If you’re still reading, thanks for checking us out…we appreciate it. Talking about ourselves is not what we prefer to do, so we’ll try to keep it brief…and get back to building great things…
Davis CME (Construction - Management - Engineering), came together after a couple decades of construction and civil engineering work in a variety of sectors and in a variety of roles. This depth and breadth of experience and exposure to projects, people, and perspectives has built a great opportunity to offer exceptional service to our clients.
Our aim is to deliver both the highest attainable quality of service and at the most valuable rates available. We are able to do this for a few simple reasons…
The DCME organization is an A-Team bunch (a crack commando unit) comprised of hand-picked veteran individuals with best-in-field experience and skill sets. Our organization is also lean-and-mean…we don’t have the trappings or cumbersome overhead of many other legacy outfits. Lastly, our approach is modest…not looking to get rich, just looking to comfortably pay bills and enjoy our work as we build great things in our home communities. (And we believe that focusing on other elements—like integrity, quality, creativity, and authenticity—is actually a more sustainable strategy for long term success anyway.)
We hope you agree…and thanks for reading.
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted…and experience is the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
— Randy Pausch, Educator/Author
“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”
— Mark Twain
“It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”
— Dr. Seuss
Our Values
INTEGRITY + AUTHENTICITY
We hear the word Integrity a lot. So much so, it sometimes starts to lose its meaning. To us, it means maintaining an honest, responsible, and empathetic perspective…and remaining ready to stand by the position that you know is right even when (or especially when) it is difficult to—and not be embarrassed to show that that is who you are…which gets at the Authenticity part.
QUALITY + CREATIVITY
Quality can be defined so many ways—the cheesy Merriam-Webster dictionary way would say something about…whatever—but we know that the QUALITY we are striving for will be different to different people on different projects and at different times. This is where the Creativity comes in. We aim to find the right definition of Quality for each project, and that often means adapting our methods a bit to offer the Appropriate Level Of Service, not just force the same methods we used last time and the time before that. Which leads us to Continuous Improvement…
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Continuous Improvement is a vital concept that was introduced to us early in our career. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and we know we are not the smartest person in the room, so we remain open to benefitting from the ideas/knowledge/experience of others as we work to find the best solutions. When we finish one project, we know that we are a little more experienced than when we started, and we hope to continue to improve by paying those experiences forward into the next ones.
FOCUS + PERSEVERANCE
If you’re reading this, you probably got distracted from something more productive…Focus! (Just kidding, maybe you are reading this on your bathroom break…but I digress…) Having the Focus to perform the necessary tasks now rather than putting them off, will be the best opportunity to maintain Quality…and having the Perseverance to finish the task now completely will translate to efficiency and valuable use of your limited time. As an hourly consultant, Focus, along with Perseverance, is a huge part of what we need to do well in order to complete our assignments on-time, under-budget, and with the best available quality results.
KINDNESS + EMPATHY + UNDERSTANDING
Sounds like an Elvis Costello song…but its true! What’s so funny ‘bout these values! There’s plenty of hardened characters and tough-guy bravado in the construction industry, but we also know that these same folks have plenty of kindness and caring in their hearts, and they deserve it in return. We also know that there is still room for more kindness and empathy in the way we do our jobs, and we try to keep that in mind as we work to improve the ways in which we do ours. (By the way, did you know that song by Elvis Costello was a cover? I didn’t.)
ENJOYMENT + FULFILLMENT + LEVITY
What are we doing, if what we are doing isn’t fun? Or at least fulfilling and not a total drag. Life is too short to do otherwise, and we believe that enjoyment/fulfillment in our work will produce better quality and efficiency anyway (see also, OPTIMISM+POSITIVITY and BALANCE+WELLNESS, which are other core-value contenders). We love what we do—building things and getting to work with enjoyable people—which is probably why we are still so excited to do it after two and a half decades (dating myself). And don’t take yourself so seriously…we try not to, and we’re usually pretty successful.
HEALTH + SAFETY + RESPECT
These should be obvious, but are sometimes overlooked. There are plenty of things on construction sites that can get you, and now there’s plenty out there to get you in life in general. People’s individual perspective on this may vary, but our position is why not respect others’ perspectives when we are mixing or working with them, and conduct ourselves conservatively and with respect. Which means, mask-up, give space, practice hygiene, wear a hard hat and safety glasses, ear protection, etc. At the end of the day, it’s really not that hard to do, we know it makes all of us more safe, and it’s both easier and better to play it safe than end up sorry…both on the construction site and out there in the real world as well.
BALANCE + WELLNESS
“No time to sharpen the saw, too much wood to cut!” Not sure who was the first to say this, but we’ve always loved this phrase, and we try to put it to practice. It’s easy to get caught up in the momentum of the on going To-Do list at work, and forget about doing the other things in life that matter, but we think it is important to remember that we are more than just our professional resume or list of completed projects. And sharpening the saw every now and then will help the quality and productivity on our To-Do list anyway! Plus its fun…not literally sharpening saws, but you know what I mean.
ATTITUDE + OPTIMISM + POSITIVITY
Everyone knows that Attitude can make all the difference…good and bad. At DCME, we believe that an Attitude of Optimism, Positivity, and Gratitude will make a productive difference in everything we do—quality, efficiency, enjoyment, etc. We’re not talking about blind optimism—we still need focus and perspective if we want to remain a realist—but we’d rather use the haters as fuel for our fire than become one ourselves.