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Jennifer Bognet, VP, Bognet Construction

COLUMN = CONSTRUCTION

Jennifer Bognet is the vice president of Bognet Construction, and is responsible for many strategic and operational aspects of the company, including client relations, business development, marketing and communications, human resources, and community outreach. She works closely with the executive team to ensure the effective execution of corporate strategy and goals.

In this role, she defines and deploys evaluation and measurement tools and processes, and uses her expertise to enhance Bognet’s project-delivery system, with a focus on continual improvement.

Jennifer is very active in commercial real-estate organizations such as CREW, NAIOP, DCBIA, and the Washington Board of Trade, along with their related committees and events. Her drive, leadership, and dedicated focus on complete client satisfaction continue to differentiate Bognet Construction from its competitors.

About Bognet Construction

Bognet Construction, founded in 1998 by Jim Bognet and Jeff Kaiser, is a $50 million company based in Arlington, Virginia. With its team of project managers, superintendents, and support staff, the commercial builder completes tenant interiors and base building projects for some of the regions largest corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, including Freddie Mac, Chemonics International, and General Dynamics. Most recently, Bognet Construction built the offices for Visa International and ManTech International, and it has completed multiple projects for the General Services Administration and related federal agencies.

Bognet Construction is committed to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects, a standard for “green” building design. Most of the company’s project managers have completed their LEED accreditation—something the owners believe is critical as they move forward. For details visit www.bognet.com.

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

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This is the age when magical technologies make more and more radically fun ideas plausible, even easy. You’re only limited by your creativity.”

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We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

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Entrepreneurs are willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

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Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

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You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

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Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

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There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

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I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

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Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”

– Alfred Adler

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

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Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
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There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

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‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

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A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

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Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

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An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


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At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

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Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

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My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

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To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

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As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

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Never cut what you can untie.”

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Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

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A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

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Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

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Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

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That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

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No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

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Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

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Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

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A man without a smiling face
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The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

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My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

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You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

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Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

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