May 2004

Mid-Size Firms Alive and Well: Moving up the ENR 500 List

Leaders of some of the fastest-rising firms on the ENR 500 list talk about what’s behind their short- and long-term success.

Firm leaders may say they determine whether their companies are succeeding or failing based on meeting internal goals or lack market or service area factors.  But there’s no questions in the A/E/P and environmental consulting in that Engineering News-Record’s annual list of the top 500 design firms is one of the best-known standards by which many companies are measured.

Entrepreneurial spirit

Rajan Sheth, president of 278-person engineering and architecture firm Mead & Hunt, Inc. (Madison, WI), says his firm has succeeded by giving its up-and-coming leaders the resources and support to go out and try new ways of growing the firm.  Though not every new endeavor works out, plenty of them have, helping Mead & Hunt move up to 265th place last year.  Over five years, Mead & Hunt has moved up 190 spots.

“Most of our growth is driven by the next generation of leaders who are on the front lines making things happen,” Sheth says.  “We have a lot of growth, but it’s not driven by the top.  It sounds cliché, but we really encourage the next generation to go outside the normal boundaries to think of ways to grow.”

One example of the entrepreneurial growth was Mead & Hunt’s launching of a historic preservation practice.  “It wasn’t something we would typically do, but one of our staff members identified it as a need clients had,” Sheth says.  “Once we started, they saw that it was a limited area in Wisconsin, so they made a decision to take it nationally.  Now we compete with national firms, and we won a contract with the New York State DOT to look at the historic value of bridges.  All of this happened because someone wanted to do something new.”

“We support our employees, and we’ll let them do things we might not have been comfortable doing before.  If they falter, they falter.  We don’t spend too much time analyzing; we just do things,” Sheth says.  “We do have an overall strategic plan we try to follow, but a plan is just a plan.  If something comes along, we’ll try to work with it.  Our strategic plan is a living document.”

Reprinted from The ZweigLetter, Issue 560, May 3, 2004, author:  Mark J. Grady