Alta seems to think they can take advantage of passionate staff by making them work more for less money. It makes the firm competitive in the bidding process, and from a purely capitalistic perspective, exploitation is a natural state. However, this doesn't help to create a fertile bike-ped forward-thinking environment. While planners are great at empty rhetoric, burning out recent grad students is a sure way to create more cynical and less hopeful people.
Additionally, Alta is pretty White. Starting with the Portland centralization in the mid 00's, their President during that time seemed to really deprioritize questions of equity and racial justice, much less diversity and inclusion. That is somewhat related to how the current bike ethos has shifted from an economic transportation option to a cool cultural icon, mainstreamed to a point of exclusion of and revulsion from communities of color. Alta is part of that.
Unfortunately, folks I meet leaving Alta today say that this has pretty much remained par for the course. As mentioned before, perhaps this is just par for the course of capitalism (i.e. don't hate the player; hate the game). But, how can we not put some onus on Alta, as established as they are now? I remember Alta's founder talking to me about doing the minimum amount necessary while overpromising to clients. He also liked to talk about how he started with cut-throat consulting, and wanted to crush the competition--totally utterly exploitative roots. I wear my Alta-borne scars with pride, but I don't support the fact that they still exist while they practice the same egregious management and employment standards. At the very least, they owe everyone an apology.
