New Leadership - 2018 Promotions

Congratulations to our newest Associates, Senior Associates, Associate Principals and Principals! One of Page's Senior Principals, James Wright, is taking this opportunity to share a few thoughts about career development.

James was tapped to lead the then-fledgling Washington DC office of Page in the 1990s, which has since grown significantly. He also has served as a leader in various AIA positions and has some words of career advice for both our newest and aspiring leaders.

I’d like to reiterate our three core values that should serve all Pagers. These may have different priorities for you at various times but they should remain core to your actions and practice.

First is collaboration, both with your colleagues and with your communities. We should be creating space and support for our younger colleagues who are learning and establishing themselves as well as benefiting from the hard-earned experience of others.

A number of Pagers actively support their communities, which can take different forms from industry to neighborhood associations to non-profit service. I encourage everyone to balance striving for built environments that make lives better with making lives better in a way that personally touches you. 

The second is creativity. Innovation is what designers, planners, engineers have always done—we are problem solvers by nature.  Innovation that transcends daily occurrences in our practices should be celebrated and encouraged, especially that which creates new tools or provides new insight. 

I encourage all of you to constantly strive to educate yourselves on evolutions in your area of practice, to stay abreast of trends in your market sectors and to seek new ways to deliver our services more effectively. Technology is changing our world rapidly; let’s drive that change instead of reacting to it. 

The third is commitment. At Page, we’ve grown rapidly in recent years, adding new offices and practice groups. Our efforts to build a value proposition that reaches across project spectrums have to be supported by a skilled, smart – and staunch - employee base.

And that brings us full circle back to the first core value of collaboration. I believe these will serve you well in life as at Page.

James M. Wright, FAIA