OTL’s CEO Wins GlobeSt.com’s Best Bosses of 2024 Award

OTL is proud to announce that our CEO, J. Wickham (Wick) Zimmerman, has won a GlobeSt.com award for Best Bosses of 2024. 

Wick is a leader who drives spectacular results with a steady, measured, and motivational management style. Since co-founding OTL in 2007, he has guided the company to phenomenal growth, seeing it named one of the country’s “fastest-growing companies” by Inc. 500/5000 four times in a 10-year span. Under Wick’s leadership, OTL has grown from a small start-up to a national firm with installations in 24 states and several international locations. 

Wick has accomplished all this with a management style that enables our team to excel. He takes a somewhat “old school” approach in that he leads by example. When there is a particularly difficult engineering challenge on one of our projects, Wick is usually right in the thick of it, working alongside OTL’s engineering team to find a solution. He exemplifies the type of leader “who won’t ask others to do something he’s not willing to do himself.” 

An engineer first and foremost, Wick doesn’t shy away from a challenge or from innovative solutions. He was one of the first in the specialized design/build industry to grasp the possibilities of AI, and he has pushed his team to develop solutions that will leverage this rapidly evolving technology to enable new frontiers of interactivity for shoppers, parkgoers, and others – not only in connection with our own water features, but also with surrounding items controlled by DMX and other elements of the environment. 

Wick is also deeply involved in helping others through charitable organizations. In helping Pilots N Paws and Doobert to relocate rescue animals to new homes, Wick and his wife, Allison, have transported a 133-pound mastiff, a pair of wolf dogs and an elderly pit bull mix among dozens of others. He loves knowing that he is helping these dogs along on their “freedom missions” to a better life. 

In addition, Wick has emotionally and financially supported young racecar driver Gabe Tesch, who overcame cancer as a child, in pursuit of his exciting and daring dream career. With the help of supporters like Wick, Gabe has triumphed on so many levels. 

Wick Zimmerman has exemplified the attributes that define positive and inspirational leadership throughout his career. His story is a powerful demonstration of how to achieve growth and success “the right way.” Congratulations on this well-deserved award, Wick! 

To read the full Best Bosses article, click here.