Top 10 Reasons We Are Grateful
LTY is officially 10 years old! No company reaches this milestone without the support of great clients, employees, and friends. It’s appropriate in this season of Thanksgiving to recognize a few people who have been instrumental in LTY’s success.
Dick June was…and remains…the very best example for us in engineering, in business, and in life. When we were both new grads coming out of Texas A&M in the 1990s, he gave us a chance. Just look what he started. We are forever indebted to Dick and his amazing wife, Wanda.
Tom Clements of Reed and Clements (and later Bay Architects) was a model of grace and integrity. He was a Texas Longhorn who loved Texas Aggies like us. He modeled what it meant to be a great architect, what it meant to truly care about your work, and what it meant to truly care about people. We miss him.
Jerry Kuritz, Sr., started with us at the beginning of Lee Truong & Yu Engineers. He is a great friend, one of the best employees we have ever had, and the best field services representative we will ever know. Jerry had a knack for being unrelenting with contractors on LTY’s requirements and expectations while remaining gracious and helpful to them. He relentlessly pursued excellence for himself and for LTY. Jerry is the standard we want for all of our employees, including ourselves, to meet.
Tim Bruner and Magnolia ISD gave us a shot in the late 1990s to do the MEP work for the district. We have done all of the district’s MEP work ever since. Tim and Magnolia ISD are not only our clients but are our friends. The relationships that we have with them have been built by working together on tough problems and is the model that we want for all of our client relationships – to care about them more than we care about ourselves.
PBK is our largest client. That started with Phil Rutter. Our relationship with Phil started as he did large format prints for us in the 1990s at GDT, his print shop. Then, as an architect, he allowed us to do some office build-out work with him. Later, after he joined PBK, he asked us if we’d be interested in doing some work in Magnolia ISD with him. The rest is an amazing history. Phil has always exemplified excellence in architecture. He knows his trade and does it better than anyone else. He knows his clients and cares for them better than anyone else. We count Phil as a wonderful friend and are so thankful for all he has personally done for us.
Pasadena ISD. We can’t talk about clients without talking about Pasadena ISD. When we opened the doors to LTY in 2014, there were some anxious moments as we awaited our first client. Enter Pasadena ISD. LTY’s first official project was Dobie Ninth Grade Center with IBI/Arcadis. This project, and this district, will always be special to us. Thank you to everyone at Pasadena ISD past and present…Kevin Fornoff, Tom Douglas, Michael Collins, Shauna Gagneaux, Israel Grinberg, Brian Hanson, Steve Rice, and the entire MEP maintenance staff…for giving us the opportunity to prove ourselves and for remaining a loyal client for the past 10 years.
We started working with Huckabee/More Group in 2018 so they are relatively new to LTY. However, they have quickly become one of our largest clients because of the support of their leaders in the Houston and D/FW markets. The support and encouragement of leaders like Chris Huckabee, Brendon Hoffman, Devin Wilson, Josh Brown, Andre Brackens, Brian Green, Ken Kessler, Joshua Cogburn, and Ben Harris was instrumental in the growth of our Houston office, as well as the opening of our Dallas office. Their dedication to providing excellent service echoes our own mission and vision, and we are grateful for our partnership.
Mike Van Hoozer. The two of us need a lot of coaching. We admit it. Thank God for Mike Van Hoozer. He is a wealth of information on business and on life. He has helped guide us in vision, planning, and organization. He is helping us prepare the next generation of leaders at LTY. And, as a true friend, we know we can count on Mike to tell us the truth even when it’s hard to hear. LTY would not be where it is today without Mike, period.
Usually when someone talks with a lawyer it’s not a good thing. Thankfully, Warren Fields is our friend first and our lawyer second. He has been great counsel when we have needed his legal counsel. He has been great counsel when we have needed his personal wisdom about family, kids, church, friends, whatever. We could not ask for more from a lawyer or a friend.
Finally, meet LTY’s Swiss Army Knife, Mary Kay Yu. She wears multiple hats and works more hours than most of us, even though she is officially a “part-time” employee. We had lots of ideas when we started LTY in 2014. Mary Kay wrote our business plan, organized our strategy, and helped start us on the right track. Today, she still asks the tough questions and organizes our scattered thoughts into plans of action, and then holds us accountable to execute those plans. She’s also responsible for everything on our Human Resources side from negotiating benefits, cultivating culture, recruiting great employees, and developing talent. Oh, and if you need a photograph, logo, tweet, donation, or marketing proposal, she’s also got that on her plate.
If you thought this Top 10 was awesome, check out next month’s list of Top 10 Reasons We’re Excited About the Future.
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