From Meeting Notes to Master Plans

Thomas Stroh laughed when he said it, but the pain is real. His former firm, Elevation Land Solutions, had 160 staff and cranked out 30 to 35 proposals a month, plus the weekly slog of hours tracking and code research.

One rainy Texas morning, he pasted a handful of bullet points into ChatGPT. The model returned a “90 percent-ready” request-for-proposal in minutes.

That lightning bolt pushed Thomas to ask bigger questions: Where else can AI claw back labor hours? In a business where payroll is the largest line item, every recovered minute drops straight to profit—and frees engineers to focus on quality, not copy-paste.. 🚀

Company Snapshot ROI

Four Pains Thomas Called Out in the Interview

1. Proposal writing – “Every single job you do, you’re getting a written proposal.”

2. Timesheets – “The bane of their existence, top to bottom.”

3. Rules & regulations – Misapplying one city’s code triggers redesigns and delays.

4. Design iteration – Senior engineers do slope and pipe calcs instead of QC.

Early AI Wins, Straight from the Transcript

Playbook for SMB Owners (3-Step Version)

1. Rank Your Drudge Work. List weekly tasks; circle ones with templates or long copy. Thomas started with proposals because they were daily and measurable.

2. Run a Micro-Pilot. Copy last week’s proposal bullet points into ChatGPT or Gemini. Record drafting time vs. the old 3-hour average.

3. Build a Re-Use Library. Thomas noted the need for “a library of data…boiler-plate language.” A shared folder of gold-standard clauses lets AI remix quality, not junk.

Change Management—Thomas’s View

Fear of layoffs? “I don’t think the industry has a fear of losing their job over this.” Engineer supply already lags demand. Position AI as a helper that kills grunt work. Pair curious staff with skeptics; wins spread peer-to-peer.

Staying Current in a Fast-Moving Space

Thomas admits awareness was “very haphazard.” His fix: join cohort groups discussing tech change and add an “AI corner” to the internal newsletter—two paragraphs a month on tools that worked.

What’s Next on His Radar

• Auto-filled timesheets – tools watch work patterns and draft entries.

• Design co-pilots – AI proposes pipe sizes and grading; engineers approve.

• Reg-scan bots – upload a city ordinance, get a one-page delta sheet.

Try This Before Friday

Prompt: “Draft a civil-engineering proposal for a 40-acre mixed-use development near Austin, Texas. Include scope, exclusions, and a fee table in clear client-friendly language.”

Time your edits. Saving 90 minutes equals 45 hours across 30 proposals—roughly $6,750 in payroll this month alone.

Call to Action

Done reading? Paste the prompt, log your time savings, and hit reply. We’ll feature the sharpest result in next week’s Talk to Walk issue—because talk is cheap, but saved hours pay dividends.