How Our Core Values Shape Our Company Culture

Last Friday, Gil joined other regional leaders as a panelist at the 2026 LeadershipLegacy Experience, hosted by Dove Development & Consulting at the Atlantic Union Bank Center at James Madison University.

This year’s event centered on “The Values Advantage,” a framework for helping leaders identify, communicate, and consistently live out their core values. As part of the executive panel discussion, Gil shared how Colman Engineering’s values have shaped the company from its earliest days—and how those values continue to influence the way the team works today.

When Gil founded Colman Engineering in early 2010, he did not begin with a formal values statement. He began with a clear sense of what mattered.

He wanted to do things the right way, without cutting corners. He wanted to treat people with kindness and respect, including regulators whose role often involves asking difficult questions and pushing back. He wanted to be honest with clients, especially when providing price quotes and setting expectations around project timelines.

Those principles were not created for a poster or a handbook. They reflected how Gil naturally operated—and what he believed was missing in parts of the industry.

“I wanted to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘This is how Colman Engineering will operate,’” Gil shared.

In the company’s early years, living those values was relatively simple because Gil was the only employee. As the company grew, however, the work became more intentional. Gil had to model the behaviors he expected, reinforce what aligned with the company’s standards, and address actions that did not.

Still, for many years, the values had not been formally named.

That changed in 2021, when Wes and Cindy Dove invited the Colman Engineering team to participate in a values workshop. Through that process, the team worked together to define what mattered most to the organization and put those principles into words. For Gil, the final result felt both surprising and unsurprising: the values the other team members identified were consistent with the principles he had been trying to build into the company from the beginning.

Since then, Colman Engineering has continued to make its values more visible and practical.

In 2024, with encouragement from Wes and Cindy, the company took another step forward by assigning a team member to serve as the “champion” of its values. That person now leads a five-minute “Values Corner” during the company’s weekly all-team meeting. While five minutes may not sound like much, the regular rhythm has helped keep the values front and center and made them part of ongoing team conversations.

The company has also updated its values posters to include actionable steps employees can take to live out each value. These posters are displayed throughout the office as a visible reminder of what the team is working toward together.

Colman Engineering has also integrated its values into the annual performance review process. This creates another layer of accountability and reinforces that how work gets done matters as much as the work itself.

For Gil, the goal is not simply to have values written down. It is to build a culture where values are part of everyday decision-making, team interactions, client relationships, and professional standards.

At Colman Engineering, values are not intended to be words on a wall. They are part of the company’s vocabulary, expectations, and daily work. They shape how the team treats one another, how they communicate with clients and partners, and how they continue building the company Gil envisioned from the start.