SMPS Seattle members gathered on May 21 at SoDo Park to celebrate excellence in marketing and outstanding achievements of our regional A/E/C marketing professionals.

To honor Seattle’s role as one of the 16 host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, this year’s emcees, Anna Glidden and Zoey Zemanek (both from the Marketing Department), donned referee attire and officiated the spirited event.

The annual event recognizes excellence in marketing communications and outstanding achievements of top marketing professionals. Communications awards were given to A/E/C firms whose materials and campaigns most compellingly achieved their marketing goals. Individual merit awards celebrated outstanding achievements within our industries, honoring exceptional individuals in categories, such as Rising Star, Marketing Advocate, Marketer of the Year, and the Andy Zinsmeyer Member of the Year.

SMPS Seattle is especially grateful to our event sponsors: UMC (Beverage Sponsor); Hansen Belyea (Dessert Sponsor); Manson, Middle of Six, and Transpo Group (Photobooth Sponsors); and 12Points, Mountains Out, Owen Weitzel, and Zera Photo (In-Kind Sponsors).

Project Awards

SMPS Seattle is grateful to our Project Awards judges: Julie Martinez (The Miller Hull Partnership), Luis Martinez (Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty Company), Melissa Qezada-Barker (WSP), Rusty George (Rusty George), and Sarah Katsikas (Altura).

Best Marketing Campaign

Design West Engineering: “Amped Up for 25 Years: Design West Engineering Anniversary Campaign”

Design West Engineering’s 25th anniversary campaign sent a clear message that the firm is fun to work with, and that it is serious about delivering exceptional client experience. By rolling out the “DWE orange carpet” for clients and their team, Design West showcased its evolution from an emerging firm into a regional leader.

Best Digital Media Campaign

Manson Construction Company: “Tradesman Month”

The Manson Construction Tradesmen Month campaign was designed to spotlight the skilled men and women who build, maintain, and protect America’s marine infrastructure. At the heart of the campaign was a flagship tribute video featuring operators, piledrivers, drag tenders, levermen, carpenters, deckhands, boatmen, and more — highlighting how their expertise keeps waterways open, safe, and functional.

Best Brand Experience & Identity

Middle of Six: “Earth Solutions NW Rebrand”

Following a successful leadership transition, Earth Solutions NW partnered with Middle of Six to refresh an outdated brand identity, logo, and website — and reimagine the company’s presentation. The project grew to encompass an entirely new brand, including logo, color usage, typography, taglines and brand
messaging, website design, photography, business cards, letterhead, and bespoke brand personality elements.

Best One-Time Marketing Piece

UMC: “Partnering for Progress: Overlake Medical Center’s Path to Energy Efficiency Case Study Video”

UMC produced a case study video to demonstrate how it helps healthcare organizations comply with Washington’s Clean Buildings Performance Standards while maintaining uninterrupted patient care. The primary objective was to translate a complex, technical project into a clear and engaging story, illustrating
how UMC helps hospitals meet energy requirements, while improving overall building performance.

Best Marketing Collateral

Hermanson Company: “Building the Beehive”

The primary objective of this pursuit was to secure the UW Welcome Center project through a clear, compelling proposal that reflected the project’s purpose and the strength of its integrated Design-Build team. Inspired by a quote from Paul Rucker, University of Washington’s Vice President for Alumni and
Stakeholder Engagement who likened the Welcome Center to a “beehive for community activity,” Hermanson’s marketing team developed a unifying beehive theme centered on collaboration, shared responsibility, and mutual success.

Best Website

Seattle Design Festival: “A New Website for Seattle Design Festival”

In collaboration with People People, the Seattle Design Festival developed a website that embodied its brand and ideals, while also serving as an informative, action-oriented hub for the community. The website engages visitors, shares the Festival’s mission and history, drives event attendance, and empowers the
community, resulting in 71% increased engagement with the site and 80% more time on individual program pages.

Best Event

Hermanson Company: “Innovate & Elevate: A Deep Dive into the Data Center Ecosystem”

The goal of Hermanson Company’s event was to strengthen relationships with senior leaders in the mission-critical and A/E/C space and to reinforce Hermanson’s role in the data center market. The event created a conversation-focused experience that encouraged open, peer level dialogue among owners, engineers, developers, and emerging technology leaders in an environment intentionally removed from sales pressure.

