Stonefield Newsletter: Winter 2024 Update

TALK TUNES

The holidays are over. So, what is there to look forward to but cold weather, ice and snow for the months ahead? Well, there’s actually a lot to look forward to. Winter is a great time to gain weight. Hide yourself under layer after layer of fabric until the time comes to emerge from your cotton cocoon and blossom into a butterfly of Spring once again. If you’re more into sports than packing on the pounds, the Super Bowl, one of the most watched events on television, is just around the corner. If you prefer the Arts, wait another month and you have the Oscars, a celebration of the best films of the year. Or like we all witnessed last year, a celebration of the best slap of the year. And as always, we all have the Stonefield Ski trip in Vermont this February to look forward to.

So, when you’re hunkered down at home awaiting the brighter days that lay ahead, wondering to yourself - what is the purpose of this snowy season, remember this is a time for rest. It’s a time for the Earth to sleep and prepare for renewal. Soon enough Spring will be here, and with it, new life. But now is a time for conservation and contentment. Warming by the fire in your cotton cocoon with a nice hot cup of cocoa. And maybe a slice of pie.

The latest installments of our monthly mixtape series at Stonefield have made their way to Detroit and Salem for Mixtapes 039 & 040. Both playlists have a certain sound about them sure to put a smile on your face. They were the perfect way to close out 2023.

Kevin Heffernan, out of the Detroit office had the opportunity to put together a playlist of his own and boy did he not disapoint. This 40-song playlist starts off nice and slow with some Chris Stapleton, Maggie Rogers, and the critically acclaimed Noah Kahan. Around minute 24, the folk section of the mixtape takes an upbeat turn with hits from Foster The People, Dayglow, and Empire of the Sun to name a few. After a strong pop portion, the playlist enters its third section. For fans of rock, don’t worry - this one has some songs for you. Steely Dan, The Strokes, 38 Special, and Blue Oyster Cult take listeners on a roller coaster of riffs before Imagine Dragons, John Mayer, and Glass Animals close things out in the fourth leg. You could call this playlist “Indie Heaven,” with hints of rock, pop, and folk. We hope you all enjoyed this one as much as we did!

It was all smiles on Mixtape 040 - as you can clearly tell by the faces on the cover. Katie Olyha, from our Salem office curated a cheerful collection of songs meant to brighten its listeners’ days. Macklemore kicks things off on this playlist with the title track to the mixtape, “NO BAD DAYS.” The Chainsmokers, Noah Kahan once again, and Tame Impala do their part in making sure the playlist lives up to such a title. In addition to the vibrant pop songs, various covers of classic songs are scattered throughout as well to make sure there’s a little something for everybody. The playlist radiates positivity and is sure to keep you engaged, yet relaxed when you’re at work, at home, or on your daily commute. Give this one a listen the next time you’re in need of a pick-me-up. It’s sure to do the trick!

As we make our way through year 4 of the Stonefield Mixtape series, we take a look back at just how far we’ve come, and thank you all for participating. What started as an experiment has blossomed into something we can all be a part of, take pride in, and enjoy together. We’ve represented individuals, teams, and entire offices, but at the end of the day, each mixtape represents Stonefield as a whole. 2024 will feature tons of new music so stay tuned. We can’t wait for you to hear we’ve got in store for you all.

Photo taken by: Nick Kennedy in Lake Tahoe, NV

joN’S jAwNS

I met with Jon in a conference room after many of the employees were wrapping up the day’s work and heading home. A gray striped scarf hung around his neck, and a white pocket square with black trim neatly peeded out from his charcoal blazer’s chest pocket. He spoke with the confidence of someone looking back on his work with satisfaction. With each anecdote, a wry grin and slow head nods punctuated moments of reflection. For the first portion of our conversation, Jon covers his unorthodox start, the ways Stonefield has changed since its inception, and what keeps him excited after over a decade at the company.

What is this famous story about your interview?

I responded to an ad on Craigslist. I used to work for the Army Corps when I graduated. The job was everything that I imagined a government job being. I think the final straw was they brought in the new entry levels who were not even engineers, and I was like, yeah I gotta get the fuck out of here. I left the Army Corps without a job lined up, and then interviewed for probably about six months for a bunch of places that were just terrible. Honestly, I’m very happy none of them gave me a job because who knows where I would be if that were the case?

