About Applied Asset Management Consultants and our Founder, Mark De Clercq, PE, Certified Asset Manager
Applied Asset Management empowers clients to learn and practice Asset Management as their holistic method for managing infrastructure. Our techniques enable clients to align purpose, process, and people to relentlessly pursue affordable and accessible infrastructure for their customers. We are a conduit that helps clients achieve their business objectives using Asset Management, and then begin to further their knowledge so they can seek greater success. We serve a broad range of public and private companies that span multiple markets and geographies.
Founder and Principal, Mark De Clercq, has 30 years of civil engineering and project management experience, of which over half of that journey has been an aggressive maturation and application of Asset Management. Throughout his career, clients and senior leaders relied on Mark for his big-picture strategic thinking, teamwork approach, and business-oriented ability to bring transformative solutions to complex problems. As Top Manager and City Engineer for the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was responsible for a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure network, which like many, was aged, historically underinvested, and contained a lot of uncertain risk.
During his decade-long tenure as City Engineer, Mark quickly learned that his colleagues needed to transition from simply “managing assets” to the formal practice of Asset Management, yet the biggest challenge was where to start. A challenge that became a turning point in Mark’s career by attending City-wide Asset Management conferences to learn international best practices on key components of organizations that have successful Enterprise Asset Management programs. This led to subsequent conferences with City-Wide Asset Management at the University of Wisconsin and the Canadian Network of Asset Managers (CNAM) whose steep practice of Asset Management was illustrated in real-life examples throughout Canadian cities.
Through his interactions with international experts in the field, Mark began an Asset Management educational series of workshops to his City colleagues and development of the City-wide Asset Management program at Grand Rapids. His focus was on building asset management plans for all City infrastructure assets and adopting an Asset Management policy.
Inspired by this energy, Mark joined the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) and began to annually attend national conferences. He has presented on municipal topics integrating Asset Management with Lean Management and Emergency Management at both CNAM and the IAM North American Asset Management conferences over the past 5 years. Additionally, Mark began sharing his knowledge as an adjunct professor teaching Asset Management at Western Michigan University’s College of Engineering. Mark retired from public life to start Applied Asset Management Consultants, inspiring and educating organizations to grow and apply Asset Management for themselves.
In 2020, through 6 months and 2,189 miles of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Mark reflected on his entrepreneurial vision for Applied Asset Management Consultants. He attained formal certification from the Institute of Asset Management, and in 2021, received his official registration as an Asset Management Professional.
Mark has full member status with the IAM and currently co-chairs the US Chapter Technical Committee. He also has a strategic alliance with PSMJ Resources, Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts for teaching short courses in Asset Management and Project Management to public municipalities. Mark is trained in Emergency Management through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and is proficiency in Lean Management connecting strategic plans to the relentless pursuit of social impact.
Today, Applied Asset Management assists clients in improving their organizational performance through the lens of Asset Management. We focus on aligning people and processes with an organization’s long-term strategic purpose. We bring a holistic solution to our clients through partnerships with unique individuals.
Medema Consulting, LLC, led by entrepreneur and president Dave Medema, has a mission in developing people, strengthening organizations, and building success. Dave applies and coach’s maturation of Human Capital through personality, emotional intelligence, and cognitive assessments. He has consulted with more than 800 municipal, nonprofit, business, and educational organizations since 1993. He has trained extensively with Patrick Lencioni and with Ford Motor Company former CEO Alan Mulally.
JWG Consulting, LLC, led by founder and president Joann Gadbaw, MA brings expertise in designing and facilitating whole system projects, multi-function workshops and meetings based on clear and defined purpose, outcomes, agenda, and actions. Joann creates interventions to support teams and organizations “doing for themselves that they cannot do by themselves”. She is effective working across all levels and functions of an organization. She has 28 years’ experience in Organization Development (OD) with culture change, change management, people and process redefinition projects at an enterprise and functional level.
Whether you are at the beginning or in full forward motion of an Asset Management journey, we would like to hear from you! Please feel free to tell us your journey or lessons from “the good, the bad, and the ugly” in making Asset Management your centerpiece of organizational practice.