Small Business Award

Furtado: “It Starts with a Point”

Furtado’s campaign aimed to reposition surveying as a highly technical STEM-driven profession, while also demonstrating its real-world impact, from individual homes to regional infrastructure. The campaign humanizes STEM professions by spotlighting Furtado’s staff, emphasizing the demand for
surveyors, and increased visibility among key audiences comprising clients, teaming partners, and future hires.

Judges Choice Award

DCI Engineers: “DCI Core Values”

In 2024, DCI's Marketing and Corporate Management Team went through an internal brand audit to identify value words that best represented the firm's attributes — providing a "north star" for strategy, decision making, and overall directional guidance for staying true to the organization. DCI intentionally
selected experiential activities to support stronger recall, interpretation, and peer-to-peer discussion. Marketing worked closely with the CEO to create activities to provide personal meaning to those words, while creating opportunities for interpretation and engagement.

People’s Choice Award

Transpo Group: “50th Anniversary Throwback Campaign”

President's Awards

Chosen by the chapter president, this year’s recipients show exceptional commitment, initiative, and collaboration to their committees and across SMPS Seattle.

President’s Award (DEI)

Kenani Brandon (Charter Construction)

For facilitation with a human touch.

President’s Award (Education)

Jasmyn Flores (Johnston Architects)

For unwavering commitment to learning and growth.

President’s Award (Marketing)

Jonathan Manfredonia (Hermanson Company)

For expanding our reach and visibility.

President’s Award (Professional Development)

Nolan Wilds, CPSM (Sellen Construction)

For proactive, cross-disciplinary support.

President’s Award (Special Events)

Grace Takehara (Middle of Six)

For creative problem-solving and innovation.

President’s Award (Treasurer)

Emily Brandesky (Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates)

For precision, consistency, and trusted support.

President’s Award (SMPS Board)

Kayla Snider (FORMA Construction)

For impactful leadership and Board collaboration.

Merit Awards

SMPS Seattle is grateful to our Merit Award Judges: Angela Wild (President, SMPS Inland Empire), Beth Schwartz (Programs Committee, SMPS Las Vegas), Hoʻāno Au (President, SMPS Hawai’i), Marcella Garofalo (President, SMPS San Diego), Marilynn Stratton, CPSM (President, SMPS San Francisco Bay Area), and Steven V. Gallo, MAMC (President, SMPS North Florida).

Andy Zinsmeyer Member of the Year

Katie Berry, CPSM (HNTB)

In honor of the first SMPS member, Andy Zinsmeyer, this award is presented to an SMPS member who has been actively involved in SMPS Seattle and committed to our chapter’s growth and success over the past year.

BD/Communications/Marketer of the Year

Hannah Ratzke (Lochner)

This award is presented to an SMPS member who has demonstrated outstanding marketing efforts and leadership in the A/E/C industries during the past year.

Marketing Advocate of the Year

Steve Brooks (UMC)

The Marketing Advocate award honors a stellar supporter of marketing efforts who does not specifically work in marketing. This individual is committed to furthering and encouraging marketing efforts on a daily basis and goes the extra mile to understand the mission and efforts of marketing.

Rising Star

Mckenzie Dalley (FSi Engineers)

This award is presented to an individual who has been an SMPS Seattle member for up to two years, has made positive contributions to our chapter’s growth, and has shown personal growth and development.

Event photos by Zera Photo | https://www.zeraphoto.com/

SMPS Seattle expresses our gratitude to all our sponsors for leading us to another successful annual pledge drive! Thanks to you, we have exceeded our goal and raised $28,750! Your contributions will enable SMPS Seattle, one of the largest SMPS chapters in the nation, to continue delivering value-driven educational and networking resources. As we gear up to host the Pacific Regional Conferences, SMPS Seattle can stand proud in furthering our commitment to SMPS’s mission to advocate for, educate, and connect leaders in the building industry.

