LAURA Garrett

I've been really lucky in my career to have things work out in unexpected ways. My whole attitude of saying yes and I'll try has gotten me super far. I didn't even know themed entertainment was an industry when I started, but I said yes to the opportunity and it led to 14 years at one of the top design firms in the country. When my role at my new company morphed back into what my background was in after they got acquired by a general contractor, it worked out weirdly well. My career has been a lot of happy accidents, and I'm forever grateful for that. I've also been incredibly fortunate to have strong women invest in me throughout my career, mentors who saw my commitment to learning and made sure I was taken care of, got recognition, and had opportunities to grow.

The biggest challenge I generally deal with is budget. A lot of times we have clients with a $10 idea, but they only have $3 to spend. These kinds of projects, especially with existing spaces, are a lot more expensive than just a simple interior space because of the hidden technology and technical integration involved. The challenge is working with clients to figure out what story they want to tell, what message they want to communicate, and reworking their vision to fit within their constraints. I work directly with our shop team and design team to figure out what materials we could use and offer information and transparency to our clients. It's that balance of what it looks like from that spark of an idea for an owner and the realities of what these things actually cost, how long they take to build, and what they need. Because we do a lot of technical integration and we're doing a lot of things for the first time, we can get close with estimates, but until we get into it, there's a lot of things we learn along the way. The reality constraints of budget, existing buildings, and what's available are constant challenges.

Something that's very important to me is just a positive work environment. Especially working with the more creative folks, it's really important to build a space that is conducive for that process. I believe in leading with being cheerleaders, setting everyone up to succeed, and celebrating wins, but also meeting people where they need to be met in order to be led. People being happy is super important to me because happy people will produce better work, they'll be more invested in the work, they take more pride in the work, and therefore have more ownership. The project does better and the client gets a better product - it just kind of is a domino effect. That's something that's a super important value to me as someone who leads teams.