So I was doing a bunch of interviews with different companies, before I found this place on Craigslist. I was trying to look them up, but they didn’t have a website or really exist anywhere online. We met at 36 Ames Avenue at our original office location which was shared with an architect’s firm and a guy who did legal exhibitions for car accidents I interviewed in a conference room that looked like a garage. It had a roll-up garage door. I interviewed twice for a traffic engineering position because we hadn’t started site engineering yet. This was around 2010 or 2011. It was probably the most fascinating interview ever. I sat with Jeff and Tim–who came in on his BlackBerry and never said a word in the interview. Jeff was sitting across from me asking me questions about drafting and AutoCAD, and then five minutes in, Tim just gets up and leaves–doesn’t say a word. Chuck comes in and doesn’t even sit down–he stands in the furthest corner away from me in the back of this huge room and tells me this very elaborate speech about how this company is gonna be completely different and he’s gonna change the industry with his dream. He just went on with his speech, and it kind of got me fired up. He didn’t ask me anything. I thought I bombed the interview. I remember I had my Italian-style blowout hair at the time.

Apparently, the story behind the scenes is that they weren’t even going to give me a job. The only one to speak up for me was Tim, who said “we should hire that guy Jon.” He fought to hire me. He didn’t ask a single thing in the interview and he was there for maybe five minutes.

Are you one of the longest-standing employees? What’s your title?

Yeah. I’ve been here for twelve years, so I’m a relatively old man in this company. And I’m a practice area lead. I like it because the acronym is PAL. Yeah, honestly, the name has changed over time. But I basically oversee multiple site teams doing the work. I oversee the Salem/Boston office as well as Princeton.

What are some of the main shifts you’ve seen during those 12 years?

Oof–I mean, a lot. It’s just night and day–Stonefield today and Stonefield back then were very different. It was a smaller firm, a very select staff. Everyone was very hungry. I don’t know–I always feel I delve into old man stories, but we would just work into the wee hours of the morning. There were no resources that the company now has where we can say, “I’ll just call this guy in this other office, and he’ll figure this out.” We didn’t have any standards, and for our first set of site plans, we just sort of made it up.

How did it change your job here once you moved spaces and then had other Stonefield offices?

It was a strange feeling–we were in our second Rutherford office when we expanded to multiple offices. So we used to have a spot on 75 Orient way. It was an old attorney’s office. It was a weird spot; I remember the office was basically a closet that had no windows or anything. We basically turned it into an apartment. We even put in mood lighting so it would be less oppressive because the second you flipped on the lights, it was like four big ass fluorescent lights that just made the place feel like an industrial Warehouse or something.

When we opened our first office in Detroit, one of our partners, Tim, who was historically from there, went along. So when he left, it honestly felt weird because we had all worked together so closely for so long. We were just hungry guys who thought we could do it better.

So with all the resources you now have, how do you see yourself figuring things out these days?

I think it’s a completely different mindset because I used to tell myself that I would figure it out. Now it’s: “Who can I teach to figure this out or who has the skills to assemble a team to address this?” So it’s a wild change of pace looking back at it because it was basically me and Jeff or Tim. They would literally stand behind me and watch my computer screen as I did stuff and figure it out. Now, we have multiple people working on something.

How do you stay motivated now with technology moving so quickly?

The goal is still the same: do it better, faster, and cheaper than the competitors. Back in the day, it was as simple as going on Google and going on Maps to grab a screenshot. Even now, we have different videos and renderings, anything we can do to impress potential clients. Having a lot of young staff helps too. Engineering as a whole is very slow to change technologically, even on an academic front. There are still some new technologies out there that are making their way in, like BIM–building integrated models. Nothing’s cooler than being in the field and pointing at something with a tablet and seeing the plans. Even that is old AR tech; it’s not new anymore, but even that hasn’t been adapted.

What gets you the most excited these days at work?

I know this sounds cheesy, but I want every person that comes through that door to have the opportunity that I or the others who started this company had. When I graduated from Drexel, I thought I would be sitting in a cubicle grinding out calculations and going to work to talk about a fucking TV show that I don’t care about. I really think this place is a cut above.

I actually interviewed someone just before this meeting. It was a gentleman who came from the West Bank and came here before the war started. He mentioned that he thought we were just an engineering company and then he visited the site and I saw the clothing and artwork. Others mention that they see photo shoots with the interns wearing the clothing and ask “What engineering company does that?”

That’s one of those things that stuck out of my mind. We’re Stonefield Engineering and Design company. A lot of people seem to forget that design portion, and I know that Chuck takes that component very seriously.

Jon Istranyi describes how he got his start at Stonefield and what keeps him motivated.

