Who We Are - MDG's Core Values
Written by: Kristy Buttermore
From day one, MDG has put effort into building an internal culture that empowers and celebrates our team. Our culture is what drives our firm and sets us apart. At the heart of that culture is our corporate values. They are the backbone of MDG, and impact our company not only internally, but impact our work and what we are able to provide to our clients. Each of these core values speaks to who we are and what we do.
Community
We actively work to better our community both inside and outside of MDG.
MDG corporately and individually embraces responsibility to make a positive difference in the communities in which we live, work, and play, and support the community by giving back our time, expertise, and resources. We prioritize staying involved and collectively support our communities by assisting charitable and professional organizations. We are always actively seeking more ways we can help.
Connected
We strive to develop positive connections with co-workers and clients, and to stay connected to our mission and vision.
The heart of MDG is its people. We foster a fun-spirited work environment and put an emphasis on ensuring people feel valued, respected, and empowered and are afforded the tools and opportunities for personal and professional growth. A focus on growing our people, along with our vision “To build and shape a better future”, has been the foundation of our success. We also love to bring our people together and build camaraderie through events in the office such as birthday celebrations, special luncheons, and holiday celebrations, as well as large events outside the office that also include families like our annual Beach Blast and After-Holiday Hoedown.
Passion
We are passionate about what we do, and work and live with passion to make a positive difference.
Engineering is about solving problems, but at MDG it is so much more. We take an innovative approach to every project, creating thoughtful designs that balance functionality while preserving the often historic and eco-sensitive quality of the communities we serve. From concept to completion, we work alongside our clients through each step of the process to bring their vision to reality. We truly love our community and continuously work to make it a better place.
Balance
We believe in maintaining a healthy balance between all aspects of our lives, so we may always have our heart and spirit in everything we do.
We value the importance of work/life balance and ensure each employee has the tools and flexibility needed to maintain that balance. Creating the best work environment allows us to build the best team and provide the best possible service to our clients.
We asked our Directional Leadership Team which of these core values spoke to them the most.
“Each of these values speaks to me, and is at the heart of who we are as MDG. If I had to pick one, it would be Community. This is because it encompasses both our internal community at MDG and our external community. The internal community at MDG is defined by our culture which is so unique and special to everyone here. We are all part of the same team and have a responsibility to help, grow, and care for each other to keep our internal community strong. We also enjoy and feel a sense of duty to better the communities we live in and serve, both through the quality of work we do and through philanthropic efforts. The resilience and strength of our internal community along with the support and connectiveness with our external communities is what has helped MDG weather the economic storm of 2008 and grow into the thriving firm we are today.”
Rob Matthews, President
“All four of our core values speak to me (which is why we picked them) and are important to our culture and success as a firm. If I had to pick one that speaks to me most, it would be “Connected”. When evaluating people to add to our team, we put a lot of focus on trying to discern if someone will be a true team player and exemplify our “connected” value. Being “connected” means everyone doing their part to care for, look out for, help, mentor, collaborate with, and grow each other. This is what being a “team player” truly is, coming to work with a greater sense of what we can build together as opposed to just fulfilling one’s own duties for the day. I am sure many of you have worked at prior jobs where there was negativity stemming from “competitiveness” or people that had a “not my job” mentality. These things are not present when we have that true sense of connectiveness to each other and understand the fact that we need to help each other to succeed in order for MDG to succeed. It also makes MDG a fun place to work because it fosters positivity, teamwork, and we all truly enjoy working together! this is what sets us apart from other firms and is at the heart of the culture we all love.”
Keri Matthews, CEO
“Balance: Balance is a word that is absent from most peoples vocabularies. We live in such a high paced world. From our responsibilities at home, work, and beyond, it can be difficult to find AND maintain balance. I often stress this as a key metric to manage in your life because without balance, who we are (inherently) will become warped and could cause us to experience additional tension in our day to day life. When we do life out of balance, we bring less who we are to our homes and to work. Sustaining a life that is out of balance usually results in a lose-lose. You lose out on enjoying what you are doing and others lose out on have a fully committed you. It’s important to keep this in check and this is why it’s such an important value to me.”
Billy Almaguer, CGO
“For me the value that resonates most with me is passion, which to me means that I care deeply about my work and my co-workers. I am passionate about wanting the business to be run efficiently while maximizing profits and enjoying the people I work with. I care about every single person I work with professionally and personally and want to see them be their best self. Balance would come in second for me. As a single Mom it is important to me to be able to not only financially provide for my children, but to also be there for them for their sports and life in general. Since I have grown children already, I do know that they won’t remember or care what I was able to buy them, but they will remember that Mom was there for every tournament cheering them on.”
Karen Darling, Controller