APM is so grateful to be a Goodwin House Incorporated (GHI) partner since 2004. ‘The Goodwin House experience’ has changed the way we view our client relationships.  Not to say we didn’t value our clients before, but GHI has redefined the personal side of business.

While we always understood the importance of this, our primary focus was to aim for quality – and once achieved we thought ‘job well done’. But let’s dig a little deeper as to what could be better than quality?  It’s a rarity that an individual can make such impact for personal or professional growth, but to have an organization have that effect on an entire firm is unimaginable.

What exactly caused this effect?

Working with seniors? Yes, that has a lot to do with it.

Before GHI our expertise was firmly rooted in the educational community, our youth – our future generations.  While that is a wonderful thing, it did not lend itself for reflection, a deeper understanding that we are just that, ‘we’. Not I, or me, but we.

It’s a reminder to live a full life, make relationships with our colleagues, and create experiences for others that are bigger than yourself. We now find great satisfaction just seeing a resident enjoying the warmth of the day, a silhouette in the sunshine. No longer is it just construction of a building. We realize we are building homes for stories to be told and celebrations to be had.

While this blog could be all about marketing, we wanted to simply say thank you.  Thank you for enriching each of us for the past decade.  Goodwin House Incorporated is a business, but the people behind it are family.

The Power of Friendship

One early hour of a December morning in 2004, we arrived to meet the Goodwin House interview team of 6. Twelve examining eyes upon us was, admittedly, intimidating.  We never could have guessed in that moment that a decade later, those twelve eyes would change the way we do business.

Now, it goes without saying that we landed the job.  It was a big project, a four-year endeavor that would reshape APM as individuals and as a firm.

It’s hard to explain how constructing a building could have such an effect, but a good start would be to say in the end it was no longer a ‘building’. The empowerment of GHI’s team to not just work with our immediate colleagues, but to also get to know the residents this building was for.

We all know leadership has a trickledown effect, and the care and compassion of the Goodwin House business were now infused in our everyday lives.

Wait, we are tough Construction Managers, what does that have to do with us?

For starters, Mrs. Rissmeyer will use garden beds to plant her tomatoes, Mr. Glover will have his grandson over and paint art in his home.  Not some building, but a home.

Our role was no longer just acting as a Construction Manager; we now represented those who would be living there. Along the way we learned that our clients and colleagues aren’t just people, but our friends. Friends with families and their own stories to one day be told.  The softer side of business was a gift from GHI.

We understood this before, but now we get it.

About APM

APM is a full service Professional Program, Project, and Construction Management firm whose sole objective is to act as the Owner’s Representative during the Development process.  We are not developers, contractors, brokers, or a design firm providing these services as a secondary service objective.  Our firm’s sole focus is the highest quality of management services through an APM team management approach, rather than a single manager, all focused on providing true client advocacy during the planning, design, construction, and start-up of facilities.  We are a national firm; however, a majority of our projects are in the Washington DC Metropolitan area, allowing us to provide immediate and onsite management of our projects. To learn more about APM, visit their website.