American DBE Magazine - CERM Climbs to Success While Lifting Others

CERM Climbs to Success While Lifting Others Along the Way

Corporate Environmental Risk Management (CERM) Founder and CEO, Albert Edwards, had a vision of building a company that would lift others while striving for success from the moment he and business partner Marcus Reese launched the company in 1995. The two young professionals dreamed of having the ability and resources to help others reach their dreams, while pursuing their own dreams as entrepreneurs; and this possibility served as their proverbial “why” for leaving comfortable salaries at a Fortune 500 corporation to kick off their own firm from a one-room office in the South DeKalb Business Incubator in Atlanta.

Generally speaking, most entrepreneurs are not thinking about how their business will serve others when starting a company. The typical entrepreneur’s central focus is primarily on how they will survive the first months and years in business, and how they will build a customer base to grow the company to profitability. However, for Edwards and Reese, while these considerations were important, they were the means toward the end goal of helping their community and supporting causes important to them. “Our vision was always about community impact; it was never about material gain or popularity. Our deal was to be impactful,” Edwards said.

Tragically, Edwards had to carry this vision forward alone after his childhood friend and co-founder passed away after a battle with cancer in 2017. But he has carried their vision and the CERM family forward, leading the company to extraordinary success as one of the preeminent minority-owned engineering, environmental, and program management firms in the nation.

While CERM began as an environmental program management firm focused on the commercial real estate sector, the firm has expanded over the years to become a vertically integrated civil, environmental, and program management firm that provides consulting and contracting services to infrastructure, energy, and commercial clients throughout the Southeast. CERM is headquartered in DeKalb County, an Atlanta suburb with branch offices in Tampa, Florida; Orlando, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama.

CERM Managing Director Albert Edwards (third from left) with intern Corina Fluker, Project Manager Darryl Edler, Jr. and Project Manager Armond Jenkins (l-r).

Climbing Toward Success

CERM’s rise to success has been a steady and intentional journey over the past 27 years. Like most companies, the firm has endured challenging times; however, fiscal discipline, strong client relationships, and structured growth has allowed the firm to weather the storms of the business cycle to become a sustainable organization, positioned to continue its growth into the future.

Since starting the company with only Edwards, Reese, and a dream, CERM is now a multidisciplinary team consisting of 130 professionals and growing. “Every day we safely provide more than 1,000 man-hours of services to our clients across the Southeast,” Edwards said.

CERM’s growth is linked to leadership focusing on pursuing a detailed business plan and a strategic plan communicated throughout all levels of the business. The planning process keeps the firm’s goals and objectives in the minds of employees and sets clear expectations for leaders and managers throughout the company. “We have achieved a growth rate of more than 20% a year for the past several years, even during the pandemic, to include being named the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Construction Services Firm of the Year in 2020 and receiving the Maynard H. Jackson Legacy Leadership Award in 2021,” Edwards said.

A strategic focus has helped the firm build strong relationships with major clients and business partners across the southeastern United States. A few strategic clients include the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, DeKalb County Government, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transportation Authority (MARTA), the City of Mobile, Comcast, and Southern Company. In addition, CERM routinely partners with some of the largest engineering and project management firms in the world.

“We are a solid technical services company, and we have an ongoing focus and cadence around quality,” Edwards said. The focus on quality is consistent throughout the organization and is driven by a diligent adherence to metrics centered around resource optimization, risk management and customer service. These metrics are applied across the organization with leaders being held accountable for the performance of their teams along these lines. “We hold a quarterly All Hands Meeting to bring the team together and review our performance and make sure everyone is on the same page with where we are going,” Edwards said.

A storm water detention pond area of Atlanta that is part of the Atlanta Beltline Clear Creek Combined Sewer Basin Relief Project. CERM was contracted to provide environmental and construction management services for the project.

The company also uses a STEP Analysis process (social, technological, economic, and political) to ensure the company is moving in the right direction and to assess both new opportunities and potential threats on the horizon.

Building a solid reputation for exceptional quality with clients and business partners is helping CERM continue its growth in 2022. The firm has expanded into emerging industries like renewable energy, telecommunications, cannabis, and select commercial development; and its growing scale and expertise continues to attract new business opportunities. CERM opened its Tampa, Florida, office in 2021 to keep pace with growth, and plans to open a second office in the Greater Atlanta region to better serve the rapidly growing metropolitan area.

Lifting Others Along the Way

CERM’s business model directly ties its ability to impact the community to the firm’s profitability and growth. This approach fuels Edwards’ passion and keeps him focused on taking the steps necessary to grow the company. A large part of the firm’s success comes from finding and hiring the right talent to help the firm serve its clients well and continue to grow. Since both Edwards and Reese were graduates of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), they were aware of the untapped talent available at these institutions; and recruiting professionals with an ideology similar to theirs became a key strategy in their hiring process.

