Stacy Bartoletti
Purdue '88 

DSF: Tell us about yourself.

SB: I originally grew up in Wisconsin, and became a Delta Sig member when I went to Purdue University. I joined my freshman year, and spent the rest of my undergraduate career as a member of the Fraternity. After that, I went to graduate school at the University of Texas, and then came to work at the company I'm at now, Degenkolb Engineers. I have lived in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and now in Seattle, Washington. I am married going on 12 years now, and I have two boys, ages six and eight.

 DSF: In our research before the interview, we saw in your bio that you are from Green Bay.
As a Packers fan, what did you think about the Brett Favre retirement?

SB: (Laughs) I kinda felt it was going to happen and it was probably about time. He had a great career, but it was time to hang it up and do something else I think. We'll miss him, but it is time to go.

DSF: As a lover of snow, are you upset that you're missing this huge snowy winter we're having in the Midwest?

SB: (Laughs) You guys have been lacking for snow for a while. It has been good out here for us also. We've gotten plenty of snow, and what I like about the snow out here is that you can go to the mountains, but be able to go home and not have to deal with it. That's the nice part.

DSF: What made you decide to go to Purdue if you're from Green Bay?

SB: At the time, when I was a senior in high school and was applying for colleges, I thought Purdue was a great school and institution. My own story is an interesting one since in my high school senior English class, we had a writing assignment and were able to write an essay for a college application, as opposed to what the assigned topic. So I had somehow gotten a hold of Purdue's application, and I thought why not apply to school here and write the essay for my application instead of the one assigned in class. I did that, and Purdue's application was an early application, and I was accepted there and never applied anywhere else. It happened quickly.

DSF: What was your major?

SB: I have a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue with an emphasis on Structures and a Master's degree with the same major from the University of Texas at Austin.

DSF: Once you got to Purdue, what made you decide to join the Delta Delta Chapter?

SB: I met some good friends in my freshman dormitory. All of us were there without other people we knew at school, so there was a group of us that got together and joined the same Fraternity. It was interesting and a good opportunity for me to meet new people and get involved in an organization on campus. It was also really good for me because I did the co-op program at Purdue. So, every other semester during my education I was away from school working and then came back. It was always nice and refreshing to be able to come back to the same friends and to be able to live in the Fraternity house.

DSF: Did you hold any leadership positions on campus or in the chapter?

SB: I was the president of the Delta Delta Chapter for my senior year. It was a very good experience. It's a whole lot different trying to lead a fraternity of 80-100 college guys than it is trying to lead a business of 140 people, but it created a lot of leadership skills and was a great experience for me.

DSF: You mentioned that you went on to get your master's degree at the University of Texas.
What was your first job at Degenkolb after you completed your degree?

SB: After I joined the company in 1993, in 1994 we had a pretty significant earthquake out here on the west coast down in Northridge, CA in the Los Angeles area. One of our big clients was and continues to be Hewlett Packard. HP had a building that they didn't occupy but did own in LA, and it saw significant structural damage. I spent probably three months of my career early on in Los Angeles working on repairing that building with the contractor, and it was a great hands-on experience for me.

DSF: For all of those people who are not engineers, can you tell us what a civil or structural engineer does on a day-to-day basis?

SB: At Degenkolb, we call ourselves structural engineers but we're also earthquake consultants and engineers. Pretty much all of our business is related to buildings. On a day-to-day basis, you could be involved in designing the structure of a new building. All of our work is on the west coast, so there is a very large seismic or earthquake component to our work. We also get very involved in doing seismic evaluations of existing buildings.  We answer the question of what is going to happen to a building in an earthquake, how is it going to perform in an earthquake, and what type of damage is it going to sustain.

DSF: Tell us a little more about the company.

SB: Sure. Degenkolb is a company that's been around for more than 65 years. As I said, I started in 1993, and when I started we had about 50 people in one office in San Francisco. Today, we have offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland and Seattle. We have started some international work also with a small office in Istanbul, Turkey. We have about 140 people in the company.