DAILY CARRY

With Matthew Seckler

Moving clockwise from midnight–As someone who fidgets with anything they can get their hands on, binder clips are a necessity for both binding and pretending they’re those ships from Star Wars. My used gum typically ends up in torn-off corners of my notes, wadded up, and either thrown at traffic engineers or back in my bag. Pictured is one of them. The FiberOne bar was on reserve for emergency, but will likely cause a medical emergency if eaten now. Speaking at 17 hearings a day makes me parched, so I keep a trusty Dixie Cup for when thirst strikes. The laser pointer would be an awesome addition to hearings if it had batteries in it. My scale was ‘allegedly’ broken during a heated discussion with the Clifton

Planning Board, but we won’t go there. Those thrid grader notes are essential. The messiness forces me not to read from them during testimony, but provides a security blanket when needed. My favorite accessory, and one that is synonymous with clients is my bluetooth headset. They regularly mention it when they see me in person. I bought Forever Stamps while the getting was good - they’ll be worth a fortune one day! The graveyard of unmemorable business cards. *Pro Tip - Write on the card how/where you met the person to solidify their importance! Lastly is my planner - my 11th one to be exact. As disorganized as I can be, this is essential. If our meeting together isn’t written in this book, it’s not happening.

hoLIDAY pARTY RECAp

This year’s holiday party was picturesque to say the least, and that’s not just because of how good all of us looked. The party was held at Laissez Faire, an elegant cocktail lounge inside the historic Beekman Hotel located in the Financial District of Manhattan.

For those who attended, you may recall shimmers of light emitting from a honey-comb of hexagon-shaped chandeliers; the glow refracting off a massive disco ball and hundreds of cocktail glasses filled with colorful drinks. The scene was surreal - nothing short of a Salvador Dali painting just before everything begins to melt. This doesn’t even include the private lounge, only accessible through a chainmail curtain doorway. What exactly was going on in there, JI?

A jazz band added to the ambience of the cocktail hour before DJ Rhett Bixler (former member of the Chainsmokers) took over and turned the party up a few notches. That was the biggest name performing at a Stonefield event since IT Mike and the Stonerockers blew our minds at Family Feud last Summer.

With Stonefielders loosening up ties and taking off heels to bust a move on the dancefloor it was only natural for wine and beer to give way to tequila that flowed until the break of dawn. As the party came to its bittersweet ending, the remaining stragglers started their Saturday mornings off with pizza and praise that there were two days left to recover before returning to work on Monday. Thank you to all who attended and helped make this time of year so special. We’ll see you next year!

SToNEfIELD ImpACT

In an effort to leave a positive impact on the communities we live and work in, Stonefield prides itself in taking on projects that reflect that effort. One of these projects is Garden State Plaza in Paramus, NJ. It was the state’s first suburban shopping center and helped pave the way for the Borough to become a retail destination.

In light of the recent struggles in retail, Stonefield worked in conjunction with the Borough and our client - Garden State Plaza to develop a plan that would benefit both parties and ensure decades of success to come for both Paramus and Garden State Plaza. By diversifying the site’s uses and adding residential, hotel, office, and even more retail-uses throughout the neighborhood, the tax base for the community is being made much more secure. This is on top of the fact that Garden State Plaza already pays one of the top five highest property tax bills in the State!

To ensure that these amenities are accessible to all demographics, Stonefield’s plan also provides affordable housing, senior housing, and assisted living to it’s residents. And as a final way to enhance the community, the plan will provide Paramus with a downtown “Main Street” and a “Town Green” as the community currently lacks a place where food festivals, holiday lights, and outdoor concerts can be held.

How Stonefield aims to better the communities we live and work in

TEAmS

At first glance at this lovely woman, do you find that you are looking at one thing? One lovely, warm, motherly woman? Or maybe something more than that? The Matryoshka doll, or Russian doll as it is sometimes called, is said to have been inspired by eastern Asian culture – the Seven Lucky Gods nesting dolls of Hakone, Kanagawa as an example. In a way, it reminds us structurally of what Stonefield is: one thing defined by the many things that are nested within it. There are different layers to the company as well as layers within our teams, and even layers within ourselves – as individuals. This beautiful, motherly woman on the outside can only be fully understood by discovering what is at her core.

We could simply describe Stonefield as a company, and while on the day-to-day it may seem as simple as that statement, it is also as complex as understanding how 6 Practice Areas, 21 teams, and over 140 individuals are nested within Stonefield after 14 years in business. And some of those numbers may have even changed since the time this was written. Individuals of different and unique personalities nested in teams of different sizes and purposes, nested within a Practice Area of focus, and nested within Stonefield. To truly understand how the company works is to enter a discovery mode, with a curious attitude – willing to explore the various things and products a team creates. The most important questions to consider are “how” a team does what it does and “why” a team does what it does. It is impossible to feed that curiosity without getting to know each nested individual who is contained and embraced within that work of the team.

