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Coffee Klatch – University Northlake Spring 2024 (Members Only)

Barbara Briccotto is now a registered Interior Designer per the NC Board of Architecture and Registered Interior Designers

Excited to share that I am now a registered interior designer per The North Carolina Board of Architecture and Registered Interior Designers.
Long awaited recognition for our profession and tied to our National Council of Interior Design Qualification Certificate. Thank you to everyone who championed this for many years.
Look for #NCregisteredinteriordesigner and #NCIDQcertified

Signature Luncheon with Alison Levine: On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership  

Submitted by Danielle Kuhn and Keiko Pace 

CREW Charlotte hosted a very motivating speech given by Alison Levine at the Westin for their Signature Luncheon on May 4th.  Alison Levine is no stranger to punishing environments. She has survived sub-zero temperatures, hurricane-force winds, sudden avalanches…and a career on Wall Street. Alison has made a career out of breaking boundaries and inspiring others to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

Levine has climbed the highest peak on every continent, served as the team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, and skied across the Arctic Circle to the geographic North Pole. In January 2008 she made history as the first American to follow a remote route across west Antarctica for 600 miles to the South Pole. She completed this arduous journey on skis while hauling 150 lbs of her gear and supplies in a sled harnessed to her waist. Her success in extreme environments is noteworthy given she had three heart surgeries and also suffers from a neurological disease that causes the arteries that feed her fingers and toes to collapse in cold weather, leaving her at extreme risk for frostbite.

Levine spoke about how you must climb up a few thousand feet and then go back down to base to rest, hydrate, and then go back up a little higher each time. She related the ascending and descending climbs to work and life. Sometimes you must go backward in order to move forward. She continued to talk about how fear is normal. She had fears about the weather, the journey, and whether she would reach the top, etc. Fear, willpower, and commitment to success can also help propel you forward.  

Alison did not make it to the top of Mount Everest on her first expedition. She encountered a few severe storms along her journey, and they had to make the extremely hard decision to turn back and head down the mountain for her safety and her team’s wellbeing. It was heartbreaking not to make it to the top her first time, but the lessons she learned were invaluable.  

Alison did go back and reach the top after encouragement from her late, best friend who was also an amazing athlete.  On this expedition, she encountered another storm and saw other climbers heading back down the mountain. But Alison had more experience this time and wanted to check out the conditions for herself. After a grueling trek up the mountain, again with more severe weather conditions, she made it to the top of Mount Everest!  

She learned many lessons along the way but one of the best lessons was that failure prepares you for success. Without failure, you can’t experience the sweet feeling of success. Failure motivates you to keep moving forward. Willpower and the determination to succeed must come from your heart.  

 

Quotes from Alison Levine: 

  • “Backing up is not the same as backing down”
  • “Take action based on the situation not based on a plan “ 
  • “Fear is okay, it is just a normal human emotion. Complacency is what will kill you.” 
  • “The storms are always temporary” 
  • “No one gets to the top by themselves”

Key Takeaways: 

  • Climbing Everest is nothing at all like the movies! 
  • Just like in life, while you are climbing a mountain you must act and react quickly in environments that are constantly shifting and changing 
  • You don’t have to be the best or the fastest or strongest, you just have to be relentless and want to continue 
  • Leadership is about realizing that everyone has a responsibility to help a team move towards a goal, not just the leader themselves. 
  • Leadership is not about you; it is about everyone around you. You must think about every move you make because it is going to affect everyone else on the team and not just you.
  • We cannot control the environment, but we can only control the way we react. You may be put in scenarios where you have to act based on the situation and not the plan. 
  • If the conditions aren’t right, it is okay to cut your losses and walk away because one person’s poor judgment can bring down an entire team or organization 
  • When you are going to try hard things, you are going to have to give yourself and your team the freedom to fail and come back around to try it again. The hard work you put in will impact those who come behind you and do remarkable things because of your experience. 
  • Failure stifles people from taking a risk. However, because of the previous failures Alison had or people had before her, she was able to be where she is today. 
  • The lessons you learn along the way and what you are going to do with that knowledge going forward is what continues to change the world.  
  • You do not have to have complete clarity to move towards a goal. But if you do have the big picture in sight, sometimes it is necessary to break down the big picture into smaller more doable goals.  

