ENR Announces Top 20 Under 40 in the Mid-Atlantic Region

ENR Announces Top 20 Under 40 in the Mid-Atlantic Region

Engineering News Record (ENR) has named Charles Hendricks, AIA, CSI, CDT, CAPS, LEED AP, Partner at The Gaines Group, PLC, a winner of its Top 20 Under 40 competition in the Mid-Atlantic region. This competition celebrates the excellence of young design and construction professionals in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. This year’s call for nominations yielded an impressive collection of entries from around the region. An independent jury pored over the entries, judging candidates on the basis of their career experience; industry leadership; community service; and other factors. “I am very excited to see so many strong leaders coming up the ranks in our industry” commented one judge. Mr. Hendricks is the only professional included from Central Virginia or the Valley. 

It is always a very humbling experience to be recognized by your industry peers for the work you do designing solutions to build a better community. This particular recognition includes criteria for leadership and community service making it all the more meaningful to me. It is very important to me that I am doing everything possible to assist my community at becoming the best place possible for everyone and everything in it. Design is such a powerful tool that can be applied to buildings, outdoor spaces, systems, and networks to create more efficient, healthy, and durable outcomes. As a designer, I have never moved away from innovation, best practices, or hard work to find the best possible solutions available at the time. We have had some huge success stories along the way reducing energy consumption in buildings, hosting the first ever Harrisonburg Parklet Project, and on an even more local level, building a community network of people with like minds. With every step forward there comes some hesitation, but if we keep focused on our best future possible for the entire community, I believe strongly that design matters and we will find unlimited success.