TEAmS

Structurally, what is it that really makes the Russian doll work? Well, without the outermost mother’s ability to split apart, it seems we might not be able to search any deeper. If she were only a shell, empty on the inside, what would the doll tell us? In this case, the shell surrounds another layer, so like an archaeologist – we curiously continue digging deeper to find

the next discovery that will ultimately inspire us to continue looking further, until we finally reach the center. Or does the inspiration come from the next little lady – at the very core, who we can’t help but hold her weight in our hands and smile. One thing can be so many things if we stay curious and keep exploring deeper.

INTERvIE w

With Victoria Lotorto

After traversing the narrow hallway that feeds into the Rutherford Stonefield office, I was greeted by Victoria Lotorto’s wide smile. Rex, one of the dogs roaming the office, brushed against my leg as I took a seat. After directing me to wait a moment, Victoria resumed her work at her standing desk, pausing periodically to answer the phone.

Eventually, we sat down across from one another on a custom circular couch at Sly Man Surf Club, where Victoria and I began our chat on the exact day of her 5 year hiring anniversary at the company. Before Jordan, the photographer, arrived, I got to hear about how her life before she touched down at Stonefield and about what she’s been up to ever since.

Do you have a background in the technical engineering training that a job like yours seems to require?

I knew nothing about engineering before I started working here. I knew the construction side of things because my dad always worked in construction, so I was familiar with that but didn’t really know what civil engineering had to do with it. Before construction would happen, they would design everything. So it’s been kind of cool to learn that side, and I didn’t know that that’s how it worked before I started working here.

Can you tell us about joining the army after college?

I went soon after I finished college. I graduated in December and went to basic training in February. It was something I was always interested in doing, and it took me a while to finally decide that I want to do it. Basic training was 11 weeks, and I learned all the basics, like how to shoot a gun, throw a grenade, do hand-to-hand combat, and land navigation. My job after that was working on computers and radios. Next door, the main room seems like it’s bustling with a lot of activity, but what did it look like as it undulated in and out of COVID closures a few years ago?

That was a strange time because what you see today is what it’s usually like. It’s always buzzing, but during COVID, especially that first year, there was no one here. I was still here because part of my job was to receive submissions. So I had to print plans and reports, and I came in when COVID first started. No one was here for a good portion of that period. Sometimes it would just be me and Chuck with literally zero people. There were days that I was here with just the computers. It was really, really weird, eerie.

What’s your critical thinking process like to solve problems?

I like to sometimes go back to the start and run through the whole thing and see, maybe, where the issue occured. Sometimes you might make a mistake six months ago that is showing up and you’re just noticing it. So in order to find it, you kind of have to go to square one. So, I try to go through all the details and put together the whole story. Once I have the whole story, then I try to figure out what happened. I will talk it over with someone like Dana on my team because sometimes it’s easier to talk about it with someone else and then discover that I just answered my own question while talking it through.

The place where you are situated, where I first saw you, has a lot of traffic. It seems as if you may get interrupted a fair amount.

Yeah I do. I guess depending on how complex it is, I may go away to a quiet room or even save it for home. I will work here until 5:30-6, and then I know I can go home and concentrate.

If there was a Stonefield Yearbook with a Superlatives section, what would yours be?

Probably Most Likely to Drop Everything She’s Holding. I’m always dropping stuff. Or maybe Most Stubborn–in a good way. I could be hard-headed. It’s part of being Italian, I guess.

What is something that the people you see at work every day may not know about you?

I really like reading. I’m on a thriller kick right now. I try a little bit of everything, though. I’ve read Connie Newbury, but I have also read classics by Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte.

INTERvIE w

With Sofia Zapata

I greeted Sofia and was ushered to the newly-renovated space at 92 Park. After passing through a narrow aperture lined with computer stations on one wall and a blur of blinking lights and servers on the other, we settled in a clandestine nook at the end of the corridor. Sofia needed no prompting, as she effortlessly described her preference for Vampires in historical fiction and what it’s like to make a life on a different continent, far from her family farm in Columbia.

So what’s the story of how you got here?

I was born in Colombia. My family lives there. My mom, dad, and brother are in Pereira, kind of near Medellin. My dad has been a civil engineer for 40 years, so I didn’t want to be what my dad is. I was a little rebel for a long time, but then I said to myself, “that’s what I like.” It was my dad’s dream to come to the US and study for his masters, and when it came time to think about schools, he asked if we should try to apply to schools in the US.

