People Spotlight: Meet Cynthia Hartley
Our People Spotlight series gives you an inside look at our technical experts around the world. This week, we are highlighting an associate vice president and project manager from our Water business line in the U.S. East region and providing an insight into her inspiration and work.
Cynthia Hartley’s background includes nearly two decades in the international development sector. Since joining AECOM in 2016, she has focused on projects ranging from economic growth, urban resilience and environment to disaster risk management, from both the business development and project implementation sides. Cynthia works closely with our clients to pinpoint challenges and engineer solutions aimed at bolstering their effectiveness in mitigating disaster losses. She also provides technical assistance for infrastructure grant applications. Her love for meeting and engaging with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds to strengthen communities inspires her work.
Tell us about what inspired you to join the industry.
I’ve always been an advocate for safeguarding our environment and fostering community growth. In graduate school, I wrote my thesis on the expansion of an environmental engineering firm (MWH, now Stantec) into developing countries. The next year, I entered the Architecture and Engineering (A/E) industry working for the very same company. Several years later, I experienced firsthand the impact that natural hazards, in particular, Superstorm Sandy, can have on communities. This led me to advance my commitment and work in environmental protection, disaster risk management, and resilience, specifically in the A/E industry. In a lot of ways, it’s a continuation of the international development work I did previously. My work in our industry aligns with my desire to have a broader impact on society and leave a legacy.
I experienced firsthand the impact that natural hazards, in particular, Superstorm Sandy, can have on communities. This led me to deepen my impact on environmental protection, disaster risk management, and resilience, specifically in the A/E industry.
What is your favorite AECOM project that you’ve worked on and why?
A common theme that runs through all my favorite projects is strategic planning and problem solving. I recently worked with West Virginia’s State Resiliency Office to develop a forward-thinking strategic plan for the state. This involved understanding West Virginia’s historical successes, aggregating its diverse challenges and needs, identifying its strengths, and filling in the gaps to meet the objectives of a legislative mandate for a statewide resiliency plan. We worked with stakeholders who care deeply about resilience and disaster risk reduction to update the state’s flood strategy for the first time in 20 years. The two-year Flood Resiliency Plan we helped develop identifies the actions needed to achieve the greatest impact for flood resiliency in West Virginia.
One of the next steps will be to develop an education and outreach strategy to identify ways to reach all people, including local and marginalized communities. In international development terms, reaching the last mile includes reaching people at the lowest economic rungs of society, people with disabilities, and the aging population — people who do not have (or have limited) access to the internet or the information it provides. We also need to reach private sector businesses that employ people from West Virginia’s communities and depend on them to generate revenue. If you’re a dairy provider in West Virginia and the roads are closed or lives are at risk due to flooding, people will not be able to access or afford your products and your employees will not be able to show up for work. By reaching the private sector and communities, we can make this a “whole-of-society” approach, because everyone has a stake in this. We’re also starting to work with the State Resiliency Office to develop a grants management program and a grants management training manual to help raise the funds needed for outreach and education and implementation of the flood resiliency plan.
I recently worked with West Virginia’s State Resiliency Office to develop a forward-thinking strategic plan for the state. We worked with stakeholders who care deeply about resilience and disaster risk reduction to update the state’s flood strategy for the first time in 20 years.
Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community.
At AECOM, I’ve been able to reach across geographies and engage with my colleagues throughout the world — from offices in South Africa, Romania, Australia, Spain, and elsewhere — to share knowledge and exchange lessons learned, improving upon what we know to benefit the global community. And that’s how I find the greatest fulfillment — by collaborating with diverse people and groups to help the whole of society.
A key focus of my work at AECOM has been helping countries, states, and cities develop strategies to build resiliency. This has included initiatives with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Agency for International Development, UN’s Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Reduction (UNDRR), and ARISE-US, the U.S. chapter of the UNDRR. AECOM was one of the founding members of ARISE-US and through that engagement we developed the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. I helped UNDRR review the Government of Bulgaria’s first disaster risk reduction strategy, and as part of FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance program, I worked closely with FEMA headquarters, leading a root cause analysis of its grants administration process to reduce the time it takes to obligate funding to the communities that need it the most. In all these initiatives, I’ve engaged with a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds to help communities overcome adversities and become more resilient.
A key focus of my work at AECOM has been helping countries, states, and cities develop strategies to build resiliency. In all these initiatives, I’ve engaged with a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds to help communities overcome adversities and become more resilient.
Share a piece of career advice
Stay true to your passion and goals. If you have a fire in your belly to do something, then pursue it. Consider the multitude of opportunities that will present themselves as you pursue a particular goal. You may have to diverge at a point to something that’s tangentially related to what you want to pursue, and that’s OK, because it will help build your strengths more broadly and provide you with one more tool in your toolbox.