Mechanical Engineering Overview - Overview PDF - PowerPoint - Podcast

	BS, Mechanical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute BS, Building Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
	Vice President, developing and managing design, building, maintenance, and facilities improvement projects.
	Bill decided early that he wanted to work on the engineering side of the construction industry. He enjoys being able to carry a project from basic design through to a finished building. Along the way he solves problems that may be mechanical, electrical, architectural, financial, or political and regulatory in nature.
	"Look at a lot of different alternatives in a lot of different industries to really try to take the time to understand them."

"Basically, it's price of admission. You know, at a certain level, you just don't get there if you're not licensed. And it's important -- you can be just as talented an engineer possibly without a license, but it's the validation that you need to really enter at certain levels of certain types of projects."

Q: What are some of the projects you work on?
Line: We're doing projects under a contract with the Corps of Engineers at Air Force bases and Army bases around the country. Mostly in medical facilities, systems-repair and replacement projects. And chiller retrofits and generator replacements, things like that. We're also doing a couple of systems-replacement projects for private clients here in town. Technically oriented clients; like banks, financial services institutions. We're replacing mechanical systems, upgrading emergency power systems, things like that. And in those projects, we're doing really full "turn-key" design and construction. We have turn-key design and construction responsibility. We have no laborers or anything as employees. We contract out -- bid and contract with subcontractors for that work. So this is a new venture for Syska & Hennessy. Syska's done M&E engineering for 70 years. And now, you know, we're branching out really into a new arena for us.

Q: Is this a large company?
Line: Syska's got about 450 employees in offices around the country. A couple of hundred in New York, a small office in Washington that's probably about a dozen people. Twenty people in Cambridge, 35 in Princeton. This office is about 100 in Los Angeles. And a handful of people in San Francisco. And my division has some people in Texas and Chicago that are mainly project offices in those locations.

Q: Just in one simple sentence, what is it that you do?
Line: We do a lot of different things. And basically, what we've come to be focused on in recent years is maybe less-so on delivering a set of drawings and specifications that describe building systems, and more-so on trying to solve building owners' or facility owners' problems by applying the technology that we're trained and are expert in. And, finding ways to either solve their building problems or even their business problems through applying mechanical/electrical technologies.

Q: What does Bill Line do?
Line: Talk on the phone, write reports, things like that. Develop budgets, schedules. And basically figure out all the parts and pieces that go into a project in order to take if from inception to completion. An owner might just know that, "I've got systems that are important to me and I don't want them to go down. Costs me a lot of money." So you could put in generators, give them UPS systems. There's a lot of available technologies that we then try to select from and optimize for a particular owner, based on what they can spend, what they like to accomplish. What their short and long-term business goals are, and try to package a solution that's best for that owner. You know, you study six different buildings, six different ways, and you could end up with six different system designs for what could have apparently been the same project going in. And many of our clients don't know what they want. They know the result that they want, but they don't know what it takes to get from here to there. And we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what they want, why they want it. Learn a little more about their business, what's important, and come up with an optimal solution for them.

Q: How long does it take to figure it all out ?
Line: It really depends on the project. And in cases where we try to provide integrated solutions, there isn't always a mechanical solution to a building owner's problem. Sometimes it's electrical, sometimes it could be anything. And ideally what comes out is that we're smart enough to see what application is best and figure out what it is. It may not be a mechanical/electrical solution. We've spent a lot of time trying to elevate ourselves as a service provider specializing in mechanical and electrical engineering. And, through being a service provider, maybe elevate ourselves to a level beyond just, "I design mechanical air conditioning systems. Or I design electrical systems for buildings." We basically sit at the table with the strategic planners of the project and decide what's best for a business or what's best for an owner.

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