Meet the Newest Innovators and Leaders Joining Dome's Department of Innovation and Learning (DIAL) Team.
DIAL stands for Department of Innovation and Learning.
How are you accomplishing DIAL’s mission?
How does DIAL contribute to Dome employees' professional development?
What would you like potential recruits to know about the opportunities available to them at Dome?
Aligned with Dome's Culture, we will promote best practices, drive efficiency, bridge people and technology, and deliver world-class learning. While our workforce ensures our clients and business partners are successful, the DIAL group focuses on giving our people the knowledge, resources, and processes they need to fulfill their goals. Recently, we have consolidated the decades of shared learning and resources into our DomeKnows team within Microsoft Teams. This is the single source of truth for why and how we get things done.
In addition to training and our daily work, DIAL is passionate about developing our people into the leaders they are, and the leaders they will become. In addition to how we get things done, we heavily emphasize WHY we do what we do. We constantly connect our daily work to the big picture and Dome's Core Strategy of being expert relationship builders that deliver a superior construction experience. In addition to our internal leadership learning opportunities, we collaborate with external experts to help people find their why and how they can build trusting relationships.
We are a learning organization that believes in the perpetual growth of the individual. We continue to invest heavily in our infrastructure to provide the best opportunity for our people to succeed. We have developed a world-class onboarding process that provides our new Domites with an on-ramp that brings people up to speed in a supportive way. We then surround the employee with learning opportunities from DIAL, their department, their supervisor, and peers.
Continuous improvement is our mantra, and we encourage everyone to identify and take action on anything we could do better. Remaining at the forefront of technology keeps us relevant, and we applaud those with a passion for tinkering.
Meet the Team
Introducing Dome's Newest Members of the DIAL Team
We are pleased to announce Meredith Hargreaves, Elise Krueger and David Francis as our newest DIAL Team members. We sat down with them to get a deeper look at where it all began as professionals and gain more insight into their industry experience.
Meredith Hargreaves
Business Systems Manager
Meredith started her career in education as a teacher at an inner-city school in New York City. There she discovered a strong desire to find ways to make things better for people, uncover hidden resources, learn more about efficient ways of doing things, and foster an engaging learning environment.
Meredith became a consultant in the Learning & Development industry, and then decided to pursue her MBA to understand business more broadly and bridge her interests in sustainability, education, and business. She continued as a management consultant with a focus in the built environment. Meredith reflects, “ I was interested in seeing and contributing to efforts that would help organizations achieve their broader goals, make improvements, bridge different stakeholder groups, and help them to measure success.” Through her work in the Lean construction space, she had the great pleasure of meeting people at Dome in 2016.
When the opportunity presented itself to step into a role that would allow her to improve Dome’s systems, processes, and teams, she couldn’t pass it up! A big proponent of Lean thinking, Meredith shares, “lean teaches us to have great appreciation for problems, and by treating them as such, we can foster a culture of continuous improvement. I’m looking forward to learning from different perspectives of what problems exist and why so that we can strategically understand and choose what to work on, and make things better for people in their daily work.”
Meredith shares that Dome’s Core Values are what motivated her to join the Dome team,
Value our people, do it right and seek to understand. I like how these values are inextricably linked and demonstrate the importance of relationships and empathy for one another in a way that manifests itself in each encounter with Domites. Not only are people friendly and welcoming, but they are incredibly thoughtful about how decisions are made and how problem-solving occurs. It’s clear how committed Dome is to helping its people and broader community grow professionally and personally.
Meredith joins Dome as our Business Systems Manager and is excited to get to know Dome better – learning its systems and processes’ intricacies and how they serve people. She will be working with the Systems Department to help improve systems and processes that support organizational growth to prioritize meeting the organization’s broader needs more effectively. She elaborates, “This often requires people to reframe the problem, better understand others’ perspectives, and adjust their work behaviors and understanding. Change can be hard, so we’ll try to make improvements in the most effective way that serves the organization best.”
