Six Things to Know About Building a Strong Company Culture
A conversation with Tom Sohl, Vice President and Director of Land Development, Spalding DeDecker Associates
Some relationships stand the test of time. Spalding DeDecker Associates has been a PCIA client since 1988, when my mother founded the agency and Jay Shaw was among the very first to sign on. That is 35 years of partnership. Tom Sohl started at Spalding that same year and has been there ever since.
For our fourteenth episode of the Pro Concepts podcast, Tom and I sat down to talk about culture. Spalding DeDecker is a full-service civil engineering, land surveying, and construction inspection firm based in Rochester Hills, with satellite offices across Michigan. They have been in business since 1954 and have been on a sustained growth run, adding 25 to 30 people in the past year alone. Tom leads the land development group and has a front-row view of what it takes to build and sustain a team through all of it.
Culture is not unique to engineering firms. Every firm we work with, from architecture to law to technology to CPA practices, is navigating the same questions. What makes people want to show up? What makes them stay? Here is what Tom and I landed on.
1. Make the office worth coming to.
This one sounds obvious, but it takes real investment. Spalding DeDecker recently completed a major outdoor addition: a large deck with furniture, a fire pit, and a commercial grill in the courtyard of their L-shaped building. They also installed a synthetic turf putting green. Tom made the point that firms are competing hard for a limited talent pool right now, and compensation alone is not going to win that fight. Creating an environment where people genuinely enjoy being together is a meaningful differentiator.
Recent research backs this up. For Gen Z in particular, compensation has dropped down the list of priorities. Culture, flexibility, and the quality of the work environment have moved up. If you want people in the office, and Tom is clear that he does, you have to give them a reason to want to be there.
2. Give back to the community as a team.
Spalding DeDecker has participated in initiatives like Life Remodeled, which brings volunteers together to revitalize Detroit neighborhoods, as well as highway adoption programs with the Road Commission. At PCIA, we close the office once a year for the United Way Day of Caring, and the whole team goes out together to work on projects for people in the community who need help.
These experiences do something that a team lunch or a company outing cannot quite replicate. They put people side by side doing something that matters, and the stories that come out of those days become part of the fabric of the team. We have been doing ours for over a decade, and the memories from those days still come up in conversation.
3. Build relationships that go beyond the workplace.
Tom attends four or five industry conferences a year, and he is deliberate about the time spent outside the formal sessions. The dinners, the golf outings, the conversations that have nothing to do with work: that is where the real relationships form. He has been invited to an annual ski trip out west with a group of colleagues he met through work. Those are not just professional contacts anymore.
The same dynamic applies internally. Tom uses the language of deposits and withdrawals to describe it. When you invest consistently in relationships with your team and your clients, you build up goodwill that carries you through the inevitable rough moments. When a mistake happens, and mistakes always happen, you have enough in the account to cover it without losing the relationship.
4. Hire for attitude, especially with early-career candidates.
Tom has been on a significant hiring run and has sharpened his thinking on what he is actually looking for. His conclusion: when it comes to newer graduates and early-career candidates, attitude and confidence matter more than experience level. He has made hiring decisions in the past based on technical credentials and watched those employees plateau because the drive and engagement were not there. You cannot teach someone to care about the quality of their work. It has to already be in them.
For candidates themselves, Tom had one very specific piece of advice: get as much CAD experience as you can before you graduate. AutoCAD, Civil 3D, and similar tools are essential to nearly everything Spalding DeDecker does, and candidates who come in with that background stand out immediately.
I would add something to this that I have believed for a long time. Confidence is a skill, and you can develop it. Twenty-five years ago, I went through Dale Carnegie because I did not have it, and it changed the trajectory of my career. Right now, we are hosting a Dale Carnegie program at PCIA on Thursday nights. Both of my daughters are in it. If you are not uncomfortable sometimes, you are not growing.
5. Make lessons learned a regular practice.
Tom's team reviews what went wrong on a monthly basis. The goal is not accountability in a punitive sense. It is mentorship. Tom is planning for the day when he steps back from leading the group, and he wants the knowledge and judgment he has accumulated over 35 years to live in the people around him, not just in his own head.
At PCIA, we have built lessons learned into our Monday morning huddle. Every week, every person comes to the table with something they learned from the previous week and shares it with the group. At first, there was some resistance. Now it is simply part of how we operate, and the quality of what people bring keeps getting better. When you share what went wrong in a safe environment, everyone learns, not just the person who had the experience.
6. Grow deliberately, and stay close to your culture when you do.
Spalding DeDecker has been opening satellite offices across Michigan, with locations in Novi, Lansing, and Grand Rapids. Tom's approach has been to find the right people in those markets first and build around them, rather than transplanting staff from headquarters into unfamiliar territory. All of their current offices are within two hours of Rochester Hills, which makes regular visits practical.
They learned this lesson the hard way. Years ago, they acquired a firm in Texas. The distance made it nearly impossible to maintain cultural alignment, and the acquisition eventually wound down. The lesson Tom took from it was that culture travels with proximity. When you cannot get people together regularly, the connective tissue weakens. Satellite offices require extra intention: planned events, regular visits, and a genuine effort to make remote employees feel like they are part of something, not just affiliated with it.
Culture is never finished. It is something you build continuously, through the decisions you make about your space, your people, your rituals, and your values. Tom has been doing this work for 35 years, and he will tell you he is still learning. So am I.
To learn more about Spalding DeDecker Associates and their civil engineering, survey, and construction inspection services, visit spaldingdedecker.com.
To reach Mike Cosgrove directly, call 810-224-5255.
To reach PCIA, visit pciaonline.com or call 800-969-4041.