We began this term with the theme of advocacy, which is more than a word. It is a commitment with a foundation in reciprocity and trust. Our chapter repays our sponsors’ support and trust in our mission and work by elevating their businesses and by offering valuable benefits to both the firms and their staff.

I want to personally thank Grace Takehara, our Sponsorship Chair, and the entire Board of Directors who dedicated their precious time during one of the busiest periods for marketers and business developers, to help us achieve our fundraising goal.

Finally, I want to thank the following firms and businesses for sponsoring us in 2026. We have a number of firsts this year, and to celebrate our first-time sponsors, we have highlighted them with a * by their name.

Platinum

Gold

Silver

Bronze

Community Allies

In-Kind

James Malloy Harmon, PhD, CPSM
President, SMPS Seattle

This is part three of a four-part series meant to provide an implementable approach to transforming your firm’s business with data-informed decision making. In part three, we look into what kind of talent you may need on your team to establish a strong data-driven culture.

The truth about any team is that each member has differing yet complimentary roles, responsibilities, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Your organization’s team for implementing a data-informed decision-making culture is no different.

If you find yourself in the role of launching data visualization, you’ll need to consider various real-world factors like a firm’s varying types of data consumers, the openness to using enterprise data, and the challenge of getting buy-in and cost approvals from IT for software subscriptions and security protocols. By my count, I’ve found 10 key roles are needed once you line up the talents and interests of people at an actual firm.

The secret to finding or recruiting your data team is recognizing that every single employee at your firm is already fulfilling the most common role: data editor. By filling in their time sheet, each employee creates a meaningful and valuable record of what they and their leaders consider important.

Everything that follows the daily-aggregated data entry is arguably an objectively logical data flow that allows leaders to ultimately get enhanced value out of foundational and verifiable truths about your firm’s priorities and performance.

Having that refined ‘truth’ then allows leaders to make bold, confident, impactful, and well-informed decisions based on the analysis of their own firm’s operational data. A functional data refinement program is akin to maintaining or improving your car’s performance through routine check-ups and diagnostics.

Here’s my real-world adaptation of the data roles needed to implement a data-informed decision-making culture.

Depending on your situation, multiple people can serve in one role, or just one person can serve in multiple roles.

Another key view of the roles is to understand who is accountable for justifying and building the team and system, and who is accountable for using the products (tools) of the team and system to bring value to the firm and its clients – allowing increased relevance, predictability, reliability, and performance.

However, be forewarned:

·       To attempt to justify and build the team and system capable of delivering decision-informing data without the data consumer demand to use the products is an absolute waste of talent and resources.

·       To attempt to get decision-informing value out of data without justifying and building a data team and system to deliver the products is an absolute delusional fantasy.

·       Both supply-side and demand-side forces are required simultaneously, even before the system is functioning and before the products are ready for use: people have to want the future, knowing it takes time and effort to get there.

Look at the top two rows. If you don’t already have every employee entering time and other business information into a database and someone doing even a cursory review of the data – especially timesheet data – your firm is an extreme anomaly.

Chances are that you do have those two things, which are the foundational organizational functions and skills needed to proceed to add on the additional team members and skills that allow professional data refinement for the benefit of your organization.

It’s also important to recognize that one person probably plays multiple roles: your Data Whisperer is definitely a Timesheet User and is likely a Treasure Hunter.

When all else is considered, to have a data refinement team, and to move your firm toward a data culture; you’ll need one thing first, last, and always: a belief that there is not just business value to it, but a recognition that refined data is as critical as oxygen in our data-driven economic reality.

The hardest part of all is this common catch 22 situation:

·       An organization can and will commit to such an undertaking only once they believe there is a value and need for a data refinement team and system.

·       An organization will only believe after they have verifiable evidence of the value of and need for a data team refinement and system.

·       The organization will only have verifiable evidence after the data refinement team and system is in place, validating its existence before it exists.

The crux is convincing organization decision makers that advanced refinement of the firms’ own data is likely the most valuable asset a firm can own as we step into the second quarter of the 21^st century.

It’s just like the title words of Courtney Kearney and Chaz Ross-Munro’s seminal book: “CRM or DIE.”

