nighttime in theBay Area. At the growth creates more openings for new talent and to promote othersz toprincipal slots.
As the Sausalito office — the firm’s administrativs base as well as astudik — hit the critical 40-person limit, for it spun off offices in Los Angeles three years ago and San Franciscio five years ago. That allowex associates to move up the rankxin Sausalito, Bihan said, as othere principals opened the new offices. “You mold what you can be in this Unana said.