Looking Ahead to 2022
by Brian Pageau
2021 was a year full of growth, innovation, and change at Foresight.
In our 2020 recap newsletter, published last January, we wrote the following,
“Over the last few years, our clients have steadily increased their focus on sustainable business practices. Several factors contributed to this trend, some of which include: the changing climate, an increased demand for transparency from financial markets, the shift from a shareholder economy to a stakeholder economy, and the increased value consumers have placed on how products are made. Since 2018, we’ve responded to this growing trend by adding services and expertise to support our clients’ sustainability goals and needs.”
As we look back on 2021, these sentiments continue to ring true 12 months later, and in almost every respect they ring more emphatically than ever before. These industry and secular trends are significant tailwinds for our business and our industry. 2021 was a year of tremendous growth.
Having coached high school basketball for 11 years, my mind often turns to sports/coaching metaphors and analogies.
Foresight’s growth in 2021 was positive and worthy of note, but focusing on KPI, revenue, and profit are the equivalent of watching your favorite team’s win loss record, scores of individual games, and reading the box score for details on player performance. Sure, the numbers tell you something, but if all you look at is the numbers, then you’ve missed the actual game itself.
Playing the game is the point, as it’s what we can control and where all the real action is.
KPI don’t play the game, players play.
When I think about 2021, the highlights were all about the amazing humans that made up our team here at Foresight and how they played the game. There are too many stories to fully tell in this letter, but here are a few:
Natalie Vezina joined our team last March and ran point on implementing a Sustainability report for a global publicly traded client. She’s become an expert in the field and you can get to know her on Season 5 of the MicroVlogcast (airing weekly on Linkedin).
Christian Torres joined our team last February has overhauled a variety of our internal workbooks, processes, and reports throughout the year. He’s currently building tools that forecast natural gas pricing strategies for our industrial clients using monte carlo simulations and sophisticated hedging models. He’s a spreadsheet ninja and even has his own side hustle, Aria Lab. (In case your business needs some Excel support!)
Chelsea Glisson and Bryanna Lee, former interns of ours, officially joined our team last spring and have collaborated with Jim Dirkes on our “Wondering Wednesdays” project. They’ve created a safe space to have civil discourse on controversial topics, all with the goal of learning from people with different experiences than our own.
Brad VanValkenburg dove deep into assessing software tools that would enable us to implement life cycle assessments for our clients. This service is empowering our clients to re-imagine with real data how they design and produce the products they manufacture. Ultimately resulting in a healthier world and more sales for our clients.
Anne Pageau now for more than a decade continues to make us look good and curate the Foresight brand, highlighted this year by the launch of a brand new website back in February.
Ryan Kerrigan and Tyler Dykstra traveled the country assessing facilities for both energy and waste reduction opportunities.
Brian Veenstra and Brooke Vermullen continue to re-invent how we collect ESG Data from and for our clients. Always layering in more automation, systems thinking, and quality control.
Matt VanSweden joined our team in May and launched our design, new construction, and healthy building services into a whole new stratosphere. A true thought leader in the space, Matt is pushing us and our clients to new frontiers. He was featured on Season 4 of the MicroVlogCast!
Carolyn Buck facilitated multiple seasons of the MicroVlogcast and has coordinated the launch of our “Ideas” page on our website (think Blog). This effort has led to so many of our teammates being able to step up and share our thoughts and expertise in an ongoing way.
When we acquired Vikron Energy Services in October, Stephanie Workman and Alex Hyde stepped up their game to re-imagine how we help our clients procure energy in deregulated markets.
Vicki Scott, Chris Borchert, and Danny McGee have been at the front lines of building high trust, long-term partnerships with our clients. Deeply curious and obsessed with serving others, they lead us by continually focusing on the needs and goals of others.
Wendy Schlett was inspired to learn about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion this past year. She created and leads a voluntary team member initiative to make sure Foresight stays focused on its purpose, mission, and values while becoming more welcoming and equitable.
Tony Canonie, Mike Troupos, Kaitlyn Kim, and Julio Rodrigues lead our efforts to meet prospective customers and develop the trust required to begin a new business relationship. Their efforts lead to welcoming dozens of companies as new clients for the first time.
Craig Beghtel, our “glue guy”, had his best year ever taking care of us all. Excelling at all the behind-the-scenes responsibilities that enable our other teammates to thrive.
Brian Haverdink, a beloved teammate, and true leader on our team for the last 5 years was compelled to join the energy strategy team at General Motors. This may seem like a lowlight, but in fact it is a point of pride for all of us. Brian’s contributions to Foresight these last years cannot be measured fully, and despite the fact that we are sad to not interact with our brother every day, we are so excited to watch him make an impact at GM. And in true Brian fashion, he led a multi-month, company-wide re-organization on his way out. Ultimately leaving Foresight more organized and ready to meet the needs of our growing business than ever before.
A noteworthy, but truly sad, story from this year is that of our friend and colleague Alex Klekotka. Alex was an intern for us this past fall and suddenly passed away over the holiday season. We had recently offered Alex a full-time position with us and he planned to accept the offer. Our hearts are broken for Alex’s wonderful family and many friends. Alex loved nature, loved relationships, and was highly competitive. We promise to honor Alex and his memory in 2022 by loving nature, embracing relationships, and giving our best.
Our people and their stories are the real story of growth in 2021.
Who they are and the impact they’ve made has created something beyond themselves for our clients, and also for our company. In fact, they’ve had a “regenerative” impact on our company as we are in the midst of adding over 10 new teammates here in January. We’re so excited to introduce you to each of them in the coming months.
Thank you for joining us on the journey. Cheers to 2022!
Brian Pageau
President