The Professional Engineer is on a mission to position the civil engineering firm for a second century of success by developing a team of leaders working toward a common goal.
Kerryn Fulton, PE, walked into her first senior leadership meeting at C.S. Davidson in 2008 plagued by fears of inadequacy. She was a structural engineer who started with C.S. Davidson in 2001 and now had an impressive portfolio, including being project manager for projects at Dallastown Area Intermediate School and the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center and its Cyclorama painting.
These projects represented significant accomplishments in the engineering world, but stepping into the room with industry and community leaders such as company CEO John Klinedinst, PE, and CFO David Davidson, PE, she felt out of her league.
Still, she believed she had insights that would help her team and the company. She put aside her fear and took a seat at the table.
Speaking up in a crisis
Shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, C.S. Davidson, like most engineering firms, was hurting. Morale was at an all-time low. Kerryn had ideas to share that she believed would make a positive impact on the company, and senior leadership was willing to listen.
“I spoke up,” she says. “I tried to be a voice of hope during what was a dark time for the company, and it was recognized. I was listened to.”
After that session, Kerryn was invited back to meet with senior leadership. And invited back again. Before long, the company created a leadership position for her as a project administrator, where she was responsible for providing oversight of all the project management functions for C.S. Davidson. As Kerryn began stepping away from full-time engineering and project management into more senior roles, she felt a gravitational pull toward leadership.
“I was hooked. I loved it,” she says.
A mindset shift
In 2013, Kerryn was appointed Chief Operations Officer, then in 2016 promoted to Chief Executive Officer of C.S. Davidson. Transitioning from engineering to leadership involved a major shift in her perspective. While she could readily puzzle together a solid solution involving a structure, guiding people toward a common goal was not as straightforward. Bringing together personalities, life experiences, and varying expectations involved a completely different skill set.
“Designing a steel beam is very, very different from designing an organizational structure that people are going to thrive in,” she says.
Kerryn found that she savored the gray areas and the thought process of digging deep into a problem, discovering the root cause, and fashioning the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
Tapping into her inner creative
Kerryn credits a portion of her open-mindedness to her husband, Wade, whom she connected with at a C.S. Davidson office party. Early in her career at the company, Kerryn needed a date for its Christmas party. Her office mate was married to a Dallastown Area High School teacher, who set her up on a blind date with a single man in the English Department. Despite their differences – him a creative, her a very linear thinker – by New Year’s they were an item.
In 2024, the couple celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary.
Wade helped Kerryn infuse art, music, and literature into her engineering mindset, rounding out and deepening her perspective and appreciation of the more colorful aspects of life. He also has helped her recognize that leadership isn’t all about dollars and cents but about enhancing people’s lives.
“He’s just enriched the way I approach things, the way I think about things, the way I appreciate things,” she says.
Kerryn also points to her role as a parent as being key to her leadership style. Having a sense for when to be nurturing and when to be firm and picking her battles were skills she developed while raising her sons, Thomas and Theo.
A culture of coaching
Carrying on the tradition handed to her by C.S. Davidson’s prior generation of senior leadership, Kerryn strives to keep an open office door and listen to her employees.
“I do my very best to make sure I’m listening to somebody walking through that door,” she says. “I really try to just stop talking and listen, because really, ultimately that’s what they want, to be heard. They want to be supported.”
Kerryn also is committed to mentoring youth throughout the community who are interested in engineering careers. She loves speaking at high school career days and connecting with civil engineering students at York College of Pennsylvania and Elizabethtown College. She has also volunteered and continues to volunteer as a board member for the York County Industrial Development Authority and the Susquehanna National Heritage Area.
One of the achievements she’s most excited about is the creation of a culture of coaching and training at C.S. Davidson. Professional coaching is something that has helped her develop as a leader. For the last decade, she has met with coach Geoff Davis who has taught her how to manage and lead herself before she effectively can lead others.
“You’re not just born with that knowledge. It’s something that you need to learn,” she says.
Developing an army of leaders
As she moved up the ranks from engineer to project manager to project administrator to chief operations officer and now CEO, Kerryn has created a path for those coming after her to receive coaching and leadership training. Her first order of business after promoting senior leaders is to get them enrolled in professional coaching.
In 2024, that effort expanded to offering coaching and personal development training to the entire C.S. Davidson management staff. Now, Kerryn is committed to investing heavily in training for the entire company.
“I’m all in,” she says. “I’m 100 percent behind this effort, as is the rest of my senior leadership team, because what we see is that the development of our managers is what’s going to be the differentiator in the future. It’s having not just one or two or three really strong leaders but having an army of leaders at this company.”
Kerryn’s mission is to help usher the 102-year-old company into a new era, poised to be successful for the next 100 years.