For the 16th year, The Baltimore Sun will honor outstanding workplace culture in the region. Any organization with 35 or more employees is eligible to compete for a Top Workplaces award. Standout companies will be honored in December.

The nominations deadline has been extended to Aug. 8. Anyone can nominate any organization, whether it is public, private, nonprofit, a school, or even a government agency. To nominate an employer or for more information on the awards, go to baltimoresun.com/nominate or call 410-779-9337.

There is no cost to participate. To qualify as a Baltimore Top Workplace, employees evaluate their workplace using a short 25-question survey that takes just a few minutes to complete. Companies will be surveyed through mid-September.
Energage, the Pennsylvania-based research partner for the project, conducts Top Workplaces surveys for media in 65 markets nationwide and has surveyed more than 2 million employees at more than 8,000 organizations in the past year.

For the 2024 awards, 165 employers in metro Baltimore earned recognition as Top Workplaces.

For the 16th year, The Sun will honor outstanding workplace culture in the region. Any organization with 35 or more employees in the region is eligible to compete for a Top Workplaces award. Standout companies will be honored in December.

There is no cost to participate. To qualify as a Baltimore Top Workplace, employees evaluate their workplace using a short 25-question survey that takes just a few minutes to complete. Companies will be surveyed through mid-September.

Energage, the Pennsylvania-based research partner for the project, conducts Top Workplaces surveys for media in 65 markets nationwide and has surveyed more than 2 million employees at more than 8,000 organizations in the past year.

“Earning a Top Workplaces award is a distinctive mark of excellence, setting companies apart in a recognizable way,” said Eric Rubino, Energage CEO. “Top Workplaces embody the highest standards, and this award, rooted in authentic employee feedback, should be a point of immense pride.”

For the 2024 awards, more than 2,400 organizations in metro Baltimore were invited to survey their employees. Based on employee survey feedback, 165 earned recognition as Top Workplaces.

It all starts with a nomination. The deadline for nominations is June 27. Anyone can nominate any organization, whether it is public, private, nonprofit, a school, or even a government agency. To nominate an employer or for more information on the awards, just go to
baltimoresun.com/nominate or call 410-779-9337.

“What I hope is that the employees feel like they’re part of a larger family, and they know that we’re here for them, and they’re not a number,” said Angie Lienert, president and CEO of IntelliGenesis.

When Lienert founded the company in the realm of cybersecurity, data and AI in 2007, it was a small business with 10 people. Since then, it’s grown to be a midsize business with offices expanding to Georgia and Texas and 160 employees. About 100 employees work at the Maryland headquarters, according to Lienert, and the rest are spread among Georgia, Texas, Hawaii, Utah and Colorado.

The company has a fairly high retention rate and usually grows in personnel by about 20% each year, Lienert said. The intention is that people feel appreciated and know when they come to the company, it’s not just for a job, but for a career.

Even as it gets tougher with more staff, “we put our people first,” she said, providing strong benefits and stepping into the shoes of employees to see, “How can we do more?”

Many of the benefits provided to employees at the company stem from prior poor experiences Lienert and her husband had in the defense industry. On top of health care coverage, they ensure that employees have access to their education benefit on top of the benefits they are entitled to in the GI Bill if they’ve served in the military. Lienert is a veteran.

The company also offers a wellness benefits allowance, a technology budget, an “employee birthday” holiday to celebrate oneself, and 100% paid maternity leave, according to Lienert. The company holds events to bring people together, too —  even employees’ children.

The investment IntelliGenesis has in the “career journey” of employees stands out to Kelly LaVigne, who started with the company in 2007. LaVigne is the director of engineering, a position she said she wouldn’t have achieved without the company’s support.

“We’ve had, you know, a lot of employees over the years just very impressed,” LaVigne said. “I think when they walk through the door and people know who they are immediately — we do a lot to make sure that we not only get to know our employee and what they want from their career, but we also get to know the employee.”

With the increase in staff came the growth of the company’s first product, a cyber span built last year. In 2021, the company also built out a space for its hands-on IG Labs to showcase unclassified work developing AI and machine learning tools. Despite the changing technology landscape, IntelliGenesis has had a foundation in AI for 17 years and continues to work to evolve with new techniques.

“And for us, it’s the ability to take those techniques and then integrate them into what we’re already doing, and learn them, and master them, and then go to the next one, and then us to be able to take that knowledge and share it,” Lienert said.

