Despite pandemic-related hurdles in 2020, a Kansas City-based mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) engineering firm has grown both its client list and footprint.
Dialectic Engineering, which serves commercial, retail, restaurant and education clients, this month opened new offices in Denver, supplementing its local headquarters and a presence in Austin, Texas.
The firm achieved revenue growth of approximately 8% in 2020, a figure CEO Gregory Trees told the Kansas City Business Journal that he projects will climb into the double digits, around 12%, if work continues at its current pace.
Trees attributed Dialectic Engineering's recent success in part to the company's quick response early during the local onset of Covid-19. The firm executed a disaster recovery program on March 12, sending employees home and, as needed, equipping them and paying to install or upgrade their home wireless networks.
"We were up and running at full capacity within four hours, to where we didn't miss any deadlines and didn't have any issues getting anything done," said Trees, who assumed the CEO role in January 2020, succeeding longtime predecessor and founder Chris Larson.
"That gave clients a lot of comfort and brought more work in the door for us. A lot of our competitors were not ready to do what we were able to do."
Beyond Denver, Trees said Dialectic Engineering also now is exploring office or project opportunities in cities where workers could better provide MEP engineering services — including in Atlanta; Dallas; Houston; Nashville, Tennessee; and Orlando, Florida.
Among future projects, Dialectic Engineering plans to provide services supporting new cannabis production facilities, an industry Trees said his firm has been involved with for about two-and-a-half years.
The company could complete more projects as additional states come online with medicinal or recreational cannabis programs, especially as other engineering firms tend to avoid the work for legal reasons, he added.
Trees underscored the importance of his firm's emphasis on culture, including what he described as supportive communications to employees who might struggle working remotely.
"Keeping people motivated and making them feel like part of the company is very, very important to us — I think the company that can do that the best is going to win."
Founded in 1988, Dialectic Engineering had 65 employees in 2020 and revenue or about $9 million in 2019, the latest Kansas City Business Journal data shows.
Last year, the company also was honored as one of KCBJ's Best Places to Work in the small companies category.