Hello DCS Engineering and welcome to our weekly reminder where I do my best to connect our mission and values with the work our team does. This week I’m thinking about our value of being learning oriented—we are always improving. I’ve got education on my mind as we dropped our oldest of our three kids off at college last week. Man! Talk about a trade off. I’m still processing and trying to come to grips with Reagan being 700 miles away and in some else’s care. But then I remind myself that growth and learning often requires challenges and is rarely easy. Reflecting on my own four years of college I remember the challenge and the growth…and I know if we are going to live into our value of being learning oriented, then we must accept the challenges that come with getting better. Not just the interesting things we can learn but how do we apply those learnings to our work and find better and improved ways of working. Even when it’s not easy. Especially when it’s not easy. If you haven’t hit that point in your life where you have the joy and pain of letting go of your own children just take my word for it. Life goes fast. And it’s hard – even harder than you expect. But rest in the knowing that it’s part of their adventure and your adventure and learning and growing together often means adapting to and adopting new ideas, structures, and norms. I guess that’s why the saying is no pain no gain and I guess that’s it for this week. Hope y’all have a great week ahead and enjoy the long holiday weekend coming up!