Experience in: Internal Audit, Senior Accounting Manager, and Vice-president & Corporate Controller.
HDR is an employee-owned company that specializes in engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services. HDR history goes all the way to 1917 where the company started as a civil engineer firm in Omaha, NE. As an employee-owned firm, the employees are given stock in the company as part of compensation for working at the company, making those employees shareholders in the company.
I do admit I felt nervous at first, but Mr. Rodriguez was incredible as when we started talking, he took the first minutes to get to know each other. The conversation with Mr. Rodriguez was about learning about his transformation from graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to his leading position as the Vice-President & Corporate Controller for HDR.
Mr. Rodriguez shared his advice to recent graduates, "You're going to graduate and know a lot of concepts learned from school and books, but things are going to seem a lot different when working for a business. They're more complicated, more judgment, and it just feels different".
He stressed the importance of gaining a breadth of experience as it offers an opportunity to find your areas of strength and industry niche. After graduation, recent graduates may not have a clear judgement of their strengths and what job responsibilities their interest relies, but over the years all this experience ends up providing the right tools to move to their preferred job.
It was a rewarding experience to meet virtually with Mr. Rodriguez and learn about his past work experience. At last, I told him that I thought it was funny that when I used to be a Civil Engineer, HDR was one of the companies I was aiming for. Coincidence!