As the company has grown, Lienert has grown in her role as a female leader, too. When starting the company, it was frustrating, she said. But now that she has more confidence, she’s learned not to lead with her title.

Each of IntelliGenesis’ four divisions is led by women as well. Both LaVigne and Mary Anne DeHart, director of IG Labs, said that working with female leaders fosters a supportive environment to bring collaboration.

“I think some of us have gone through very similar experiences working in this sector, being in the defense sector for many years, but really we can come with new understanding and fresh ideas,” DeHart said. “And we kind of work together and build a workplace that really embraces female leadership and I think that’s very inspiring and fun.”

Often in the defense industry, midsize companies get acquired by those much larger, Lienert said. But she’s always told her team to keep growing, and when they get to the cliff of a small business to run, jump and see how far they’ll fall — or soar.

“It’s a lot. You got to live it,” Lienert said. “And I like that. I like being different, and that’s what we’ve tried to do through our benefits, through the work that we pursue, through everything that we do. Just really to be a leader and not a follower.”

Title: Founder and president, Clarity Business Solutions in Linthicum Heights

Age: 45

Career: Clarity Business Solutions since 2011.

Education: University of Pittsburgh, B.S. in computer engineering (2001); MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business (2008).

Hometown: Severna Park

Family: Wife Rachel and two boys, Cooper and Brecken

Hobbies: I’m an avid skier and president/race coach for the WPRC Ski Team based out of Seven Springs, Pennsylvania; I love to golf and spend time with family and friends.

What makes Clarity Business Solutions a good place to work?
Clarity Business Solutions is an exceptional place to work, primarily due to our dedicated team and their unwavering passion for problem-solving through collaboration. Our workplace culture emphasizes mutual support, fostering an environment where employees actively share information and work together to address our clients’ most pressing challenges.

Our leadership team comprises experienced technical leaders who possess a deep understanding of both client needs and employee challenges. This dual perspective enables them to create strategies that support the success of both our clients and our team members. At Clarity, we are committed to achieving excellence together, making it a truly rewarding place to build a career.

What is a leader’s role in establishing a Top Workplace?
A leader plays a pivotal role in establishing a Top Workplace by setting a clear vision, cultivating a positive organizational culture and empowering team members to address challenges effectively. My goal is to lead by example, demonstrating approachability and support during our most difficult challenges. By fostering an environment of collaboration and open communication, I aim to create a workplace where every team member feels valued and motivated to contribute to our shared success.

At the heart of that philosophy is the idea that employees thrive and reach their potential by managing themselves and that by working as a team, they serve individual interests too.

The New Orleans-based firm has fostered such an environment during the 13 years Akers has worked in its Baltimore-area facilities, first as a test engineer, then as quality team manager and now as development operations manager.

At Intralox, which makes conveyor belt products and equipment for automotive, food, consumer goods and industrial industries, employees are encouraged to take ownership of projects, assessing priorities, timelines and potential roadblocks and solutions.

“It’s really a fresh take on the corporate workspace,” Akers said. “There’s very few people who work at Intralox who just come in and just put their hours in.  Everyone seems invested in the work and the outcomes because that self-managed philosophy makes it feel like you’re part of the ownership.”

Akers’ team of 50 assembly technicians and engineers tests out new ideas and develops them into new products that can then be mass-produced.

That team is among more than 550 Intralox workers in the Baltimore area and among nearly 3,400 globally. The company has 13 locations and assembly centers worldwide, including facilities at Tradepoint Atlantic in Sparrows Point, which opened in 2022, and near BWI Marshall Airport.  Intralox, which had annual sales of more than $1 billion last year, started in the Baltimore region in 2007 with 40 workers.

Baltimore has grown into the headquarters for conveyor belt equipment manufacturing; while the belts are made in the firm’s global headquarters New Orleans. The Maryland equipment division has more than doubled since 2020.

“The biggest contributor is continued and rapid growth of the e-commerce market,” and growing demand from Amazon, Walmart and parcel carriers such as FedEx and UPS, said Derek Lester, the company’s Hanover-based business unit manager for equipment. “The sheer number of parcels that are handled in North America has gone up a tremendous amount.”

The biggest challenge, he said, is anticipating and responding to customers’ changing needs in industries that handle everything from food to parts to finished products in factories, warehouses and distribution centers. That means continually coming up with new ideas.

“The only enduring competitive advantage we have is to be able to continuously improve faster than our competition,” Lester said.

One project that Akers’ team and others worked on resulted in new conveyance technology for small footprints in the logistics and materials handling industry, known as Smart Path.