If you’re interested in learning more about data visualization and its link to A/E/C business culture, consider visiting The Data Underground SMPS Roundtable.

Also, watch for the fourth article, all about going through the long, hard expedition of taking your visualization product from idea to an in-use and in-demand source of decision-driving information for your operational leaders. Learn about the eight daunting challenges you will encounter: not wanted, not needed, not affordable, not enough time, not urgent, no trust, no commitment, and no follow-through. If you make it, only then will the idea become a reality.

>>>>> 

After an early career in US Army Intelligence and a time teaching English composition and rhetoric, Josh Grenzsund has been part of A/E/C marketing and business development since 2007. He co-facilitates The Data Underground roundtable for SMPS Seattle; a space for Puget Sound marketing professionals to meet at the intersection of career development and data-driven business.

by James Harmon, CPSM, SMPS Seattle Chapter President

We are at the very height of the ‘Ber Months — that time of year when all the months end in -ber. The days grow shorter, temperatures drop, and we break out our puffy jackets, shivering and saying, “Brr.” It is a time of celebration, feasting, and gift giving. So it is appropriate that we launch our annual sponsor drive this time of year as well. 

Fostering a culture of advocacy

Every year, our chapter selects a theme to focus our efforts. This year, our theme is advocacy, symbolized through the salmon, a figure of wisdom, renewal, and care across cultures. Salmon embody advocacy by dedicating their lives to creating safe upstream spaces for the next generation, while sustaining entire ecosystems as a cornerstone species. The fact that salmon are everywhere, from the Pike Place Market to wayfinding signs at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, makes them practically a symbol of the Puget Sound Region!

This spirit of advocacy has been alive and well at our chapter, helping us to thrive for over four decades. Last year, thanks to the advocacy of our 100+ volunteers and 29 sponsors, we achieved:

We encourage you to serve as advocates of SMPS Seattle. Sponsorship enables us to deliver incredible events and programs each year to grow our members’ skills, expand networks, and strengthen their firms. Your sponsorship gives members the education and resources they need to help their firms thrive. Our 2026 goal is to raise $25,000, directly funding chapter programming throughout the year.

Introducing new sponsor benefits!

SMPS Seattle is offering new, enhanced benefits to our sponsors:

These updates strengthen the partnership between our sponsors and members while maximizing your visibility and benefits. This is how we build a culture of advocacy that is genuinely reciprocal.

Becoming a sponsor

Join us in 2026 by renewing your pledge — or becoming a new supporter — between now and Friday, December 19, 2025. Learn more about our 2026 sponsorship opportunities and next steps via SMPS Seattle’s sponsor webpage. Our online portal makes it easy to pledge first and pay later.

Questions or need more time? Contact me at jharmon@hntb.com.

Connection, Design, and Skyline Views

In August, the Eastside Roundtable hosted a special evening of connection and inspiration. Coordinated by Amanda Tallman and Bree Carey, the event embodied everything that makes SMPS Roundtables so valuable—an informal and fun way to build relationships with peers in the A/E/C industry.

The evening began with a private tour of the newly renovated Caffe Vita and Smith Tower Museum, a stunning project designed by Amanda’s firm, JPC Architects. The renovation transformed the front ground-floor suites of Seattle’s historic Smith Tower into a dual-purpose space combining the new Caffe Vita café with the Smith Tower Museum check-in and exhibit entry (read more about the project here). Drawing inspiration from classic Parisian subway stations, the design blends salvaged materials like vintage wood back-bars, marble counters, and historic doors to create a seamless fusion of old and new. The group had a blast exploring the museum and learning about the history of the tower.

After the tour, they headed up to the 35th floor to enjoy food, drinks, and 360-degree views of Seattle from the Smith Tower Observatory Bar.

A BIG thank you to Amanda and Bree for curating such a memorable experience that perfectly captured the spirit of the SMPS Roundtable community.

