• Columnists

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.

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

– Anna Quindlen

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

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.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

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

– Lao Tzu

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

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

– Thomas Dunn

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

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

– Hindu Proverb

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.”

– John D. Rockefeller

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

The only dream worth having is to live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.”

– Arundhati Roy

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson