Week 3: Cheers to 50 Years, A Story of Transformation!
Please join us for a journey through our evolution as we celebrate our 50th year! Each week we will be adding a post to take you through our story of transformation. To start the journey jump to the bottom of this blog.
When Bill Fick joined the firm in 1985, Gray & Associates was a successful engineering firm known for its structural expertise and commitment to providing cost-effective structural designs well-suited for their purpose. Bill became partner in 1991 and the firm evolved into Gray & Fick. While continuing to uphold Fred Gray’s traditions we have also embraced new practices that have allowed us to adapt, grow and thrive throughout the years.
The single greatest evolutionary step between Gray & Associates and Gray & Fick has been the development of close-knit collaborative project teams. The trust we show in one another has paved the way for our drafting and engineering team members to scrutinize every aspect of a project ensuring that we take the time to get it right. This has made us industry leaders in quality and has allowed us to scale up capacity by taking full advantage of staff members’ unique strengths and capabilities.
This evolutionary step is a testament to Bill Fick’s unwavering leadership, attention to detail and commitment to continuous improvement. Under Bill’s leadership, all team members are empowered to provide input into designs and share their unique perspectives enabling our sum to be greater than our parts. This has meant that every project benefits from the collective knowledge and experience of the entire team.
Gray & Fick’s commitment to collaboration and teamwork has made it possible for the company to take on larger scale projects and more of them without sacrificing quality, customer service or attention to detail.
Fred Gray was the founder of our engineering firm in 1973. Fred worked hard to provide efficient designs that would work best for the project and reduce construction cost. He did not gauge his time on the fee but on the project itself. He believed in properly detailing the structural work well beyond what the industry standard was at the time.
The firm has carried Fred's philosophy and developed it further. We work closely with the client to ensure the appropriate design is achieved. We ensure the contract documents are well detailed to minimize confusion during construction.
The core values this firm was founded on 50 years ago remain the cornerstone and in many ways the catalyst for our success and growth today.
While we have been known by different names over the last 50 years, we have always kept our focus on helping people solve complex structures.
As an organization, we have gone through three distinct phases of evolution:
Sole proprietorship;
Partnership; and now
Tiered partnership
We’ve had an immensely successful run these last 29 years under the name Gray & Fick and have now come to a significant milestone in our 50th anniversary year. To celebrate this success, we felt it was appropriate to shed our skin and re-emerge as the more mature medium-sized structural engineering firm we are today.
Over the next 7 weeks, we are excited to take you on a journey through our evolution, starting from its establishment in 1973 up until the present day. This will be a story of growth, transformation, and progress and we hope you will gain a deeper understanding of who we are and what we stand for.