Where do you see the firm in ten years?

We used to be a small, "boutique" firm. Since nobody else was concentrating on the field, this enabled us to learn and to establish our position around the full spectrum of civic work. We got to treat each client with a great deal of attention; but we were somewhat limited in the scope and reach of our searches. Over the years, we've grown, but selectively and carefully. We now have a powerful nationwide network, made up of former clients and candidates as well as our own professional contacts, including a database of roughly 100,000 names.

We are today a big firm in this field, with just over 50 professionals and a steady growth rate, but we are not and are never likely to become a genuinely large firm, comparable to the largest market-driven firms. That suits us. We feel it's important to connect with our clients in a meaningful, in-depth way. We like to think we offer the best of what the big and small firms offer, without succumbing to the great disadvantages of either one.

Will the future be much like the past?

I see us growing steadily and cautiously, roughly 15% a year, which is our historical trend. We are surely going to have to adapt to new conditions in our field. K-12 education will centralize standards and accountability but dramatically de-centralize the authority to manage schools. Our research institute clients will see a huge boom in new science money, public and private. The social services and economic development sectors will move increasingly to community-based organizations with state government contracts as their principal source of revenue. We are going to see an enormous burst in philanthropy that will drive the institutional development field, and launch more foundations in the next 20 years than we have created in the last hundred. That will fundamentally alter the marketplace for advocacy organizations.

Every era makes its own civic demands. We have no doubt that the demand for civic leadership will only increase as we stretch the pace of change. You can never have too many people in key civic positions in our society who have strong wills and clear vision. I think we have a lot to be proud of in our last 22 years. We are the premier mission-driven executive search firm in the country, and we have placed many formidable people in visible and powerful positions. But we have to build on this in the future as our institutions change their goals and our society adapts to new challenges. I believe we will, mostly because we are committed enough to try things other people won't do. We'll learn on the frontier and bring it back to the core.