Getting to Know Us: Twila Wittmann

The Wood Harbinger team is made up of diverse and interesting people, who bring all kinds of backgrounds, professional experiences, and insights to our firm. In this blog series, we’ll share a little something about each of the people behind our successful engineering projects.

This week, the spotlight’s on Twila Wittmann, one of Wood Harbinger’s indispensable Project Assistants. With nearly 6 years’ experience at Wood Harbinger, Twila works side by side with project managers to assure fluid project progress and absolute attention to detail.  She focuses primarily on maintaining the communication workflow between all parties, assuring no essential communication points fall through the cracks. She also provides construction administration services, assuring that RFIs and submittal reviews are returned to the clients in a timely manner while still meeting Wood Harbinger’s high quality standards.

What made you decide to become an engineer/designer/drafter/work for an engineering firm?

I worked in the legal field for years and prefer to work with engineers. They are less argumentative and more fun!

Have you held any jobs/had any careers outside of the engineering industry? If so, what industry and what did you do?

I worked as a Client Services Manager at a call center in Las Vegas. Our clients were in the tech field; Adobe and Microsoft to name a couple. I have also worked in law firms. At one, I specialized in bankruptcies and handled the client interviews and intakes. Another was a personal injury firm that specialized in helping injured rail road workers – federal cases. I was the assistant to the senior partner and handled tasks at all phases of a lawsuit. The amount of paperwork involved is staggering!

What do you like best about being an engineer/designer/drafter/working for an engineering firm?

I like the variety of projects and the knowledge that we are creating something. It’s fulfilling to see completed projects and know Wood Harbinger was a part of that.

What do you like least about being and engineer/designer/drafter/working for an engineering firm?

It’s the same for any business: procrastination. It always leads to stress and mistakes.

What do you hope to be doing in five years (becoming a PE, being a project manager, mentoring junior engineers, working on a high-profile project, developing client relationships, etc.)?

I’m happy doing the tasks I do. I enjoy our Navy projects the most and hope to continue working on those. There are so many details to government work and I enjoy that. Plus I really enjoy working with my contacts at ABAM, Notkin and KPFF, whom we often partner with for this work.

What’s one funny story of an experience you’ve had on the job?

I have worked with some practical jokers in the past and you never know what you’re going to find at your desk when you work with them. It was always fun to participate – harmless but extremely entertaining.

I love a good sense of humor and a great joke – who doesn’t like to laugh? Silliness is underrated.