“If you think about a factory floor, there’s only so much real estate, so that layout plays into a lot of our solutions,” Akers said. “Smart Path is able to do what some older technology could do in about a tenth of the space.”

Amazon was one of the first customers of that equipment, which it uses in its last-mile distribution centers that enable same-day delivery.

Intralox has tackled situations where customers needed more production capacity, smaller footprints, less packaging damage and increased units handled per minute. In one case study on the company’s website, Intralox improved production lines for Essity, a Spanish diaper bundles manufacturer, that ran into frequent product jams and unplanned downtime.

Innovation at Intralox stretches back decades.  It was founded by James Martial “J.M.” Lapeyre, who filed a patent for the world’s first automatic shrimp-peeling machine in the 1940s. Lapeyre then came up with and patented a plastic, modular conveyor belt, one of his nearly 200 U.S. and international patents, as a way to load the shrimp into the machinery.

Company officials say they strive to uphold Lapeyre’s belief that workers, and their ideas, are the company’s biggest asset. Rather than promoting workers only up a corporate ladder, Intralox looks for alternate career paths to match an employee’s skills and interests with company needs. That has meant career moves between divisions such as commercial sales and operations or assembly technicians being promoted to mechanical engineering teams.

The company also offers benefits such as an on-site gymnasium and health and wellness clinics. And it offers financial incentives in the form of profit-sharing and production-sharing.

“When the company wins, the employees participate in the upside,” Lester said.  “On the production side, as production-based employees produce more, they get incentives for that increased productivity. If we sell more, the employees benefit.”

“My dad wanted to build a company that he, himself, would want to work for,” said Richard Vook, 28, vice president of the software development and systems engineering firm in Ellicott City.

Twenty years later, RequiTest is a cutting-edge outfit with 15 U.S. Department of Defense contracts and a small but loyal workforce whose job perks keep them happy. Here, the 47 employees enjoy generous benefits and off-the-clock outings, like happy hours and family gatherings. At RequiTest, there is no dress code, plenty of swag and an overriding confidence that management cares what its workers think.

“There’s no suggestion box, but we’re approachable,” Vook said. “We take employees out for coffee, or lunch, for status checks — and to ask what we can change or do better.”

Requests are met with, “How can we make that work?” he said. “If we have to make changes to keep a person, we’ll do what makes them happy.”

It’s a malleable rapport embraced by both sides.

“We try to give them as much flexibility as possible. We try not to micromanage,” said Vook, a graduate of Centennial High and the University of Maryland, College Park.

There’s no brick-and-mortar building with the firm’s name out front; the business is run from what was a child’s bedroom in his family’s old home.

Employees pay that underwhelming presence no mind. At RequiTest, there’s little turnover in personnel; the company boasts an annual retention rate of at least 90% in recent years.

“They treat us each as individuals, not like we’re part of their ‘bottom line,'” said Mike Vogeler, 44, of Hanover, a software engineer there for 2 1/2 years. “I know that if I’ve got an issue, it will be taken care of pretty quickly. They want me to stick around, and they care.”

One employee called the office in a dither.

“Two of my kids need braces,” he said. “What can I do?”

Management huddled and found an orthodontics rider for its benefits package.

“Within a month, we added it to our dental plan,” Vook said. “As a small company [without middle managers], we can change things more quickly to make things happen.”

The firm’s modest size meshes with its mindset, workers say.

“A lot of companies say they are ‘families,’ but you still feel like, ‘Hey, that’s my boss,'” said Vogeler, who has worked for larger venues. “The owners here are the sort that you can hang out with and talk, after work. They really are normal people.”

Vook himself has attended the weddings of several employees and the funerals of others.

On their anniversaries with the firm, workers are treated to an upscale lunch. Each November, those who are military veterans (seven, at present) are feted at Mission BBQ as a thank-you for their service.

While employees partake in regular happy hours, they also enjoy annual junkets with their families to Hersheypark, The Adventure Park at Sandy Spring and local pumpkin-picking farms — all in a transparent bid to stitch the gang together.

“Software engineers are generally quiet types who like to keep to themselves,” Vook said. “We try to take them to events and get them to make friends within the company, rather than sit off in a corner [at work], just coding away.”

Employees have a say in those goings-on, too.

“One lady wanted to go somewhere that she could play board games; another suggested a wine-and-garden [outing],” Vogeler said. “We went to an ax-throwing [venue] and loved it — and no one lost and fingers or toes.”

