Walt Rexford had an early interest in buildings, bridges, and how they all fit together. Even as a kid, Walt built little towns in his sandbox complete with roads and working storm sewers. He was creative yet methodical, constantly dreaming up ways to innovate and make changes. For example, he remembers carving out piping networks and testing to see whether the water could escape the sandbox without destroying the roads.
Now, Walt is the dynamic leader of Plus Groups’ Structural Engineering Department with over 20 years of experience leading a diverse range of multimillion-dollar projects in heavy industrial, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, lean manufacturing, and power markets.
He spent the first 20 years of his career as a professional engineer working on projects of all types and sizes, gaining the solid technical base and experience senior engineers need to lead more extensive and challenging work. But he realized his interest in managing people after early mentors allowed him to get some exposure in management and managing people. He has found that leading a team makes a well-balanced addition to the complex technical work and says he’s lucky that now he gets to do both.
Walt dedicates a significant portion of his day coordinating on-site development and works primarily with interdisciplinary stakeholders on execution approaches and design strategies. In between meetings, he’s usually assisting on projects, consulting with his team, or managing resource allocation of the department, all while working on his projects.
The greatest challenge is simply maintaining it all-but; what makes Walt great at his job is his ability to engage simultaneously on multiple projects without sacrificing quality or service. He knows when to delegate appropriately and strives for coordination and collaboration between disciplines. His leadership style is supportive and empowering- he’s worked hard to be approachable, trustworthy, and fair in managing his group, which creates a very people-oriented company culture.
He directly supports the people on his team by ensuring that everyone is happily engaged in their work because he believes it leads to much less stress when people enjoy what they do. In addition, offering guidance and training to younger or less experienced engineers has provided Walt with a fulfilling sense of satisfaction, knowing that everyone wins when they gain experience that allows them to perform with more confidence and proficiency in the future. Walt has made an enormously successful career following his early passion and now can step back and watch his hard work evolve our organization and grow our company.\
Fun Fact? I love the outdoors and am an avid bow hunter.