This intentionality and culture of inclusion makes CERM an attractive employer for young, diverse professionals, especially African Americans and other disenfranchised communities. The firm has professionals from over 20 HBCUs across the country including institutions such as Tuskegee University, Hampton University, Florida A&M University, North Carolina A&T State University, Alabama A&M, Southern University, Jackson State University, and others. “We have nearly every HBCU in the Southeast represented on our team, and we have team members from across the Caribbean and countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria,” Edwards said. This intentional strategy gives CERM the opportunity to hire talent that other companies may overlook, while at the same time nurturing younger professionals and giving them the opportunity to thrive and support their families. Edwards said: “I had no idea of the impact job creation would have on my experience as an entrepreneur. The ability to help anchor families has been a driving force, and to see the impact on a family that a scalable career opportunity has for someone like a single parent, or a person that is the oldest of five siblings, is an amazing experience for me.”

Summer Job Shadowing Program students Naomi and Dwayne (l–r) learn soil grade analysis with CERM’s professional geologist Clement Quartey-Papafio (right).

CERM’s signature outreach program, called the Shadowing Program, strives to replicate the impact a summer engineering program sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had on the lives of Edwards and Reese when they met in high school. CERM’s Shadowing Program invites high school and college students to their headquarters to gain exposure to working in a professional setting and to encourage students to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). CERM’s success with the Shadowing Program also led to the creation of an internship program to offer opportunities to underrepresented college students to gain hands-on, resume-building experience in the environmental and civil engineering industry. “Supporting youth by replicating what I gained through that summer program is so important to me,” Edwards said. “If there is a heaven and a hell; hell for me would be not doing programs like this because of the road I’ve traveled and the distance I’ve come – and the things we’ve been able to do for the families we serve as a result.”

As another way of giving back to the community, CERM created the CERM Legacy Foundation in 2020 to support STEM education in underserved communities. The foundation has developed partnerships with Edwards’ alma mater Mississippi Valley State University, Alabama A&M University and Jackson State University to support students in engineering. These partnerships allow CERM to provide advisory support to the school’s engineering and business management programs, provide internships to students, and offer employment opportunities for graduates.

CERM also supports students attending technical colleges by partnering with Atlanta Technical College and Georgia Piedmont Technical College to provide financial assistance and internship opportunities to students. CERM’s team is working with college leadership at both institutions to develop curricula for technical certificates and Associate degree programs. These shorter training programs will help those interested in the field get to work sooner and will bridge the growing gap in the available workforce, especially for construction managers and inspectors. Edwards knows supporting these organizations not only helps students and the industry succeed but also provides a pipeline of talent into the company’s workforce.

Internship Program participants (l–r) Michael Kearse, Gabriel Edwards, Corina Fluker, Nina Odekhiran, Aaliyah Guthrie, Evan Lazaro, Ali Iftikhar, Khaim Sewell learned valuable industry and work skills from CERM employees.

Edwards leads the firm’s efforts to be an exceptional corporate citizen and industry leader. CERM is an active supporter of the Atlanta Big Brother & Big Sisters organization, Habitat for Humanity, and others. Edwards is also currently serving as chair of the Atlanta Business League and chair of the Council for Quality Growth. Although he joined these organizations to expand his professional network, he has used the experience to contribute to the Atlanta business community by assuming leadership roles and advancing the organizations’ missions. “I grew up in the Atlanta Business League professionally, so when they asked me to become a part of the board, I had to say yes,” Edwards said.

Other emerging leaders in the company have followed Edwards’ example to assume roles in community and industry organizations. CERM Chief Operating Officer Terrell Gibbs, Ph.D. serves as the chairman for Georgia Piedmont Technical College Foundation; and Senior Program Manager Shelley Lamar serves as a Foundation board member for Atlanta Technical College. Principal Engineer/ Engineering Group Manager Kenneth Fluker, PE is slated to chair of the American Council of Engineering Companies of Georgia Board of Directors; Program Management and Construction Management Group Manager

Rodney Given serves on Clayton County’s Water Authority Board, and Project Manager Darryl Edler, Jr. is chair of the Council for Quality Growth’s Emerging Leaders Initiative. “Professional organizations provide a platform for people to get to know you and understand your value system – and for you to demonstrate who you are,” Edwards said.

Edwards (in back) and CERM employees give back to the community by participating in the 15th Annual Atlanta HBCU 5K Run/Walk in June 2022 to provide scholarships to Metro Atlanta HBCU students.

Moving Toward the Future

As the company continues to grow, Edwards is in the preliminary stages of making succession plans and evaluating leaders who can lead the firm into the future. He plans to turn over his day-to-day leadership role to a new president in the next 18 months while he limits his role to CEO, before ultimately moving to the role of board chair, as others develop the ability to lead the organization. Edwards said, “The leaders here, by their sacrifice, focus, vision and leadership, provide me with the autonomy to focus on developing meaningful partnerships with clients and partners across the Southeast, and across the nation.”