Engineering, like life, isn’t a straight line

by Jess Moore
Special to Delaware Business Times

Guy Marcozzi

Guy Marcozzi is president and CEO of Duffield Associates, Delaware’s largest civil engineering and science consulting firm.

What is your role in the workplace?
I am the president and CEO. My job is to connect the inner operation to what is happening in the outside world, looking out as far as possible to position for changing trends. Making sure we have experts for today and tomorrow’s issues and getting them to collaborate is a key part of my job.  Right now things are very busy, but I always worry about if there are enough big things that will keep us going in the years ahead.

What is something about your job that might surprise people?
We’re perceived as an engineering company, but a lot of my job is basic business issues like hiring.

What do you enjoy most about your work?
I really enjoy solving problems. Engineers understand that our clients need solutions right away. There is deep satisfaction in solving problems for big projects. It’s really interesting and gratifying.

Our niche at Duffield Associates is that we offer a very broad range of engineering and specialty science consulting for a company our size.  Civil engineering and permitting is increasingly complicated and it requires specialization, which can sometimes make you miss the forest through the trees. 

Our position allows us to more easily collaborate to take advantage of the diverse specialization and create more value than specialist firms which have more difficulty getting their experts in the same room to develop innovative solutions. 

What are some of the keys to your success?
You have to really love and be passionate about what you do. They will guide you to do the right things. Life isn’t a straight line.

Do you have any advice for people hoping to get in to the engineering field?
You need the ability to work in teams. That’s not usually a concept associated with engineering, but it’s important. Communication and working with other people broadly to solve problems in today’s world is a really big part of this job.

What is something you wish you knew before you got this job?
My job has far more impact on the future success of the company through bringing on and developing great people who are on board with what we are doing than it does on the day to day details.  A hard lesson for me was to get out of the way of good people and not over-manage and also making sure that we have great people that will do great things for our clients.

What is the best advice you’ve received?
Delegate everything I can because I should be in the best position to make good decisions with the created time to help the business move forward. I try to apply that advice whenever I can.

What advice would you give to your successor?
I advise my successor to stay patient and take the longer view and always try to do the right things for the right reasons at the right time.  If you feel you are doing that, you can always sleep at night.   

Founded: 1976
Employees: 100
Location: Headquarters in Pike Creek with branch offices in Dover and Georgetown, Philadelphia and Carlisle, Pa., Thorofare and Cape May Court House, N.J., and Bel Air, Md.