In her nearly five years with Timmons Group, Leandra Colella has been exposed to a wild number of roles. She’s rotated positions as a project engineer in traffic, transportation, land development, water/wastewater utilities, and stormwater, and is most recently sitting in our geospatial technology division as a GIS analyst.
Leandra injects herself into various teams across the company, almost like a professional intern. She will work with a team for five to eight months in one capacity, then migrate to a different course of study. Like an internship, Leandra is gaining quick experience from subject matter experts, but she’s not chasing these ‘internships’ because she’s still finding her fit within the firm. Actually, she’s chasing them because she knows exactly what she wants to do.
Leandra is part of our economic development team. Her job is to learn the higher level innerworkings of how and why engineers across a variety of fields can work together for a common goal, particularly large scale development sites.
Our economic development team’s vision is to build partnerships with businesses and municipalities who seek growth for their communities. This growth often takes the form of large untapped plots of land that are suitable for building. The sites vary in use from mixed-use to commercial and industrial, and since they’re meant to bolster area growth, they’re usually not embedded in urban areas with lots of resources.
An economic development site often requires new wastewater utilities, water mains, and telephone, gas, and electric lines. If it’s located off the beaten path from any other developed areas, it could even require new roads for transportation, or stoplights for safe travel.
And that’s where Leandra comes in. Her career at Timmons Group over the past five years has helped her develop an understanding of what services are needed to bring these hundred-acre sites to life.
Leandra went to University of Virginia for their civil engineering program. While there, she was involved in in Alpha Omega Epsilon, UVA’s women in engineering sorority. She discovered connections and resources through her chapter that helped her navigate the beginning of a career in civil engineering. “It’s a male-heavy industry, but the sorority really helped solidify my choice to be an engineer,” she said.
Outside of the sorority, Leandra was focused on discovering which field of civil engineering she wanted to practice. She was dedicated to the infrastructure tract, but she still wasn’t sure which type of engineering she wanted to pursue. Then, an opportunity arose to turn that unsureness into a career.
“In my junior year of college, I interned in the Ashburn office at Timmons Group, and then from there I worked in the Charlottesville office while I was going to school. I originally planned on going back to Ashburn, but an opportunity came up in Richmond for economic development,” Leandra said. “The role was so interesting, and a lot of other firms don’t have a rotation opportunity like it, so I jumped on the chance.”
“I took the position because the economic development program here at Timmons Group is unique. I knew I could experience various parts of the industry and figure out which one I’m most passionate about,” she said. “But now, I’m just passionate about everything that economic development has to offer.”
Aside from studying different fields within civil engineering, Leandra has met and worked with dozens of people at the firm. She says that’s one of her favorite parts of the economic development program.
“Each group has been welcoming, and they’ve taught me a lot. Through this program, I know so many more people within the company and now if I ever have a question, I have individuals that I can reach out to who I’ve built relationships with,” Leandra said. “The people and work never get boring!”
The economic development program allows our engineers to explore opportunities throughout the firm as well as lean into their interests if they discover a passion in a particular field. “There’s no real time frame for each rotation, it’s really dependent on when I feel like I’ve gained a broad experience that will help me with my economic development career,” Leandra said. “If I do find something that I’m really passionate about, I could go to that group full time, or I could stay in economic development where we do master planning that involves almost every type of engineering.”
Regardless of the type of engineering, Leandra says one of her biggest passions is helping communities grow. “Economic development is about creating jobs and creating opportunity, and that’s amazing to me,” she said. “And working with our different teams and seeing how much we really touch in society as a whole is extremely rewarding.”
Are you interested in joining our economic development team? For more information visit our current openings on the web.