I chose TCNJ. I graduated in June and within a few weeks I went to TCNJ and had ESL classes. It was very, very hard because it was an international class where I was the only girl. In Columbia, we only have people from Columbia, so when I moved here, the only people in the class were from China. I had no family, no friends, no one to talk to. It took me about two years to really feel comfortable and feel that I belong.

Was it hard to decide to stay in the US after graduating?

Knowing that I would graduate, I made the decision to stay. I had made a life here, met my now-fiance here, and made friends here. I tried to get a job for six months at the end of 2020. I looked in so many places, and as soon as I told them I was an international student, they didn’t want me.

Stonefield was so open-minded that they didn’t care about that. They don’t care where you come from as long as you’re willing to work and have good energy and a good attitude. I think I sent out about 300 resumes. I had my first interview with Paul and Aaron in the Princeton office who asked about where I was going to live, and I told them North Jersey. They then suggested that I could go to Rutherford or the City, and the next day I had an interview with Josh, who is now my PTL. That was in 2021. It will be three years in June.

What do you like about your specific role here?

I am a design engineer for site civil. I think what I like most about working here at Stonefield in my role is that I have unlimited possibilities of growing. They don’t put limits on you if you are young. If you can grow, you can do it. I have already had some additional responsibilities, and I love that. In other companies, I don’t think that it happens like that.

How do you reconcile the way things have been done before with an idea you may have to examine something differently?

It depends. There are two ways to approach this. In this job, we encounter a lot of things that people have done prior to us. So let’s say someone worked on stormwater design and they aren’t here now or not on this project. I may have that as a reference but not understand what I was looking at and saw that it’s not working. I try to put myself in the shoes of that person and think about what they were thinking and the way they did it. I’m not just going to go straight into deleting everything they did. If they did it a certain way, there might be a reason why.

I like to step back and look at the whole system and then examine why the small thing that is now not working is designed this way. If, after looking at it for a few minutes or a few hours, it doesn’t work, I will restart or change something. If I am looking at something that is new to me and I can’t problem-solve, I just try to stay out of the box of my own thinking and ask. At the end of the day, something that I love about working here is that I never felt bad about asking questions to anyone.

If you could leave to be somewhere on vacation tomorrow, where would it be?

If it’s right now, I’m going to go home to Columbia. I haven’t been for almost three years, and home is home, and I miss it so much. We live in the city, but we also own a farm that is about 40 minutes away. I love the sun in the morning. There are no cars, and it’s just nature. I think about it sometimes because we used to go there every weekend. We own cows, pigs, and chickens on that farm and my grandpa grows oranges, tangerines, and lemons there. But eventually, I would love to go back to Paris because I love the architecture and museums. It tells me so much about the place and its history.

What’s something you’re into that you wish more people knew about?

I love reading historical fiction. It’s amazing, better than just watching something. And I prefer historical fiction because that’s what got me into reading because of how much you can learn. There is an author, Carolina Andujar, who is Columbian; she wrote a novel called Vampir which told the story of the first woman who was a vampire. This was a real-life woman born in Budapest who used to be royalty. She thought that if she bathed herself in real blood from young ladies, it would make her younger. That’s where a lot of movies get their ideas from. So when we see things like that today, it actually happened in history, and it’s not the same way we think it happened.

DESIgN INSIghT

The FW23 Collection explores the idea of Stonefield as a generative force in a field of darkness. The imagery depicted on these items is evocative of both spiritual and literal illumination. The dark garments provide an atmospheric backdrop for the glowing yellow to shine its light upon the subject found on each unique piece. Together, the three colors find balance with one another to form the imagery of the season. To further enhance the quality of the releases we deliver, we designed down to the thread. Carhartt Work In Progress garments were carefully selected as the foundation for our design process. From there, we worked through multiple concepts until we landed on the term ‘illumination.’ This word guided us to the realization that enlightenment comes from within and illuminates our environment, not vice versa. Like a star in space, the human produces the light - and like a generator, the human powers its environment. The result of our exploration is a collection of functional pieces that we hope you wear, tear, fade, stain, and rep for many years to come.

In support of this limited collection, we recruited the expertise of photographer Jordan Keyser to capture the essence of each piece in the Rutherford Nest turned photo studio. You’ll probably notice some familiar faces sporting the gear as you look through these photos. A very special thank you to those Stonefielders who agreed to double as our in-house models. Finally, as a victory lap to close out such an exciting and successful year of new merchandise, we’ve catalogued each release of 2023 and displayed them in a printed zine to capture every look. You’ll be able to find copies in an office near you soon!

A deep dive into the creation of the FW23 collection

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