People are what drives Meredith professionally, “I love working with people to collaborate on problem-solving, particularly when it has a big impact. I also really like working with people when they have a big “ah-ha” moment that can be pivotal to how they work.”
Looking ahead, Meredith believes that Construction is on the cusp of disruption and is evolving at a rapid pace. “I’m excited to see how this unfolds because while the industry at large is faced with talent shortages, technology changes, increased competition, and rapid customer demands, this will yield opportunity for innovation and transformation. With Dome’s strong culture and values, I think Domites will respond incredibly well to this opportunity. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for this organization!”
David Francis
BIM Project Manager
David had the pleasure of testing out a couple of career opportunities before discovering the career he has today. Originally going to school for Architecture, David changed majors and made the tough decision to leave school and start over. With the world at his feet, David took a job as a Draftsperson for a mechanical contractor. As a Draftsperson, David gained exposure to the construction industry, inspiring his passion for solving challenges and improving processes. From being a Detailer and joining the Steamfitter Union, David always leveraged technology.
David joins the Dome team as our Project BIM manager to streamline processes, coordinate projects, improve drawings, and all while working with changing data. David reflects on his team’s mission,
The industry is continually evolving, and our goal is to keep DOME on the leading edge and not the bleeding edge.
For David, accomplishing the DIAL team’s mission of improving Dome’s efficiency through training and technology is done one day and training at a time. The DIAL team has contributed tremendously to Dome Employees’ professional development and achievements by providing training giving employees the time and space to invest in themselves. David notes, “This effectively improves employee skill levels making them a more valuable employee.”
David attributes his accomplishments to his ability to think outside the box and has been lucky enough to have several strong mentors throughout his career, and feels blessed for all their contributions.
The best part about this role for David is “teaching others what I know and learning from them.” Bringing out the positive change that directly affects others is what drives David in his professional life. If given a chance to share career lessons with newcomers in his field, David would share, “You are in control of your happiness.” Growing and developing as a leader is done by surrounding yourself with talent and letting people do their job.
Elise Krueger
Business Systems Analyst
Elise worked with Dome for a few years before joining the DIAL team, sharing that she was always impressed by how knowledgeable the Dome staff was and how everyone she met loved working for Dome. When the opportunity came, she jumped on it to be part of such a great team! Elise began her career in technology when she took a job as a Systems Analyst to pay the bills. Once settled in that role, she quickly fell in love with technology and decided to get her degree in Computer Information Systems with a minor in Data Analytics.
Elise joins Dome as a Business Systems Analyst to help create a team to support and connect our business software. She hopes to take over the administration of Dome’s business systems, along with standing up a data warehouse to help get a line of sight to all the data in our currently not connected business systems. Elise loves creating “Technology Magic” for end-users. Elise shares,
When I can help streamline a process or create a report that will have a positive impact on someone’s day-to-day, I am happy.
If given a chance to do it all over again, Elise would have picked technology sooner. Her advice for those interested in pursuing a similar career is, “Get familiar with data and understand how it impacts your role and company.” Elise continues, “Business runs on data, and that data is moving to or is already in the cloud. Construction is generating more data than ever before, and it is not all job costing and revenue projections.”
Elise highlights the areas of technology that the construction industry has adopted over the years, “BIM, VDC, and MEP teams are building digital models of building, Trade Partner tags can be submitted and approved/denied electronically, machine learning and statistical analysis can identify project issues earlier and can be used to predict construction trends, dozers are being programmed like 3D printers to automate grading and site prep, and all this requires and produces a LOT of data.”
Knowing how vital technology is to the success of any business, Elise and the System’s team are helping accomplish DIAL’s mission by putting their best foot forward to get the most out of Dome’s technology investments.
“DIAL is Dome’s way to help get ahead of the curve. We are helping Dome keep current and not get left behind.”, Elise shares. So what’s ahead of the curve? Elise believes we should be aware of AI and robotics, as they are emerging in Construction like never before. 3D printing concrete and steel, using robots to help with repetitive tasks, laser scanning and modelling, masonry and drywall bots, and many others are all transforming the way Construction is done today.