SMALL FIRM IS HOME FOR TOUGH PROJECTS
When engineering firm Entuitive Corp. opened its doors on Jan. 19, 2011 in Toronto, it didn’t have any clients, just a handful of experienced engineers who had worked together at other firms and wanted to have fun.
Three days later, it was tapped by Canadian firm Brookfield Development to solve a complex problem it was facing on a flagship project involving rejuvenation around railway lines in West Manhattan in New York, and hasn’t looked back since.
Today, Entuitive boasts 95 engineers, with offices in Toronto and Calgary and a portfolio of projects that would be the envy of most engineering firms.
“We describe ourselves as an established upstart,” said Brock Schroeder, managing principal of the Calgary office. “We have decades of experience behind the group,” which is one of the fastest-growing engineering firms in Canada.
The firm formed when Barry Charnish, founding principal, grew disillusioned with the consolidation he was seeing in the engineering world. A large, multinational firm had gobbled up the firm he worked for and the culture was changing. “I thought the industry was going too much to the multidiscipline, multinational approach. I saw a need for a new engineering firm,” he said.
The companies were “focused on themselves, rather than the clients. I wasn’t having fun. I thought our business could be a lot of fun.”
He left and convinced a handful of his colleagues to join him.
“I found that these larger firms of 3,000 to 8,000 people are anything but entrepreneurial,” Mr. Charnish said. There were levels of management and red tape that, he said, affected the engineering clients received. “To me structural engineering is still a bit of an art. It was losing the art aspect of the business.”
Mr. Schroeder agreed that the global consolidation of engineering firms “led to a void of highly entrepreneurial consulting firms with a client focus,” which opened doors for Entuitive.
“We could think about what’s important to us and what’s important to our clients and thoughtfully map out the future,” Mr. Schroeder said about starting fresh.
He likens his firm to a creative design firm or architectural practice, where there is an emphasis on creativity. “We take a different approach. We don’t act or look like an engineering firm.”
“We try to be a little bit different, edgy,” Mr. Charnish added.
The firm’s focus in the beginning was on its strengths, structural engineering, which is where many of its principals excelled. It has since expanded into building envel- ope services and building restoration.
One of the big investments management made is in technology, which the firm sees as a differentiator. “We are one of the leaders in that area. We leverage technology to create design opportunities,” Mr. Schroeder said. The firm has in-house programmers and is developing in-house systems to optimize its technology spending. “We are putting a lot of focus on that area. It’s one of the key ways of the future,” he added.
The firm is also big on client communication and seeking feedback, issuing a quarterly postcard to clients.
It seems to be working. During its short life, Entuitive has been involved in major projects, such as the Bay Adelaide East Tower in Toronto, Brookfield Place in Calgary, Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada in Toronto, the Calgary Library and the Deloitte Tower in Montreal, among others.
“We like solving challenging problems and we’re pretty good at it,” Mr. Schroeder said.
Brookfield’s Manhattan West project in New York is an example of that. It involves efforts to reclaim a little more than a hectare of land over the busiest rail corridor in North America, as part of a project that will see Brookfield build two adjacent skyscrapers near 9th Avenue and 33rd Street West.
First, Brookfield needs to build a platform over 16 rail lines that lead into Penn Station, which are uncovered and sit about 20 metres below the surface. The platform will then serve as a plaza between the towers that will be built. It covers a span of 73 metres.
Mr. Charnish, who has experience working on subway and rail projects, proposed using bridge design and technology and using post-tension, precast, segmented concrete to form 16 long spans, which are each connected on-site and then individually dropped into place to cover the tracks. It’s like putting a lid on a box, one strip at a time.
And it must be done with limited impact to the existing rail operations, which move people in and out of Manhattan, he said. “We can only shut down electricity for four hours a week and sometimes not every week.” Two of the 16 girders have been placed and a third is under construction.
“What drives us is working on cool projects,” like the Manhattan West platform, Mr. Schroeder said.
While the firm is growing quickly, Mr. Charnish is cognizant that he doesn’t simply want to create another giant engineering firm that loses focus on clients. “We want to grow. The culture is the thing that we are trying to preserve. That is going to be our risk element.”
One thing is for sure, he said, “we are not going to be bought by some multinational firm.”