Even pet-friendly requests may be met with a nod. Last year’s company picnic was held at Downs Park, in Pasadena, where Vogeler’s three Dalmatians romped with his colleagues’ canines.

Periodically, RequiTest offers free merchandise to its staff, from polo shirts and sweaters to backpacks, jackets and high-end coffee mugs, all bearing the company logo.

“Some people get five shirts, a different color for every day of the week,” Vook said. “We try to give them quality things that they can actually use.”

Large employers

400+ employees in the Baltimore region

Midsize employers

150-399 employees in the Baltimore region

Small employers

35-149 employees in Baltimore region

More Top Workplaces:

No. 1 large Top Workplace 2024: Intralox counts on worker initiative to improve conveyor belt systems

No. 1 midsize Top Workplaces 2024: As technology grows, so does IntelliGenesis

No. 1 small Top Workplace 2024: RequiTest is a cutting-edge software development firm with a small but loyal workforce

2024 Top Workplaces large leader: Kevin Drumheller, Richcroft

2024 Top Workplaces midsize leader: Angie Lienert, IntelliGenesis

2024 Top Workplaces small leader: TJ Greenier, Clarity Business Solutions

Top Workplaces 2024: Here’s how the best workplaces encourage work-life balance

Title: President & CEO, IntelliGenesis LLC in Columbia

Career: IntelliGenesis, July 2007 (17 years, 4 months), Old Line Capital Partners, general partner, Sept 2020 (4 years, 2 months), U.S. Air Force, Arabic linguist, Sept 1993-Oct 1999 (6 years, 2 months)

Education: Strayer University, MBA; Regents College, BS, management; Community College of the Air Force, associate’s degree, communications

Hometown: Frankfort, Kentucky

What makes IntelliGenesis a good place to work?

I established IntelliGenesis 17 years ago to create a company that puts its employees first and is committed to advancing national security missions. Bottom line, we care.

What is a leader’s role in establishing a Top Workplace?

It’s my responsibility to set the culture for the company and ensure our core values are reflected throughout every aspect of the company, from the work we do to the benefits we offer to the efforts we pursue. … We do these things with our employees in mind.

Title: CEO, Richcroft in Cockeysville

Age: 55

Career: Richcroft since April 2020

Education: Towson University, B.A.; Goucher College, Master’s of Education; University of Maryland, Master’s of Social Work.

Hometown: Westminster

Family:  Widowed, no children

Hobbies: Traveling, skydiving

What makes Richcroft a good place to work?

Richcroft provides positive experiences for staff at all levels from the moment they come on board and throughout their career. We provide multiple ways in which our staff can learn and grow within the organization. I think a staff comment in our recent Top Workplace staff survey sums up Richcroft’s culture perfectly. This staff said, “The staff feels heard, ideas are brought to the table and discussed, upper management seems to really be interested in the well being and interests of both the people we serve and the staff on the front lines doing the day-to-day work.”

What is a leader’s role in establishing a Top Workplace?

I believe the leader’s role is to set the tone that ensures the organization functions under one set of guiding principles, everyone is on the same page. The leader must provide opportunities for growth and establish open lines of communication and interdepartmental cooperation. This creates a culture of trust and strong relationships. When every level of the organization has the same mindset and guiding principles, there is no stopping us.

Machinery
Hanover
Founded: 1949
Baltimore-area employees: 508
Consecutive years ranked: 4
What employees say: “I feel empowered to make decisions in my position that help the betterment of my department, and therefore the company as a whole. I am confident that my supervisor will support me with my needs, and that they trust me to be self-managed on a day-to-day and regular basis. My workload is appropriate and manageable, but I still have the opportunity to challenge myself with projects and keep things interesting and engaging.”

No. 2 Large Top Workplace: Richcroft

Human & Social Services
Hunt Valley
Founded: 1983
Baltimore-area employees: 530
Consecutive years ranked: 2
What employees say: “I am allowed to contribute to the agency using my specific background and skill set. I am trusted with the autonomy to complete my work with confidence. My contributions are recognized.”

No. 3 Large Top Workplace: S3 Shared Service Solutions

Credit Union
Baltimore
Founded: 2012
Baltimore-area employees: 476
Consecutive years ranked: 3
What employees say: “I enjoy working with my peers who have the same goals and initiatives for success that I do. The benefits are beyond any in the industry. My job gives me balance and a sense of well-being with support from management to grow and be successful.”