After 36 years at Nitsch Engineering and 42 years in the engineering industry, Lisa A. Brothers, PE, ENV SP, LEED AP, will retire on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Lisa has been a cornerstone of Nitsch since the beginning, and has been an integral part of growing the company and building Nitsch’s values-based culture.
Lisa officially began working at Nitsch in 1990 as a civil engineering project manager. She grew her career here, being promoted to Vice President in 1993, being named COO in 1999, and serving as President & CEO from 2011 to 2024. For the past year, Lisa has been serving as Chair of the Board at Nitsch, while working half time on a variety of strategic corporate initiatives.
As we prepare for her retirement next month, we were excited to sit down with Lisa to talk about her inspirational career. Please read on to learn more about Lisa’s history at Nitsch, some of the accomplishments she is most proud of, and what she’s looking forward to in “rewirement”!
Lisa, you’ve been a major part of Nitsch’s history since the beginning. What made you initially want to help start up this company?
“I worked with Judy Nitsch at her prior firm, Allen Demurjian Major & Nitsch, and we worked really well together. I’ve always been ambitious and was very interested in the business side of the business. I was finishing my MBA and thinking about what my next career move was going to be when Judy announced that she was going to start her own company.
I knew right away that this was the right move for me – there was no doubt in my mind that she would succeed, and I knew we made a great team. So I followed her out of the room where she made the announcement and said, “Not without me!”
Being able to help start something from scratch and grow it was really enticing. I didn’t “officially” join the company until Judy had physical office space, but before that I was going to her condo to do business planning and strategy work. I remember we put together a survey to some municipalities to help drum up business and get the new company name out there. And I finished my MBA at this time too!
I became Judy’s business partner and a shareholder in the firm in 1993, but I put in a lot of sweat equity before that!”
You’ve had a career full of accomplishments as a civil engineer. What is a project that you’re particularly proud of?
“Back in 1984, I was working at MassDOT – it was the Massachusetts Department of Public Works at the time – and I got to work on relocating a portion of Route 128 in Peabody. The project included building a brand-new bridge and a brand-new interchange into Centennial Park, from clear and grub up to the superstructure. You just don’t get very many opportunities like that in Massachusetts because there isn’t a lot of empty land for highway infrastructure – everything’s always rehab! I always loved construction, so I thought that was the coolest thing to be a part of. Plus the construction experience I gained absolutely made me a better designer.
It was also the project that made me the first woman that the Massachusetts DPW put out on construction in the old District 5. Back then there was a program where they hired graduate engineers and we rotated through all of the different disciplines. So I was in traffic for a while, then survey for a while, then project management for a while. While I was in project management, we were working on redesigning an on-ramp for the Route 128 project and I met the Resident Engineer. He liked working with me so he pulled me onto the construction team. Funny story – at one point when we were working at DPW together, he said to me at the end of a day, “Someday I’m going to work for you, Lisa.” And he did, years later here at Nitsch!”
Over the past 36 years, you’ve been a major advocate for company culture here at Nitsch – and in making sure that culture had real meaning. Can you share what you’ve learned about corporate culture during that time?
“At Nitsch, we have always had a great culture. We were always ethical, always flexible, and always focused around our core values. When I became president and CEO in 2011, my main goal was to grow the company. I knew that we would need geographic expansion to achieve growth, and I knew that staying consistent on our corporate culture would be hard as we grew. I thought that there had to be a way to measure our culture and be more intentional about it – and that’s when I discovered the Barrett Cultural Values Assessment (CVA) tool through my Vistage CEO peer group. That tool was an aha moment for me, since it provides a way to measure our culture based on core values alignment between our company and employees. Working with Ruth Lund and True North Consulting on our culture has been one of the highlights of my reign as President & CEO because we were able to assess our core values. Are we living them? Do people agree we have alignment with our core values? What’s important to us? How do we support our people? How do we make sure that, as we grow, we aren’t just talking the talk, we’re walking the walk?
By doing this work, we have been able to implement action plans to make sure we stay on track culturally as we grow. From 2011 to 2024 (my tenure as President & CEO), we grew 176% and expanded from one to five offices including a geographic expansion into the Mid-Atlantic. The ability to measure our culture helped us remain true to our values even as we grew.
After we started doing the CVA work, we were ranked the number one Top Place to Work by the Boston Globe in 2016! When we won that award, what that said to the world was that this mid-sized company was doing amazing things to help employees find fulfillment that nobody else was doing. Being a leader in this space has been so special. And I love that as time has gone on, more firms have started paying attention to employee care.
I’m especially proud of our work-life flexibility. It’s one of Nitsch’s core values because we have always believed that taking care of our people requires giving them the opportunity to balance all parts of their life. It’s not always easy, but I think I’ve been able to set a good example of how to balance family and work really well. Granted, I’m pretty fortunate – I have an amazing husband who helped make that possible as we were raising our kids – but I made sure to get home for family dinners, put limits on how many times I would be out during the week, and learned how to say no and prioritize what was most important. I think you have to lead by example on that, and it’s critical that this example comes from the top.”
Community involvement has been a major part of your story, from professional society involvement to charitable giving. Why is this so important to you and what are some highlights from all that you’ve done?
“Community service is something that I take really seriously. I have been so blessed with everything I have in my life, between my family and my career, and I think it’s so important to give back and do what you can to benefit the next generation.
It all started for me with the engineering education I got at UMass Lowell. I grew up with not a lot, and being able to get such a great but affordable education allowed me to build the life that I have. As we continue to work to build the engineering workforce, access to an affordable engineering education remains so important! Plus, remember that I attended college at a time when there were even fewer women engineers – but UMass Lowell did not discriminate. We all felt so welcome in the civil engineering department, and it was a place that nurtured us and really helped us succeed. That is part of why I’ve been so passionate about supporting UMass Lowell through work on different boards and donations.
