Interview with Dan Wesley
There is no doubt that before committing to working with someone to improve yourself or your organization, you do your due diligence. You check reviews, ask for recommendations from people you trust, and ask questions of those who have personal experience with their business. To this end, Ronald Reagan spoke these wise words:
“Trust, but verify.”
To help you with this decision-making process and to verify, we are sharing an interview with Dan Wesley who has worked directly with Glenn Akramoff and can speak to how different methods yield long-lasting positive results.
How did you and Glenn get connected?
Initially, I worked as a maintenance lead for King County Public Works and Glenn was the maintenance supervisor for Lake Forest Park. Then six or seven years later, he was hired for the City of Covington Public Works and chose me as the first maintenance worker.
I had a wonderful experience! Even though I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about public works, Glenn helped me to understand the pieces I was missing and we hired four people at that time. Glenn is big on training, which led to the next step of diversifying our crew and hiring several more people to the team. Glenn also continued to support access to more training for each individual. It was then that I moved into the maintenance supervisor role and Glenn was promoted to public works director.
What about his methods were different?
Glenn promotes self-improvement and he insisted that we seek training and really understand how we want to expand. He focused mostly on each individual, on how they fit into the team, and he would steer us in the right direction.
How did Glenn help you (with his leadership, management, or team-working skills) and how did your organization change?
The biggest thing is that he encourages and supports people as individuals to seek their training and come up with their own goals. Then, he helps you achieve those goals. It’s completely different from how a big corporation operates. Glenn doesn’t pigeonhole anyone into a pre-existing role to make the company run a certain way.
What difference did you notice before Glenn vs. after Glenn?
Everyone improved under Glenn’s leadership. He’s all about empowerment and I noticed that each person I worked alongside became self-empowered. Each one of us was a lead worker and maintenance worker with priorities set in our specialty, which led to all of us becoming the lead of the project we wanted to complete. Glenn encouraged communication, so I would gather my crew and we would come up with our plan for the following week while focusing on our strengths. It’s hard to find those people, but Glenn was persistent and always would. Now, I’m retired and haven’t worked at Covington for five years and the people that Glenn and I hired are still there today. I’m proud of what we built together and that each one of them has continued to reach out and seek new improvements.
Would you recommend Glenn to other organizations or teams?
Absolutely! Any organization would be lucky to have him.
Do you still have questions regarding working with Glenn and his team at Akramoff? We encourage you to contact us at so we can help answer them and instill confidence in your decision for leadership support with us.