Joshua Smith

PE, LEED AP

Associate | Manager, Mechanical Engineering

At SMMA

  • Joshua oversees the day-to-day range of SMMA’s Mechanical Engineering team
  • Balances the workload across the department and aligns the firm’s experiences levels with the appropriate work objectives
  • Offers strategic direction for the department’s project goals and client relations
  • Coordinates professional development through enrolling junior staff in various industry-related training and certification programs

Hitting the Pins

“The most important thing I do every day is have a brief conversation with everyone on my team."

Joshua's team-focus is fueled directly by his personal engagement. During daily discussions, Joshua determines each coworker’s current projects and course of action. “My role can be compared to that of bowling alley bumpers. I find out what’s going on both technically and project navigation-wise. If I need to, I act as the bumpers to make sure that my team can hit the pins.”

Joshua also ensures success through encouraging employees to take advantage of clearly-defined industry goals and available certifications. “Our professionals deserve to be recognized by a community of their peers,” he says. “The goal is to help facilitate everyone’s technical career growth.”

Addressing a Client Spectrum

Joshua explores each client in-depth before determining their project criteria with his team.

“Some clients don’t have strong opinions about Mechanical and some do,” he explains. Through working with an array of clients as sophisticated as the lab and life science industry, to highly cost-focused commercial clients, to maintenance-focused institutional clients, Joshua understands that Mechanical may fall under some individual’s radars. Thus, he steers away from the rarely successful “one size fits all” approach.

“You need to know which questions to ask to figure out where clients land on the spectrum, and their opinions that they may or may not already have. It’s all about discovering priorities, and working together towards those priorities.”