Searching for a way to regularly connect with SMPS peers? Join a roundtable!
The SMPS Seattle Roundtable Program offers a unique opportunity to cultivate relationships and learn from one another. Each group is facilitated by an experienced marketing or business development professional and sets its own meeting cadence and agenda based on shared interests and challenges. Roundtables are open to all SMPS Seattle members. Learn more and sign up >

Pride Month is here again. I know this because come June 1, my gay superpowers are supercharged. My eyes glow with a rainbow sheen and I can fly — just like everyone else among our communities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual, and two-spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) folk.

Okay, I may have exaggerated a little — or a lot.

Superpowers aside, I have mixed feelings about Pride Month, both as a marketer and a gay person. Yes, I appreciate the spirit of inclusivity, but on the other hand, I get suspicious. I didn’t quite know how to put those doubts into words until I attended the Pride Talk With SMPS for A/E/C Marketing Professionals. In this webinar, Russell Pollard of Framework Leadership addressed the issue head-on:

It all comes down to authenticity.

Authenticity is critical to any marketing campaign because we are selling more than a product — we are selling trust. And we earn that trust by practicing gender and sexual inclusivity not just in June, but the whole year round in a way that resonates with our clients, and with our current and future employees.

One way to frame gender and sexual inclusivity is to think about those standard information forms, the kind you might see at a doctor’s office. As you fill them out, what goes through your mind, besides “I just want to see the doctor”? Doesn’t it sometimes feel a little invasive? For some of those yes/no questions, don’t you wish you could just answer, “It’s complicated”?

Let’s fill out a form together, and think about how our identities influence our responses. We’ll skip over some parts, like the date, address, our date of birth, or why we’re seeing the doctor today.

Name

I love my name. Especially my middle name — Malloy. It was my grandmother’s birth name, and it’s fairly unique out here on the West Coast. If I were a pop star in the tradition of Prince, Cher, or Madonna, I’d perform as Malloy.

But what about folks such as trans and non-binary people who don’t identify with their given names?

According to a 2021 YouGov and Totaljobs report, 54% said their employers don’t include staff training on how to support trans employees while 65% of trans people hide their gender status at work. To build a culture of inclusivity, the report offers several points of advice, including the following:

·       Don’t assume individuals are out at work or that each person’s transition will look the same.

·       Communicate your DEI values, and be representative through your recruitment material.

·       De-gender language in job descriptions and ads, employment contracts, and application forms.

Sex

Showing up as yourself is a courageous act, and if someone trusts you enough to show up as who they are, will you banish them from cool kids’ table, as in high school, or will you offer them a seat?

For simplicity’s sake, I identify as a gay male, but my identity is hardly that tidy, and like the poet Walt Whitman, I’d prefer declaring, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” As it is, because of my voice, I have about a 50/50 chance of being called “sir” or “ma’am” by a call center receptionist — and I don’t really care so long as my issue gets resolved!

But sex and gender identity are more than issues of mere convenience — they’re issues of survival. And yes, looking from the outside, it may feel like things are moving too quickly, but more often than not, it’s more of a matter of perception. Girls supposedly play with dolls, while boys play with “action figures,” but the biggest difference is how the toys are marketed.

As it turns out, Nature laughs at binaries. Consider the asexual (or parthenogenic) lizards, bees, and sharks. Or those beguiling sex-changing fish. And nothing compares with the fungus kingdom — to build a dating app for the split-gill mushroom, you’d need to account for more than 23,000 different sexes!

Pronoun preferences may also feel new, but some languages like Yoruba and Tagalog don’t even have gendered pronouns. Other cultures observe third genders, like Native-American two-spirit people, South Asian hijira, and Thai kathoeys.

With that in mind, here are a few words of advice on pronoun use:

·       If you’re comfortable, feel free to use your pronouns in your email signature and profiles.

·       Let people choose to disclose their pronouns. By insisting too strongly, you may force a person to out themselves unwillingly, while others believe the very practice of using gendered pronouns is overly constricting, as Amherst College professor Jen Manion discusses in this essay.

Marital Status, Race & Ethnicity

Part of Pride Month is acknowledging how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. As a happily married multiethnic person in a multiracial same-sex union, my marriage would not be a legal reality without the sacrifices and struggles of past civil rights advocates.

Gender and sexual inclusion succeeds only through an intersectional approach. Coined by UCLA Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersexuality is:

The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect, especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.

