EWeek: Transforming IEA’s Future through Learning and Development
IEA celebrates EWeek by recognizing learning and development efforts with staff.
On a typical Tuesday, IEA employees gather together in the Dallas atrium to hear lessons learned and best practices from fellow team members.
This EWeek, IEA reflects on our growth, both in size and service lines, and the career growth and cross-training opportunities that are available to our team. Implementing different learning sessions, such as Lunch ‘N Learns (LNL), project management training, and technical sessions, is our way to help our staff transform their future.
“IEA has implemented robust programs aimed at the continuous development of every employee, enabling us to secure projects, execute our work effectively, and add value for our clients,” said Shakeel Ahmed, PE, IEA’s CEO and Principal. “These programs truly offer meaningful growth opportunities for all IEA team members.”
IEA’s Learning & Development Coordinator, Emily Babcock, has been a big part of IEA’s improved training offerings. She creates these sessions to be thoughtfully organized, reflecting the evolving needs of our teams.
“IEA’s LNL sessions help engineers build skills that they use every day,” said Babcock. “It is a chance for them to learn from real projects, hear from peers across different teams and offices, and keep growing in ways that fit right into our current projects.”
Both IEA’s Project Management and LNL series provide engineers with the opportunity to revisit important concepts, explore new industry trends, and discuss real-world challenges they may encounter.
“The LNL series has really helped me with my day-to-day tasks,” said Deena Kamal, EIT, an Engineer-in-Training in IEA’s Dallas Office. “Gathering all the knowledge from our staff or a subconsultant can be very interesting. We get to see a different perspective of different topics, which helps with my learning development.”
Jordan Hasler, P.E., IEA Fort Worth Project Manager, finds the sessions informative and an opportunity to have an open discussion with peers about unfamiliar topics. IEA Dallas recently hosted the Rios Group in an LNL to better understand and leverage Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) reports in our design.
“The technical sessions are done in response to very recent issues we’ve seen,” said Hasler. “This allows us to tailor the technical topic to the most pressing issue at hand, and not something that is pre-planned months in advance.”
Babcock regularly meets with engineers, gathers feedback, and identifies relevant topics to ensure the content aligns with current projects, field experiences, and SMART goals for their IEA Career Pathways.
IEA’s Career Pathways was an initiative Babcock helped implement in 2025 to help give guidance to our engineering teams as they transform their careers.
“We provided a technical engineering path and project management path so that those that are in the early stages of their career can really think about how they want to grow,” said Babcock. “That helps them choose what LNL sessions to attend as it might pertain to topics they want to learn more about to get further into that path.”
IEA’s leadership asks for all supervisors to meet quarterly with their teams to discuss SMART goals and career progression. This helps our teams affirm their path or pivot as they find new interests in their professional careers.
“It is important for IEA because we really, truly care that our staff work towards goals that work for IEA, and also for them personally in their development path,” said Jennifer Nelson-Smith, IEA’s Director of Marketing and Communications. “You might have an idea of what you want, then you try it and it doesn’t quite work. Having regular discussions about what you learned helps you continuing to grow and feel fulfilled.”
As EWeek comes to a close, we encourage everyone to explore new ways to learn and grow to transform your future. Whether through collaboration, mentorship, or continuous learning, each team member plays a role in strengthening their organization and the communities they serve.
