Glenn R. Bell, CEO of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger: 'Owners are concerned about costs and scheduling'

Glenn R. Bell joined Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, a national consulting engineering firm based in Waltham, Mass., in 1974 and has been CEO since 1995. He served on the SGH team that investigated the progressive collapse of the World Trade Center for NIST, worked with Stephen Holl on MIT's Simmons Hall, and helped establish the ASCE's Technical Council on Forensic Engineering. A registered professional engineer in nine states and a certified structural engineer, he holds a BS in civil engineering from Tufts and an MS in structural engineering and structural mechanics from UC Berkeley.

BD+C: You've been giving talks at universities about the need to bring architecture and engineering together. What's been the reaction?

Glenn R. Bell: I was surprised at the number of students who are dual degreeing. Collaboration and creativity in design form are taking off.

For example, in civil and environmental programs, there's more interest in going beyond simple structures: energy systems, indoor environmental modeling, smart materials, intelligent systems, form-finding tools, and digital fabrication. Some of the simulation tools we're working with today—for example, using computational fluid dynamics to model the spread of fires through structures—allow us to work toward more performance-based design and away from the more prescriptive aspects of building codes.

BD+C: A third of SGH's work is in forensics. What are the most common mistakes you find?

GRB: Leaky building envelopes and malfunctioning mechanical systems—leaks, condensation, thermal envelope and constructability problems. The other issue is the coordination in contract documents. The ball gets lobbed back and forth across the net between, say, a design team and a builder team—arguments over the level of detail and coordination. I do think BIM, when it's fully in gear, is going to help us with coordination of documents and reform of delivery mechanisms.

BD+C: Do you think BIM is a fad?

GRB: It's here to stay, and so is the power to build in virtual space and consider various design options, but adoption is pretty variable. It's difficult to exploit this tool in design/bid/build projects, so the rationale for using BIM becomes clash protection and finding interferences. A lot of design firms are setting a goal of 100% BIM in the next year or so, but the reality is the number of projects today is relatively small.

BD+C: What's happening in your markets?

GRB: We have five offices, and every one is strong, especially the Southwest and the Southeast. New York City is incredibly strong. Earlier this year, the Bay Area seemed to be cooling off, but that's rebounded, although office rental rates are dropping in San Francisco.

By building type, university buildings, healthcare, research labs, and museums are really strong right now. We were doing more condo work last year, but our architectural clients have moved into retail and, in Southern California, somewhat into office space.

Most of our work is U.S.-based, but we're in China, Dubai, India, and Pakistan—about 10% overseas. We're only beginning to exploit the offshore opportunities.

We also see opportunities to be more creative with regard to energy efficiency in buildings. We're investing more and more in that technology for energy modeling and green initiatives.

BD+C: What are you hearing from building owners?

GRB: They're concerned about costs and scheduling. Owners are trying to make decisions about option analysis, specification and performance criteria, and performance-based design—everything from the quality of finishes to the size of the building. Lots of owners, particularly our large institutional clients, are concerned about the performance of building envelopes and mechanical systems, because they have experienced mold problems.

BD+C: How are you doing on recruitment?

GRB: We have to work on it harder than ever. Over the last two years, we've worked to assure top-flight recruitment from major universities. Many of our people serve on university committees. We have 40 co-op students and interns, in addition to our 350 employees.

Our voluntary turnover is 3-5% a year. Our reason for growth is not so much to get big, but for our staff to grow professionally. We look to provide our employees challenging and diverse work, educational development, team collaboration, and the computing tools to do their jobs, but we try not to use compensation as the primary retention tool.

BD+C: What's your biggest management issue?

GRB: The pressure to grow faster than we want to. Our revenues have been growing 15-20% a year over the last 5-10 years. That's higher than we wanted, and our challenge is to sustain the growth but not so fast that we lose control of the quality or make this an undesirable place to work.