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Space Industry Roots Benefit Multidisciplinary Firm

by Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

(L-R) Leslie Lake and David Hertzler, Project Managers, discuss a BRPH project located at the Cape. Photo by Michael R. Brown, © 2004.

At the milestone age of 40, many professionals have reached an admirable level of success, established strong reputations and are continuing to develop new ways to grow in their fields.

So it is with BRPH Cos. Inc., a Melbourne-based architecture, engineering design and construction services firm founded in 1964. What started as an industrial engineering firm supporting the aerospace industry has expanded into a multidisciplinary concern employing 176 people at six offices.

The company continues to benefit from its roots doing work for NASA and its contractors. Among its contracts are a missile assembly and test facility in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska; and the General Electric Train Management Systems facility and JDS Uniphase office and manufacturing facility, both in Melbourne.

"We get hired for these jobs because we have architects and engineers who understand the technical aspects of the jobs," said Lawrence Shaw, chairman and president. They have experience working with processes, a large advantage. "In most high-tech plants, the building is a product of the process that's in it."

After getting its start in aerospace, BRPH set out to increase its engineering services by providing civil engineering and planning for subdivisions, primarily in Orlando. By the 1980s, the company began adding architecture to its offerings.

The big coup came later in that decade, when BRPH capitalized on being in the right place at the right time. K-12 education was booming in Florida, and BRPH began to design schools.

The niche proved prolific and enduring. Two Tallahassee schools BRPH designed in 1985 became prototypes the company was able to replicate in other areas. The same school has been used 64 times in 16 Florida counties, Shaw said. In Brevard County, the design was used for Christa McAuliffe, Challenger and Columbia elementary schools.

Schools based on the design are inexpensive to build and are easily expanded and maintained, Shaw said. Teachers love the abundance of windows. Architecturally, the design fits into neighborhoods well.

BRPH has developed the concept into a middle school and continues to modify and use the design. "What started in 1985, we're still doing today," Shaw said.

That included during the late 1990s, when many other architecture/engineering firms saw a drop in business. "Florida schools continued when everything else in the nation didn't," Shaw said.

BRPH has expanded the market segment outside Florida. The company's Atlanta office employs 23 people and brings in $5.5 million a year, primarily from schools.

The year has been strong for education, but even stronger in commercial work and in the company's relatively new venture into construction services. "For the first year in many years, we're doing more work in the non-education side," Shaw said.

That includes entertainment, a segment the company entered through a couple contracts with Universal Studios in Orlando. BRPH's ability to engineer the use of water involved in Delta launches made the company attractive for handling a theme park's water ride. The company now is working on a space shuttle attraction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Center.

The work adds up to $32.19 million in 2003, up from $19.67 million in 2000. That growth caught the attention of ZweigWhite, a Massachusetts management consulting firm that tracks architecture, engineering, planning and environmental firms. This year's Zweig Letter put BRPH as the 47th fastest-growing architecture/engineering firm in the country this year. That's up from 70th the year before, the first time BRPH made the list of 100 firms.

Shaw expects another rise in revenue this year, largely because of the firm's growing commitment to the construction side of its business. BRPH started doing construction services in 1997. "That's where we see a lot of our growth happening," Shaw said.

BRPH's move mirrors a national trend. Previously, architecture-engineering firms would prepare plans for a client who would then put out the plans for bid by construction firms. But today, more companies are offering what's known as design-build services, where a project is handled by the same company or partnered companies from design through construction.

That way, designers can work hand-in-hand with builders to bring in a project within budget, said James Abod, president of BRPH Construction Services.

Over the past 10 years, design-build has grown to account for about 40 percent of the construction industry and should exceed 50 percent in three to five years, said Walker Lee Evey, president of the Design-Build Institute of America.

"When was the last time you flew on an airplane that was designed by Boeing but built by Lockheed? You never have," Evey said. "You want a single team."

Studies have shown the method is 6 percent less expensive than traditional construction and is 12 percent faster on the construction end and 30 percent faster overall, he said.

"It's faster, it's cheaper, it's better. That's pretty hard to beat," Evey said.

He recommends that companies who would try design-build to prepare first and change their culture to one of teamwork. Trust and cooperation are often missing from the workplace but are crucial to the design-build process.

Listen to the color commentators talk during a football game and you hear a lot about teamwork, Evey said. "Unfortunately, you go to work on Monday and you act on your job as if teamwork is not important," he said.

Evey became an advocate of design-build while he oversaw construction projects for the government, including the rebuilding of the Pentagon after 9/11. During the 1970s, he worked for the Air Force at Patrick Air Force Base and became familiar with BRPH.

"I found them to be a well-run, exceptionally professional company," Evey said. Even when projects were run on the traditional design-bid-build system, BRPH showed itself to be forward-looking. "They still did everything they could to team with the construction end. I'm not at all surprised they would be entering the design-build arena," Evey said.

BRPH hopes to apply the process, and the company's technology background, to win more high-tech commercial jobs, said Max Snider, president of BRPH Architects-Engineers. The company also has worked on several churches, as well as city parks.

BRPH is privately held, with 68 percent of the company owned by employees through an employee stock-ownership plan.

For more information visit www.brph.com.