If the 2021 performance of Engineering Consulting Services (ECS) is any indication, the “new normal” of the Southeast’s post-pandemic design and construction market will look a lot like the “old normal,” only busier.

Last year, demand for ECS’ core geotechnical, environmental, facilities consulting and construction materials testing services in the six-state Southeast region generated $119 million in revenue, according to the company’s response to ENR Southeast’s annual Top Design Firms survey. That figure tops what ECS calls a “record-setting” 2020 and also contributed to the 60-office national organization rising to 68th among ENR’s national Top 500 Design Firms.

“The urban markets are on fire,” observes Derek Clyburn, president of the ECS Southeast subsidiary, adding that the pandemic appears to have only temporarily slowed the region’s preexisting trends of population growth, expansion of manufacturing development and ramped-up infrastructure construction.
The arrival of vaccines and eased mandates during 2021, Clyburn adds, unleashed “a lot of pent-up demand.”

ECS’ project team was a key part of the Legacy Union development’s 33-story Class A office tower in Charlotte.
Photo courtesy ECS Southeast

但是，作为年度东南设计公司的EC选择也是关于在正确的时间处于正确的位置。该公司在该地区的大多数关键部门都拥有强大的业务，包括几个着重于下一代移动性的备受瞩目的项目。18luck官网其中包括丰田在北卡罗来纳州格林斯伯勒附近的新型12.9亿美元的锂电池制造工厂；SK America's Commerce，乔治亚州生产设施的120万平方英尺扩张；以及北卡罗来纳州查塔姆县（Chatham County）的一家40亿美元的装配工厂，供越南电动汽车制造商Vinfast，该工厂将于2024年开始生产。

In Chatham County, ECS has earned kudos from the Chatham Economic Development Corp. (CEDC) for its work providing environmental and geotechnical engineering services for two megasites the county has been marketing for industrial development.

Describing ECS staffers as “exceptionally professional,” Michael Smith, president of the CEDC, says: “They have top-notch scientists working for them, and it really gives our clients a better understanding and level of confidence when we have ECS in the room with us when we’re talking about site characteristics.”

Smith says interest in the sites has soared in the last year. Key to that was getting the sites certified by the state of North Carolina for future industrial development. ECS contributed significantly to the certification effort, Smith adds, referring to them as a “partner” as they gathered the information needed for the 32 data points required by the state program.

“In those types of situations, we need to have a team of people that we can rely on and trust and that can build trust with clients quickly,” Smith adds.
ECS also has also been closely involved with Nashville’s soon-to-open Four Seasons Hotel, providing geotechnical services for deep foundations and helping the project owners reduce soil disposal fees under Tennessee’s beneficial use program.

In Florida, ECS is providing services across multiple sectors around the state, ranging from a new 300,000-sq-ft headquarters for financial services provider FIS in Jacksonville, Fla., to a 40,000-sq-ft memorial honoring victims of the January 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

ECS is also established with the region’s transportation agencies. Current assignments include subsurface investigation and roadway recommendations for the proposed widening of a 14-mile stretch of State Route 73 near Charlotte and Florida’s First Coast Expressway project.

ECS provided geotechnical engineering services for the deep foundations of the nearly complete Four Seasons Hotel project in Nashville.
Photo courtesy ECS Southeast

Maintaining the balance

ECS佛罗里达州子公司总裁Joe Champion表示，尽管供应链问题限制了ECS的建设服务，但该州的新投资大量涌入对该公司的应有债务服务的需求提高了。

“It’s a marginal cost compared to construction costs and time,” Champion explains, “so investors and owners are all trying to enter or expand their presence in the market as quickly as possible.”

Because such bustling markets understandably attract significant competition to provide those critical early-phase design and consulting services, Clyburn says ECS’ speed of engagement is a decided advantage for new and ongoing clients.

“We’re the tip of the spear as the opportunity is unfolding,” he says. “For us, that means providing services to meet a client’s specific criteria, whether it’s time to market, minimizing exposure due to market conditions or taking on special tasks like adapting an existing structure to accommodate just-in-time manufacturing.”

ECS staffers recently took part in Construction Career Days in Florida.
Photo courtesy ECS Southeast

Clyburn adds that because clients often have only one shot to take advantage of a particular opportunity, “everything has to be right.”

Consistently meeting those needs in terms of time and quality, adds Champion, requires people who possess technical skills “but also operate in a culture that encourages entrepreneurship and empowerment of team decision-making, combined with the force and resources of a larger company.”

Ken Stoltenberg, director with development firm Mercury Advisors, Tampa, attests to ECS’ ability to deliver. “They’re straightforward in their pricing, and they do what they say they’re going to do. That’s what we want out of that type of vendor.”

尽管EC自1988年成立以来一直强调有机增长，但多年来，该公司还收购了其他公司，最近的东南地区增加是亚特兰大环境管理。员工以及墨西哥湾沿岸的几个新办事处，包括阿拉巴马州的莫比尔。

Far from being a conventional “top-down engineering company,” Champion says, “we build and empower the boots on the ground and provide them the support to dominate the industry. This results in developing, retaining and recruiting the best people in our industry.”

Part of that effort includes a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Half of ECS’ corporate principals are women, while all three female branch managers are based in the Southeast, including two who were named to their respective posts last year.

ECS is working to increase that number through corporate programs such as Promoting All Women’s Strengths (PAWS), which offers meetings with guided discussion topics on a variety of topics that have included developing mentoring relationships with junior staff, work/life balance and breaking down communication and cultural barriers.

The ECS exploration team captures existing pavement section and subsurface data during a pavement design investigation for use in designing an overlay for a section of US Highway 74 in North Carolina.
照片由ECS东南

Countering concerns

Clyburn would like to see the speed of these and other diversity efforts accelerate, but laments that women remain underrepresented in civil engineering curriculums, which, in turn, are often overshadowed by other science and technology disciplines.

Talent could well be the biggest obstacle to ECS sustaining its current growth path in the Southeast. Despite the looming uncertainties of a potential recession, inflation and November’s mid-term elections, Champion says the company’s versatility will be a plus as long as there are enough people available to help capitalize on opportunities such as an expected uptick in infrastructure spending.

他说：“我们确实觉得我们处于在任何类型的经济中的增长和获得市场份额的良好位置。”

Clyburn goes a step further, calling ECS “a battle-tested company that’s prepared for whatever is coming.”