Move Opportunity

Thanks to Scarlet Powell with AVI-SPL for making it possible for All American Relocation to win a recent project with moving and storage components in the scope! We really appreciate it! – Dave Rushing

CREW Charlotte’s April 2022 Luncheon “Inclusive Design: Designing for Everyone”

Submitted by Jaren Wells. Gensler

Gensler’s Inclusive Design Champion for the Northeast, Jennifer Ellis-Rosa’s presentation on Inclusive Design certainly opened our minds to what is truly Inclusive (the “I” in DEI). Jenn is a client engagement and workplace strategy specialist in the New Jersey office. There were great comments and conversation starters provided by the audience that will help us think differently, go beyond the Accessibility Code and ADA compliance, and will hopefully inspire and challenge your teams and organizations to be thinking of what is implemented in the built environment.

A general description of Inclusive Design was outlined as design for All People and creates environments that are healthier, safer, easier, more convenient, and more comfortable for Everyone. Questions such as “when did the minimum become acceptable” were asked. Inclusive Design + Universal Design = Good Design.

The eight core elements of Inclusive Design were discussed, which are based on research from the University of Buffalo Idea Center: Body Fit, Comfort, Awareness, Understanding, Wellness, Social Integration, Personalization, and Appropriateness. Examples of each were shown along with a discussion. The Design Goals exercise can be shared upon request.

Thank you to CREW Dallas member, Nikki Gibson

I’d like to thank CREW Dallas member, Nikki Gibson, a partner at Bell Nunnally, for asking me to serve as local counsel for her lender client who is financing an acquisition involving three golf courses located in North Carolina and South Carolina. I’m excited to be working with Nikki again. As an interesting side note, I am very familiar with these properties, having done the original development work for the golf courses when they were developed back in the 1980s.

-Nancy Olah

March 2022 Luncheon – “She Shoots, She Scores! Women in Sports”

Submitted by Robin Haddock, RLH Development

The March luncheon panel was an inspiring showcase of the tenacity of three women who have thrived in the male-dominated sports industry.  Cristy Nine, Corporate Managing Director at Savills, asked the three panelists to respond to four questions: (1) How did you make your way into this industry; (2) What obstacles have you had to overcome; (3) What are some of your proudest moments; and (4) Who has served as your mentor or helped you get your start?

The responses provided many good lessons, for women and men alike, about why representation is important. Among the highlights:

Donna Julian, Executive Vice President & Spectrum Center General Manager at Hornets Sports & Entertainment offered one of the best pieces of advice saying, “You don’t know what someone can do until you give them a chance to do it.” As an African American woman, she has often encountered biased opinions from people who think they know who she is before they get to know her. Her gauge of success is her ability to set the record straight through her accomplishments while also being a good mom.  Because she has been a trailblazer in the sports industry, she had to rely on men as role models in the beginning.  She is now in a position to be a mentor and champion to other women and considers it success when her team members move on to bigger opportunities because she has invested in them.

Judy Rose, UNC Charlotte Athletic Director Emeritus, credits Title IX for opening the door to the sports industry for her. And what an entrance she made! Only the third woman to achieve the level of Athletic Director of a Division 1 school, she quickly realized she had to get the men to understand what needed to be done without them realizing she was doing it.  Her husband pointed out that the men were also struggling to adjust to her being in the room.  As he put it “we don’t know what to do with y’all” with “we” being men and “y’all” being women, of course.  His advice was to ask for what she needs without worrying about feeling weak.  And she clearly made that work, as she is credited with bringing football to the Charlotte 49er athletic program.

Jasmine James rounded out the panel. The first African American to become ticket sales manager with the Carolina Panthers, she is committed to making space for others who look like her. Anyone who might question whether she earned her current role as the Manager of Group Sales for both the Carolina Panthers and the new Charlotte Football Club need only watch the coverage of the inaugural home match on March 5 as 74,479 fans packed Bank of America Stadium.  She believes that networking is everything and regularly pushes herself to be present in rooms and conversations she wasn’t previously invited to.

The successes achieved by each of these women are impressive by any standard, but even more so because they had to prove they should have a seat at the table in the first place.  Their businesses, their communities, and women everywhere are better for it.