Working With RETTEW Engineering Consulting: Spotlight on Joel Young
In modern corporate America, many consulting jobs might require you to sell someone industry reports, business plans, or a list of recommendations. It feels like a transaction—you provide the information, the client pays you, and the process ends.
Yet true consulting positions operate differently. They are based on relationships. For professionals in leadership roles, navigating this distinction often defines whether the work feels transactional or genuinely meaningful.
But what if your career was more about building connections, rather than simply checking boxes?
In the business-to-business corporate world, it’s rare to find someone who both promises results and is willing to roll up their sleeves to build them with you.
Enter Joel Young—the Development Market Lead at RETTEW. For more than two decades, Joel has been helping build a sales culture at RETTEW centered around the “seller-doer model.”
This model is a business approach where technical staff, like project managers or lead engineers, are responsible for both delivering (doing) client work and securing new opportunities (selling). These professionals balance project execution with business development to build strong client relationships that transform them from merely vendors into trusted advisors.
A typical day for a seller-doer like Joel might begin with market research drawn from the latest industry publications, followed by meeting with a client over lunch. He might spend the afternoon on a video call consulting with a client on technical site development, then network at a local industry event that evening.
But this seller-doer, hybrid approach isn’t unique to Joel. If you look at the bigger picture, you’ll find it’s the unique heartbeat behind RETTEW’s company culture. Every engineer, surveyor, project manager, GIS analyst, and market lead is a part of this wider ecosystem.
And that’s where Joel’s story comes in—not just his role as Development Market Lead, but the mindset behind it. Through his experience, this article will offer you insight into what it’s actually like to build a career at RETTEW: balancing day-to-day technical work with genuine, relationship-driven business development.
The Daily Routine: Market Intelligence and Networking
Everyone, including you, is a leader.
As a professional, your insight and experience are unique. When you develop a better process to complete a task or share a unique piece of research with a colleague or a client, you’ve actively practiced leadership skills by sharing with others. You’ve gathered research and networked with the people around you to expand your influence and benefit your team.
Experts like Joel practice these skills every day by balancing market intelligence research and networking.
So what does the day of a Development Market Lead actually look like? For Joel, the day rarely fits into a single lane.
Like so many of us, he starts his day checking emails for key updates and diving into the latest market data. He also keeps a finger on the pulse of the real estate sector, reviewing the latest information from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Bisnow.
Then, Joel shifts lanes to connect with the development market’s project managers, offering a fresh perspective and a second set of eyes to help guide complex assignments. Joel also uses two main suites of software tools—trusted favorites in the AEC industry: Microsoft 365 and Deltek’s Vantagepoint client database software.
However, when asked to share the greatest contribution to his success, Joel’s answer was definitive–relationship management. Communicating with people face-to-face makes every day at RETTEW an adventure, from luncheons with prospective clients to one-on-one meetings with long-term partners.
Human connection drives Joel’s productivity and he works every day to overcommunicate with clients, providing a personal touch as a trusted advisor rather than simply a service provider.
For outgoing and friendly personalities like Joel, the constant networking isn’t a burden—it’s a motivation. “It’s a full plate every day, which is nice. It’s a challenge and I love that. It’s one of the things I enjoy most about the job.”
He remains active in the community, attending networking events and nurturing the relationships that fuel collaboration. “When we talk to people at public events,” Joel explains with enthusiasm, “they know we’re up to speed with their concerns or their visions.”
These are the corporate values you can expect when you work with RETTEW—a strong commitment to respectful, transparent, and collaborative communication internally and externally.
The Strategy: The Seller-Doer Ecosystem
Have you ever gone the extra mile simply to wow a client?
For Joel, he leverages his team to embody the seller-doer model: pitching the big ideas and then executing them with excellence.
How? He empowers the specialists around him to lead subsets within their fields of expertise in the Development market.
Joel believes one of RETTEW’s greatest advantages is that no single person needs to be the smartest employee in the room at all times—the goal is to channel the collective insight each professional offers.
To achieve this goal, he focuses on a strategy that prioritizes people over paperwork. Unlike firms that rely solely on cold Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and public bids, the RETTEW Development team only occasionally pursues work from RFPs.
