There’s never a dull moment in the life of a small business owner. As I look back over the last 40 years—and especially the last 20—there have been workload cycles to manage, staff to mentor, economic fluctuations to weather, technologies to champion,…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Make Time for Knowledge and Experience Transfer
One of the more-difficult tasks for me (personally as a business owner) is hiring new staff. It doesn’t matter if it’s an admin, CAD/BIM support…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Making It Buildable
Through the years, I’ve noticed my firm does a lot of additions to existing buildings. In the early days, much of it was driven by our hospital…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Sometimes It Has To Be You
I admit it has been rewarding watching our young engineers grow from working on pieces of projects to managing an entire project from start to finish. However, this technical side is just one piece of their growth. They’ve also learned how to manage…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Celebrate the Clever Things
I have worked my entire career at two small firms, and I really enjoy working on a diversity of projects. My previous firm, at that time, had a relatively small band of project types it worked on. When I started out on my own in 2004, my main goal was…
ReEngineering the Engineer: At Some Point, You Could Be the One Asking For Forgiveness
Every now and then, I run across a project that seems “snake-bit.” No matter how complete our drawings were or how well we understood existing conditions, there seems to be this never-ending parade of issues for the life of the structural work. Some…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Don’t Just Say No
One of my long-time architect colleagues teaches a graduate-level architecture class at a local university. One part of their curriculum requires them to talk to their students about soils-related items in their projects. Rather than fumble through that…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Get the Whole Job Done Right the First Time
Modeling and design software has made our design life really simple these days. The ability to add or modify loads and reconfigure framing provides a lot of flexibility in determining the best system for floors and lateral systems. However, at the end…
ReEngineering the Engineer: Getting Started on the Right Foot(ing)
As a young engineer, starting on a project always seemed daunting. I’d receive plans and elevations (or a 3D model) from the architect or MEP engineers that typically didn’t have much detailed information. I may have been to a couple preliminary meetings…
ReEngineering the Engineer: The Needle in the Haystack
Every now and then, I find myself reminiscing about how we designed buildings back in the “dark ages” when I was a young engineer. Our engineering tools were much less sophisticated, unless you consider a slide rule sophisticated. When you think about…