Getting involved in professional societies is a great way to support our communities while also building a personal brand. I knew from the get-go that I needed to be out and about where clients and business partners would be, and when you can build your network while also benefiting your professional community, it’s a win-win! I always tell people that when you join a professional organization, the best thing you can do is get involved in a committee – it gives you an opportunity to get to know people better while contributing to the greater good. I’ve volunteered on a lot of committees and boards, and been president of several professional organizations through the years; however, two specific highlights pop out for me: my work with the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) Boston on the public art project, and my work with the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) to launch the National Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B) Committee (now called the Member Engagement and Belonging Committee).
I co-chaired the WTS Public Art committee from 2007 to 2020, which worked to commission a piece of public art to celebrate women in transportation. For my entire career, I have been focused on advancing women in transportation, so this opportunity to help build a beautiful and lasting tribute to the role that women have played in building our transportation infrastructure is something that I will be proud of forever.”
“I’ve been volunteering and serving on committees with ACEC since 1988, and I’ve served in a lot of roles that I am proud of. One role that particularly stands out is the work that I did from 2021 to 2025 to launch the National DEI&B Committee. That committee did a lot of hard work during a challenging time to gain more exposure for the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the engineering industry – both because it is the ethical thing to do AND because there is strong evidence that more diverse companies are more successful. Plus, there is an ongoing engineering workforce shortage that will continue to grow if current trends continue – we need more people to fill that pipeline!
In everything that I’ve done, I have wanted to make sure that I was visible as a leader. The reality is that representation matters and there just aren’t a lot of women running consulting engineering companies. I have always wanted to help smooth the path or open the door for the next person, and I hope that I have done that through this community involvement.”
You’ve been very active in conversations about pay equity and the gender wage gap. What do you want people to know about this?
“I’ve always been interested in getting more women involved in engineering as a career, but it was the UMass Lowell Center for Women and Work that opened my eyes to the issue of pay equity. In 2005, I was serving on the College of Engineering’s Industrial Advisory Board and they invited me to speak on a panel called “Are Women Getting Even? Women, Men, and Wages” with Evelyn Murphy. I’d never met the Lieutenant Governor before, and she was the coolest lady! She was working on The WAGE Project and writing a book about pay disparity. After that panel, I got asked to be on the new Advisory Board to the Center for Women and Work along with Evelyn. She was a real inspiration for me and heightened my awareness about the wage gap.
From that point forward, whenever I had a platform – every speech and award, most panel conversations or presentations – I talked about pay equity and/or inclusion. I believe that if we’re trying to drive change, providing education is the most important thing we can do. I’m not just trying to rattle cages – I want to inform! I think it’s so important to leverage any opportunity we have to help others understand an issue and invite them in to be a part of the solution, instead of calling them out.”
Looking back at 36 years at Nitsch, what memories pop out the most?
“There are too many to count! We’ve done a lot of really cool projects. I have loved managing people and helping them grow professionally. And I have loved working with our clients to make our communities stronger and safer and healthier.
The Inc. 500 Period was pretty cool. In 1996, we were ranked #172 on the Inc. 500’s list of the fastest growing companies in the country! We grew 1,383% over a five-year period – it was a wild time but so exciting to see this gamble that Judy and I had made pay off!”
What are you proud of?
“I am most proud about showing up as best I could for people. We all have busy lives and it’s a lot of work to run around and be present for people in all areas of our lives – family, friends, and work. I think that I’ve kept my focus on showing up for the people in my life!
When it comes to my leadership, I’ve always considered myself to be fair and direct. Brene Brown has talked about the difference between being nice, where you focus on keeping the peace, and kind, where you center integrity and courage. She always says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” Having courageous conversations is something I have done my whole life, and I think that people appreciate clear guidance and knowing where they stand. This is especially true when you’re managing people and trying to inspire them to grow – and I am so proud of how I have been able to help push some employees to new heights! I certainly haven’t always done it perfectly, but it has been so rewarding to help people progress their careers. That makes me so happy.
I mentioned earlier that I have always been ambitious. In 2014, Judy and I were selected as EY New England Regional Entrepreneurs of the Year, which recognized us in the service category for our business growth, innovation, and commitment to our communities. This award was great recognition for all that we had achieved!”
What are your hopes for the future at Nitsch?
“It’s not just hope – I know that the company will continue to succeed! I have a lot of faith in this leadership team to remain true to the values that make Nitsch such a special company.
I do hope that Nitsch remains a legacy company that continues to transition leadership generation after generation. From the very beginning, Judy and I wanted to give our amazing team continued opportunities to grow – we didn’t just want to strip out as much value as we could. The vision was always bigger than that. We always really cared about running a good business that helps our employee shareholders – we’re up to 34 now! – build a nest egg for the future.”
What are you looking forward to most in retirement?
“My friend Randall Richard, a financial advisor, introduced me to a concept called “rewirement” that repositions this time of life. Instead of looking at this as a time to slow down, it can be a time of transformation and fulfillment! Through a combination of hard work and luck, I have been able to achieve a lot of success. Now I want to make sure that I continue to build meaning and significance.
For the next year, I plan to stay active on the four Boards that I serve on – two at UMass Lowell and two private companies – while I also figure out what I want my next move to be. I’ve always found public policy so interesting, so maybe there’s something I can do there. Maybe I’ll want to go back to school, or get into teaching. I have so many interests, so I’ll use this time to focus.
Throughout my career, my family has remained my top priority. I have been blessed with an amazing family – my husband, kids and now grandkids, sisters, and in-laws have given my life meaning and I am so grateful to them. I’m looking forward to spending more time with them!”
