From Where I Sit with Ben Almond

On today’s podcast, we were lucky enough to get Bob Pragada to sit down with Ben. We get to learn about Bob’s career and personal growth as he takes us through lessons that have stuck with him over time from his childhood through to where he sits now as Jacobs' President and Chief Operating Officer. Bob shares his thoughts on eliminating racism, generating equality, and learning to thrive and succeed during trying times. Hope you enjoy!

For almost 10 years, Ben's been lucky to work alongside Tom Price, SVP Global Growth, Strategy & Solutions. In this episode, we all get to learn more about Tom and his thoughts on leadership. They have an open discussion about their personal awakening as white men in leadership positions to what’s going on around us with respect to racism and what they are going to take on personally to continue the journey towards equality. 

This episode is another eye opening and important conversation in Ben’s quest to learn from others and the past to help shape the future. Ben was lucky to have his friend and colleague, Ron Williams, SVP, P&PS Americas West Regional Director, join him on the podcast and provide his insights and experiences as they look at both our history and the current reality of racism. In this conversation, Ron shares stories from his life and perspective as an inspiring leader. We hope you learn as much from this conversation as we did!

In today's podcast, we are re-releasing the first episode of this podcast, A Journey Into Unconscious Bias, with a different intro and outro than the original episode. Ben shares a personal experience where he was on the receiving end of the unconscious biases of others. Over the past few months, Ben's eyes have been opened to what conscious and unconscious biases people have that are baked into our systems in society. While his experiences are markedly different than those that Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour are facing, the intent of re-sharing this podcast with a different lens than a year ago is to help us all recognize and confront the biases we all hold, unconscious or not. 

In today’s podcast, Ben virtually sat down with Sharon Jean-Baptiste, Vice President,  Growth and Sales US Mid-Atlantic P&PS at Jacobs. They have an open conversation where he learns from her experiences to be a better person, an ally, and a leader. They talk about racial inequality, inclusion, leadership, and being vulnerable, authentic and bold.  

Over the past several weeks, Ben has been listening to and learning from the worldwide anti-Black racism movement. Ben has made a promise to not be silent. He will be an active learner and participate in driving improvement in any way that he can. 

In today's podcast, Ben shares the stories of his colleagues and friends to allow you to see things you might not have seen and hear things you might not have heard before. His hope is that through this storytelling and critical questioning of the behaviors and interactions in each story, you can consider for yourself how we all can be better allies. 

In today's episode, Ben discusses agility and adaptability. Being agile and adapting to our environments are two game changing characteristics we should all embody to thrive while managing our way through change and times of uncertainty.

Change is our new normal. Today, Ben does a deep dive into managing change and how we can use change to drive us forward. He shares personal lessons he's learned from some major events that have happened in his life and some real world experiences we can all learn from. Hope you enjoy!

In today's episode, we welcome Ken Gilmartin, SVP, Global Operations People and Places Solutions at Jacobs. We hope you enjoy this great conversation between Ben and Ken as we learn about Ken's history, where he came from, and some of the things he's learned along his interesting career path. Ken's transparency and authenticity really shine through in today's episode. 

Thank you again Ken for taking the time to join From Where I Sit. 

Today's episode is a throwback for some of us at Jacobs, bringing back one of Ben's favourites: Blake's Take by Blake Jeffcoat. He shares what he took from Blake's lesson and he briefs us listeners on the direction of the podcast for the next little while. Hope you enjoy!