Consider the term latinx, for example. Coined by English-speaking people as a gender-neutral alternative to latino and latina, as an article in ReMezcla points out, it’s unpronounceable in Spanish. Consequently, among some invested Spanish-speaking communities, the term latine is being advanced instead.

To build an intersectional practice, remember:

·       Even with the best of intentions, we all have our blind spots.

·       It is important to listen first rather than imposing or assuming one-size-fits-all solutions.

·       Ask first rather than assuming a person’s preferred identifier.

A few concluding thoughts before I fly away . . .

I recently attended a Pride event in Monroe, WA — the town’s second Pride event hosted by the Monroe Equity Council. Pride events are now popping up in the most unexpected of places, making me feel optimistic for younger generations who get to grow up in far more accepting environments, with greater legal protections, and with an expanded vocabulary to express their identities. Yet, with recent and upcoming court rulings and some worrying legislation across the U.S., our rights also feel tenuous.

As marketers, we have an opportunity to challenge the A/E/C industry and work within our firms to offer the assurance of safe, welcoming, and inclusive workspaces for our coworkers and their relatives within the LGBTQIA2S+ communities. This is how we build marketing campaigns of inclusion that truly resonate with authenticity.

Resources

Below are some resources for editors and writers as well as books and podcasts on LGBTQIA2S+ issues. The best way to understand a perspective other than your own is a simple conversation. But other times, that’s just not possible. The books and podcasts listed below range from academic to pop culture, some safe for all audiences and others requiring discretion. Some will address uncomfortable personal truths. But each includes valuable, insightful conversations about a variety of identities and experiences.

References for Writers and Editors

Sex, sexuality & gender — which is which?

Johns Hopkins University offers an excellent comprehensive glossary, paraphrased below:

·       Sex: Your sex assigned as birth, as typically defined in medical forms. Are your chromosomes xx, xy, or something else — male, female, or intersex?

·       Sexuality: The complex ranges and series of components that make us sexual beings, and which influences our sexual orientations (gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, straight, and more).

·       Gender: Binary sociological construct associated with femaleness or maleness. Gender identities are how we perceive ourselves — male, female, non-binary, and more.

Books

·       The Queen's English — Chloe O. Davis

·       The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality — Morgan Lev Edward Holleb

·       The ABC's of LGBT+ —Ashley Mardell

Websites

·       LGBTQIA+ Glossary

·       GLAAD Media Reference Guide

·       NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Stylebook on LGBTQ Terminology

Books & Podcasts

Books

·       Stone Butch Blues — historical fiction about life as a butch lesbian in 1970s America by Leslie Feinberg

·       The Invention of Heterosexuality — a historical look on where the concept of heterosexuality originated by Jonathan Ned Katz

·       Out in the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present — Neil Miller

Podcasts

·       Attitudes! — pop culture mixed with women’s and LGBTQ+ rights hosted by comedians Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi

·       Big Mood, Little Mood — relationship advice by trans host Daniel M. Lavery, co-founder of The Toast

·       Disability After Dark — disability and sex-positive stories hosted by queer disability advocate Andrew Gurza

·       Getting Curious — interviews with experts and academics led by Queer Eye host Jonathan Van Ness

·       LGBTQ&A — long-form interviews by Jeffrey Masters of The Advocate

·       Making Gay History — LGBTQIA2S+ civil rights history and biographies hosted by Eric Marcus

·       Nancy — queer stories and conversations with an Asian American perspective, hosted by Tobin Low and Kathy Tu

·       The Read — pop culture and queer conversations with an African American perspective, hosted by Kid Fury and Crissle West

·       Queer as Fact: A Queer History Podcast — history podcast hosted by Melbourne-based academics Alice, Eli, Irene and Jason

·       QUEERY — long-form interviews and conversations hosted by lesbian stand-up comic Cameron Esposito

·       Still Processing — pop culture and queer conversations with an African American perspective, hosted by Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris of the New York Times

·       Why Won’t You Date Me? — long-form interviews with an emphasis on sex positivity and body positivity, hosted by comedian Nicole Byer