Engineering her own success at BETA Group

COMING TOGETHER: Beta Group Senior Vice President Donna Lantagne has been able to climb the ladder at the company due to her hard work and abilities. At left, Lantagne reviews documents with Beta Group President and CEO Frank J. Romeo. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
COMING TOGETHER: Beta Group Senior Vice President Donna Lantagne has been able to climb the ladder at the company due to her hard work and abilities. At left, Lantagne reviews documents with Beta Group President and CEO Frank J. Romeo. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

Donna Lantagne is the only female member of the civil engineering firm Beta Group Inc.’s senior management team. She credits her rise to old-fashioned hard work and mentors willing to reward it.

“They recognized that good work is good work,” she said. “Being female never held me back. I was lucky to meet mentors that had confidence in me, that supported me.”

Thirty-three years ago, Lantagne said, the early formation of the Beta Group moved across the street from the law firm where she was a legal secretary. People from the company started asking her for administrative help on a semi-regular basis.

She eventually joined Beta part time before finally taking a full-time position.

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“As things started to pop, the workload increased,” she recalled. “In the beginning, you do everything. Then we grew quickly.” All have helped her learn.

By her own description, Lantagne met every challenge of running a growing business head on. She worked her way up from administrator, to bookkeeper, to her current position of senior vice president and chief financial officer. She went from managing an office of four people to four offices of 140 people, while overseeing all accounting matters and the hiring of new employees. Beta Group started with two project managers, she noted. It now boasts 31.

The key, she says, was for her to advance her education with courses in accounting and programming. As a result, she was entrusted to select and implement a comprehensive financial package, Deltek Vision, designed specifically for architectural and engineering firms. She thoroughly conquered that challenge, seamlessly converting Beta’s original homegrown system into the new system.

Lantagne is especially proud that she assisted with two Beta mergers, most recently with the multitransportation firm Bruce Campbell Associates, originally located in Norwood, Mass.

Beat is a civil engineering consulting firm encompassing a lot of disciplines, and its mergers have helped the company get better in all of these areas. Beta’s specialties, she said, cover a lot of ground: environmental and general engineering, transportation planning, structural engineering and even landscaping.

Asked the secret of her success within Beta Group, she pointed to those around her.

“You meet the obstacles along the way and move on. I’ve had a lot of mentors along the way. As you climb the ladder, it’s important to have staff that supports you. ”

Nominating Lantagne for PBN’s Chief Financial Officer Award in a midsize private company, Beta Group President and CEO Frank J. Romeo said she is a sharp, disciplined self-starter:

“It was her perseverance and intellect that earned her the position of CFO – a position predominantly held by her male counterparts,” he wrote.

He noted that it wasn’t long after joining the company that Lantagne proved herself capable of managing all required financial functions as the company expanded. Romeo said her accomplishments have included not only facilitating mergers and acquisitions, but also creating a strong and ongoing working relationship with the company’s outside CPA firm.

He added that Lantagne has kept ahead of the curve by implementing the latest cost- and time-saving accounting and financial software at Beta, to the extent that she also now serves as a resource to other Rhode Island-area engineering consultants who are considering upgrades to their systems.

“Her personality, warmth and compassion help make Beta a better place to work for all of us,” Romeo said. “Her motivation, insight and work ethic have resulted in her becoming a trusted leader and senior manager in the firm.”

Beta Group, which provides state agencies, municipalities and private clients with planning, engineering, design, asset management and construction services, has been ranked by Engineering News-Record in the Top 500 design firms. It has received awards from the American Public Works Association, American Council of Engineering Companies and other prestigious groups for both service and project design. •

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