DSF: Tell us a little bit about your progression through the company.

SB: It is sort of a steady progression up through the company. My story has been a little unique, in that I have been a part of the geographic expansion of the company. I spent about three and a half years in San Francisco working as an entry-level engineer on designs for buildings and evaluations for existing buildings along with seismic study type work. At about that time, there were three or four of us who said we really don't want to live in the Bay Area, we talked to the company, and agreed that we were interested in living in Portland, Oregon. We decided as a company to open up an office in Portland since we saw it as a good opportunity to expand the company. We hired someone locally in Portland to run the office, and three of us moved from San Francisco to Portland to be the core group who started the office. I spent about five years in Portland working my way up to become a partner in the firm while I was there. After the 2001 earthquake in the Seattle area I spent a significant amount of time there working for several clients. We decided we wanted to have an office in Seattle so I moved there to start the office and have lived there ever since.

DSF: You serve as the president of the company from the Seattle branch office then?

SB: Yes. I continue to live in Seattle and our corporate headquarters are in San Francisco. I travel to all of our offices, visiting and spending time in all of them, but I spend the majority of my time in San Francisco. I go there a couple of days per week.

DSF: How do you like that setup?

SB: It is a good setup for me in my personal life right now, since my family has gotten pretty well settled in Seattle and my wife and kids are happy there. We like the Seattle area, so we have a setup that works for us right now. It's not always easy to do so much traveling, but with my position, I have to travel no matter where I live. I find it to work well because of the family situation.

DSF: Tell us what your main roles are as the president and COO. Are you still doing any project management, or are you strictly doing the executive work now like new business development?

SB: My role as president and COO is primarily operations, internally focused. Within our organization, pretty much everyone reports up to me as the president and COO. I spend a lot of time working with our various engineering groups, working on coordination between those groups and the sharing of staff and working on training for them. Training for our project managers is one of the big tasks that we are undertaking right now. I do spend a little bit of time in projects but not much. It continues to be projects and clients that I had previously. I am working with other project managers to transition that work to them, but there are still a few things I get involved with from a project standpoint.

DSF: Did you see yourself in this position when you started there?

SB: I think for any person who is coming right out of college and starting at a company, it is pretty hard for them to imagine themselves progressing up to the president of the company. However, on the other hand, I have always wanted to be the person who is in the leadership role and wanted to advance my career. So, I wouldn't say that it was a complete far thought from my mind, but I wouldn't say it was the goal coming out of school and starting with the company.

DSF: What is a typical day in your life?

SB: There are no typical days. Everyday ends up being different. The interesting thing when you are in this type of position is that you end up looking back at the day and wondering ‘what did I do today?' A lot of my time is spent working and talking with other people in the company, working through the issues that are happening on a day-to-day basis, and helping to steer the company in the direction of our vision to make it successful in the long run.

DSF: What do you like to do in your free time away from work?

SB: Free time is primarily spent with my family. Right now, we're getting involved in all of the activities that the kids have. This time of year, we're starting baseball for both of the boys, and even though I spend a lot of time traveling, I still manage to coach both of their baseball team with a couple other fathers. I enjoy playing golf, although I don't get to do it as much as I'd like.

DSF: What piece of advice would you give to other Delta Sigs to be successful in business?

SB: I look back to my days at Purdue and my involvement within the Fraternity and the education that I got, and the advice that I always give to young folks is that you are at college for a couple different reasons. The first and primary reason is that you're there to get an education, and you have to pay attention to that. But, there's no reason that you can't have fun and enjoy the college experience while you're also getting an education. I managed to do both and was very successful at it. I had a great time being a member of the Fraternity and got involved in the social and fraternal activities, but also concentrated on my education. That's really the advice I give to people - be there and get your education, concentrate on your studies, and at the same time, take advantage of the opportunities that are provided for you to have fun and create memories while you're there.