Instead, Joel focuses on strategic partners like commercial real estate brokers to connect with new clients early in the process. By offering guidance before a project is officially launched, RETTEW builds trust from day one.
Joel and the RETTEW team support this relationship-driven model by operating on two core pillars: local presence and technical understanding.
Pillar 1: Local Presence
First, Joel relies on RETTEW’s regional teams across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The regional structure isn’t simply about geography—local contact is key. Clients recognize when there’s a personal connection to an area, its traditions, and business customs. RETTEW’s people bring an authentic connection to each area, and they care deeply about projects that shape their communities.
That’s why Joel believes civil engineering, land development, and real estate are inherently local. A project manager based in Lancaster, PA, can’t effectively manage the nuances of a project in Pittsburgh, PA, because they lack the personal touch and insight into local municipalities.
By keeping teams regional, RETTEW helps ensure every client has a knowledgeable expert nearby.
Pillar 2: Technical Depth
The regional approach isn’t enough given RETTEW’s vast scope of services across multiple disciplines. Joel divides the work of leading the broader Development market across various divisions so that project managers truly live the work they sell on a daily basis. This principle is where the seller-doer model is critical.
To Joel, Janel Simmers is the perfect example of this philosophy. As the senior project manager for the Industrial market, Janel understands the latest trends in Environmental Compliance and has an inside track on the most current technical information. She’s a savvy expert on the day-to-day work, but can also pivot quickly to discuss big-picture ideas and answer client questions.
Joel’s own career mirrors this path—he started as a landscape architect and grew into his current leadership role. He’s truly a doer who can talk with clients about technical questions like land planning while also acting as a seller when discussing private sector development projects with prospects.
“Our experts understand the concerns, the pressure points, and the value added simply because they live it,” Joel explains, describing the critical need for seller-doers on the RETTEW team. “That is key to our success. It allows project managers to talk directly to the client about the details that matter. We never want to be viewed as just selling a commodity; we want to show that we care more.”
Whether you’re a scientist pursuing a career in biology, a surveyor capturing site data with the latest technology, or a civil engineer with a specialization in site planning and design, RETTEW is a multidisciplinary firm with a place for you.
Leadership and Company Culture: The Owner Mentality
Have you ever considered what it would be like to have a financial stake in your company’s future? RETTEW operated as a privately held firm for 43 years, became a partial employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) for 7 years, and made the full transition to 100% employee ownership in 2019.
The goal of such a radical change? To build a culture where every employee’s actions truly impact the bottom line and empower them to act like an owner with a vested interest in their work. The ESOP model rewards outstanding performance and client satisfaction long term.
As a 20-year veteran at RETTEW, Joel has unique insight into how these changes have affected the workplace. “It’s been a culture shift over the years… I think a lot of employees are starting to really understand that what they do matters because they can see it. You’re not just an employee, you’re an owner. You have a vested interest in making sure we succeed. We have turned the corner on that, and it’s really becoming part of what our culture is.”
Yet, Joel notes that despite the high level of expertise, the atmosphere at RETTEW remains outstandingly friendly. “It’s always been approachable and open here… I can call up anybody and ask questions and they get back to me. We have teams of experts across the board.”
Connect With RETTEW to Discover Career Opportunities
What do you envision for the future of your career?
Professionals like Joel Young continue to build the next chapter of RETTEW’s story by going above and beyond. RETTEW’s multidisciplinary team strives for continuous improvement with a seller-doer culture.
Whether it’s driving to Bethesda, Maryland for a face-to-face meeting with a remote client or sending a personal note about an insightful industry article, RETTEW wants to hire people who have a passion for partnering with our clients.
That’s why RETTEW needs to continue to grow our family of team members with high achievers like you. “We’re tied to our clients because their success is our success,” Joel explains for anyone considering a career at RETTEW. “I think it is important for someone to come into a position realizing that they’re joining a company that has the right things in mind for the future.”
Are you interested in career opportunities with RETTEW? Connect with the career development team to discuss embarking on a fulfilling career path and explore the benefits of working with RETTEW.
Barbara Mahaffey
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