One of the ways we strengthened our DMC bonds this year was via the DMC gift exchange. For this event, each participant gives a gift and gets a gift—but you never know what you’ll end up getting! In my gift package, I decided to include a set of photos I’ve taken around Seattle with little info sections on the back. It’s meant to serve as a “virtual tour” of Seattle since we weren’t able to host our famous Yearly Office Event this summer. I thought it would be fun to share this tour on DMC’s website for all the people longing for a vacation to the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market is one of the crown jewels of Seattle. Open since 1907, it’s one of the longest continually operated public markets in the United States. You can find just about anything here: the famous fish-throwing salesmen, handmade trinkets from local vendors, unique gifts, fresh produce—the list goes on. My favorite thing to get at the market has to be the bouquets of fresh flowers from around the Northwest region.

Around the corner, in Post Alley, you can find the infamous Gum Wall. Some find it gross; others (like me) find it fascinating. Either way, it’s certainly a very unique Seattle attraction.

Kerry Park

Kerry Park isn’t actually very large, but what it lacks in square footage, it more than makes up for in beauty. Located on the side of Queen Anne Hill, this park provides the “postcard view.” As in, everything you’d see in a Seattle postcard—the Space Needle, downtown Seattle, Mt. Rainier—is right in front of you. Fun fact: when I took this picture, the Space Needle was being renovated. It now has huge glass walls that lean outward, giving you an incredible (if not slightly terrifying) view of the city below.

Washington State Ferries

Did you know that Washington’s state ferry system is the largest in the United States, running 23 vessels and carrying over 24 million passengers a year? There are two ferry lines that terminate right in downtown Seattle, so taking a day trip to Bainbridge Island or the city of Bremerton is a great way to see all of the connected Puget Sound cities. You get a great view out of it, too!

Golden Gardens Park

A favorite spot for late-night summer bonfires and hammocking, Golden Gardens has one of the best beaches in Seattle. Located on the shore of the Puget Sound, beachgoers get amazing views of the Olympic Mountains across the water. Those views only get better in the evening—as the sun sets over the mountains, it casts incredible, vibrant colors over the crisp outline of the peaks.

T-Mobile Park

Formerly known as Safeco Field, T-Mobile Park is the home of the Seattle Mariners, our Major League Baseball team. Their recent performance has left a lot to be desired… but that means tickets are usually very cheap! A Mariners game makes for a great group activity and provides some amazing views. Since our region frequently gets rained on, the stadium has a fully retractable roof so the game can continue even in the wettest of weather!

Elliott Bay

The heart of Seattle lies right against the waters of Elliott Bay, part of the larger Puget Sound. Many companies offer boat tours on the water, which is a great way to get amazing views of our downtown skyline. In this photo, you can see Smith Tower where DMC’s office is located! It’s the white, narrow building with a pointed roof-line on the right edge of the skyline. When Smith Tower was built in 1914, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. It even remained the tallest building on the West Coast of the U.S. until 1962, when the Space Needle overtook it.

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of some Seattle highlights! I bought my camera when I moved here a few years ago because there is so much natural beauty in the Pacific Northwest and I wanted to try to capture it.

Learn more about DMC’s company culture.

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After seven months of effort, the Taskforce has moved into its closeout phase. Although diversity/inclusion efforts will be an ongoing and iterative process at DMC, we wanted to take some time to reflect on the results of this Taskforce and the DMC improvements it has helped promote.

Taskforce Members

The members of the taskforce span across multiple DMC offices. The team has biweekly meetings over Zoom and collaborate regularly. The members of the taskforce include Courtney Mitchell, Karen Hsu, Sam Weber, Becca Stussman, Anjali Bharadwa, Elizabeth Goodnight, Elisha Harris and Jason Mayes (from left to right in the picture above).

Internal Initiatives

The Internal Initiatives sub-team focused on DMC’s company culture and policies as they relate to employees’ feelings of inclusion and belonging. The team members worked closely with DMC’s management, HR, and admin teams to review DMC’s policies, collect employee feedback, and recommend potential improvements. Some of the initiatives that were created with the help of the Internal Initiatives sub-team are:

• Annual Inclusion and Belonging Survey
• Annual Diversity and Inclusion Trainings
  • Self-guided web-training that employees complete on their own before the group training
  • DMC-wide group training with all employees
  • Manager-only group training for members of the management team
• Monthly bulletin board updates and email blasts to celebrate heritage months (Black history month, LGBTQ+ Pride, etc.)

Marketing Improvements

The marketing sub-team evaluated DMC’s website, flyers, and other marketing content. The team worked closely with DMC’s marketing team to create the following updates to our content:

• Creation of the Diversity & Inclusion website page, which provides transparency into DMC’s thoughts/policies related to diversity/inclusion
• Revamped recruitment flyers to be “coded” in a way that’s more inclusive to all candidates

Recruiting

The recruiting team implemented initiatives designed to diversify and widen DMC’s candidate pool. The team worked closely with DMC’s recruiting team, and promoted the following policies:

• Specific DMC outreach to University clubs with unrepresented engineering candidates. (Society of Women Engineers, Society of Black Engineers, etc.)
  • Sent emails to underrepresented candidate clubs at all schools where DMC recruits.
  • Planned/attended events with underrepresented candidate clubs at some schools where DMC recruits.
• Created a plan to evaluate the success of the email/event initiatives, so we can allocate resources in a way that helps us reach the most candidates.

Hiring Process

The Hiring Process sub-team worked closely with DMC’s Hiring committee to evaluate and update DMC’s hiring process to make it as unbiased as possible. The Hiring Process team helped implement the following modifications to DMC’s hiring procedure:

• Revamped our evaluation form language to mitigate the potential for bias
• Implemented anti-bias coaching for DMCers involved in the interview process

Next Steps

DMC is really excited about all of the improvements we’ve implemented with the help of the Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce. However, we understand that inclusivity is an ongoing process, and our work towards it is never entirely done. That’s why DMC anticipates continued steps to improve our diversity/inclusion.

These continued steps include forums to collect feedback from DMCers, expansion of initiatives that demonstrate the most value-add, and the potential creation of a second Diversity and Inclusion group to continue exploring diversity/inclusion efforts.

Learn more about our Diversity and Inclusion Efforts and check out DMC’s open positions.

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