Erin Threet Featured in National ENR Top 20 Under 40 List
Engineering News-Record magazine has published its 2019 Top 20 Under 40 list, and our very own assistant vice president Erin Threet is on the list!
Engineering News-Record is a weekly magazine with close to 50,000 paid subscribers that covers news in the architecture, engineering and construction industry. In addition to its national publication, it also publishes nine regional editions.
Each of these regions selects 20 outstanding professionals based on their education, industry experience, leadership and community service. Erin was featured in the Mid-Atlantic region’s list in February.
From this pool of regional winners, ENR selects 20 as the “best of the best” across the nation.
Erin received news that she was selected for this prestigious honor in April, and it was a great way to start the week as she opened her email one Monday morning.
“I was surprised and excited and flattered all at once,” Erin says.
But the excitement was only beginning.
In June, ENR invited Erin and the other honorees to New York City for an awards luncheon and photo shoot. Erin describes the exhilarating experience in the video below:
Erin loves New York City and even dreamed of moving there after college. Though she has been there before, she said she got to see a few parts of the city on this trip that she’d never seen in previous visits. In particular, a rooftop used for the photo shoot provided an amazing view of the Empire State Building, she says.
While in New York, the honorees were split into four groups to collaborate and discuss industry issues. Erin was selected for Team Productivity. She and her fellow “think tank” members discussed alternate project delivery methods like design-build, integrated project delivery, advanced work packaging, and workface planning.
Some of the alternative project delivery methods are not allowed under current municipal bid regulation in Pennsylvania, so Erin enjoyed learning about processes she hasn’t used before.
The group also talked about the importance of communicating with clients and facility owners to help them understand why certain decisions are made and how those decisions directly benefit the project.
They also discussed the need to educate the general public about the value of infrastructure. “Something like the Got Milk campaign of the 90s,” Erin said. “This is something I’ve thought about before, so it was interesting to see that others across the country are also thinking about the issue.”
Team Productivity shared a lot of innovative ideas and best practices, and Erin said she is already applying what she learned on behalf of her clients.
The Top 20 Under 40 honor from ENR is just one of many Erin has received over the course of her career. Like many influential leaders, Erin believes success is all about the grind:
With that in mind, Erin returns to work with a fresh perspective but the same commitment to every day tasks that has produced great results this far: “I just want to keep on keepin’ on,” she says. “I want to continue to grow HRG and our staff here, so that we can serve clients well into the future. [And I want to] do that while maintaining a good work-life balance with the kiddoes and hubby at home.”
You can see more of Erin’s thoughts on the ENR honor, the people she got to meet as part of this experience, and the individuals who’ve helped her get where she is today in the videos below:
Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. 
