Employee Ownership Month: Anna Davis

As we celebrate Employee Ownership Month this October, we are proud to highlight colleagues who have served on the ACRT Services Board of Directors. At ACRT Services, our independence as a 100% employee-owned company empowers every employee-owner to share in our success and play a role in shaping our future. This commitment reflects our mission: to engage the best people and make them better to foster resiliency, environmental stewardship, compliance, stakeholder partnerships, and safer communities. Those who step up to Board service embody the ownership, leadership, and collaboration that drive our culture forward.

Anna Davis Operations Manager, ACRT

When you reflect on your time as a candidate, what excited you most about representing the broader employee voice?

The election was one of the most rewarding parts of the process. My “campaign” was centered around the individual employee. At that point in time, I had worked with a very diverse group across the family of companies and had a lot of phone numbers. I just started calling. Those conversations were not only opportunities to reconnect with people, but I also gave a platform to their concerns and ideas. Some of which I was able to address as a board member. Not only was it personally uplifting for me to strengthen those bonds, but I feel that process gets to the root of each of us being employee owners and having a direct line and influence on how the company is directed.

Did your experience help shape the way you lead, think, or collaborate today? If so, how?

What I realized when I stepped into that room was that this was all so much more complicated than I realized. Being in operations, I tend to have a very granular and detailed view of situations and the solutions that need to be enacted. On the board level, everything is much more birds-eye view. You have to look at the whole picture. That in itself changed the way I lead. To make good decisions, I have to think about how it impacts everything around it. I was so enamored with it that I actually went and got my MBA so that I could gain even greater context and understanding.

Can you describe what it felt like to sit at the same table as company leaders and external advisors?

At first, I was obviously a little intimidated. Our external advisors are highly successful professionals, and you feel the weight of all the employees that you are representing on your shoulders. However, everyone immediately welcomed me in and provided space for me to share my perspective, both from the management side and the field side. I found them to be receptive and appreciative of my input. It was also incredible to listen to their thought processes and reasoning.

In what ways do you think our independence strengthens the company, its employees, and the communities we serve?

I always think about the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek. The main idea of the book is that people need more to go deeper than surface level to be fulfilled. As a species, we need purpose, and that starts with why. Why do you do things? Why do they matter? Why do you care? There are a lot of companies that do what we do. But the list of companies that do it the way we do is pretty short. We could easily just inspect a tree, read a meter, or catalogue water samples and never think on a deeper level. But when you step back and think about all the lives we are impacting, including our own, I think that sets us apart. Because we’re not doing this for some unknown shareholders who wanted to buy into the utility sector. We are those shareholders, and everything we do impacts us. 

If you had to describe your board experience in three words, what would they be?

Formational, galvanizing, and enlightening.

People like Anna are the key to our success at ACRT. If you want to start a career at a company that values its people, we might be the right fit for you.