Business Spotlight: Steady Force

Only a few architecture firms in Springfield rival the longevity of Hood-Rich Inc., where Jack Hood has been the mainstay since its founding in 1963.

As Hood-Rich closes out a half-century of work and a younger set of principals looks to the future, Hood is in no hurry to exit.

“When the time comes, I’ll leave,” he says, noting he still reports to the office daily but retirement is in his sights.

After all, it’s his name on the door.

But in the president’s seat now is veteran architect Jim Lohmeyer, Hood’s son-in-law, who returned to the firm three years ago after a stint on his own. Lohmeyer started working at Hood-Rich out of college in 1984 and operated Lohmeyer-Russell PC for 14 years before his return.

Among the firm’s thousands of projects the last 50 years – executives estimate the tally at more than 5,000 – are Springfield landmarks Hammons Tower, the Springfield Nature Center and Great Southern Bank’s headquarters.

Under Lohmeyer, the firm has added architects Larry Parke and Billy Kimmons as principals.

“We got some youth,” Lohmeyer says of the team he’s pieced together for the future.

With Kimmons and Parke, who both worked with Lohmeyer at Lohmeyer-Russell, the partners’ ages and experience are staggered 10 years apart.

“Here we are with a 30-something, a 40-something and a 50-something carrying on the legacy,” says Kimmons, who also ran his own agency for a few years.

Hood-Rich’s heyday
While Hood has witnessed numerous economic cycles in his career, he considers the firm’s first 15 years its heyday. Working with engineering partner Don Rich, Hood recalls the hustle and bustle of some 60 employees and hotel drawings flying around the office for a budding developer named John Q. Hammons.

“We were involved with him starting out in the hotel industry,” Hood says of hotelier Hammons, for whom Hood-Rich this year designed a memorial for his burial site in Fairview. Hammons died in May at the age of 94. “We did a lot of his Holiday Inns, and we were in development with him on the atriums. It soon caught on.”

Hammons and other hospitality clients sent Hood-Rich’s designs across the United States. When such development slowed, Hood says the firm turned closer to home and developed niches in government, religious and school work. The company remains licensed to design in 23 states.

Today, the nondescript office is a throwback to architecture with its collection of printed plans cataloged in file cabinets and original drawings rolled somewhat neatly in cubbyholes. Tags hang from the yellowing architectural scrolls identifying the projects: “20 Story Hammons Tower,” “Springfield Regional Airport” and “First Savings & Loan.”

The nostalgia extends beyond the drawings.

“Jack is probably one of the few left in Springfield who still uses the pencil and a drafting board,” Lohmeyer says.

On the walls hang prints of early projects – schools scattered from Conway to Stover to Dixon to Versailles – when the costs per square foot were in the single digits. For instance, an 8,500-square-foot school job in Mansfield cost $60,000, or $7 per square foot, in 1965. Today’s rates range between $100 and $200 per square foot.

Sea of change
In a sea of fiscal and occupational changes, one of the objectives is to remain a steady force. The battered construction industry since 2008 is slowly emerging, but along the way, firms downsized, merged or folded altogether. Hood has cautiously watched the market reductions.

“We’ve gone through some highs and lows. But we’ve always had enough work to keep busy and fortunately have never had to lay off people,” he says.

With 15 employees, the company is a shadow of its peak. The design and construction industry is pinning its hopes on a blockbuster 2014 – when some $400 million in projects are projected to shake loose – and Hood-Rich has taken a few more inquiries in recent months.

“They’re there. There’s potential, but it’s just lingering,” Kimmons says. “The lending process is slowing down the pace of construction. It used to be out of the gate, and you’re running.”

Recent Hood-Rich designs coming to fruition are University Plaza renovations and a wine room at Highland Springs Country Club. Mark Stahlman, club general manager, says the climate-controlled room was designed to hold 1,200 wine bottles with glass walls on three sides. “They had to spec in extra structural to support the weight,” Stahlman says of Hood-Rich’s work on the third-floor lobby.

Funded by member donations and in-kind construction work, he says the 12-by-13-foot room will house 45 lockers leased or sold to members when it opens next month.

Currently, Hood-Rich is working on the Hometown Veterinary Hospital that plans to relocate to a new building at Republic Road and Cox Avenue. A groundbreaking is in the works for next month.

The architecture, land surveying and engineering firm closed 2012 with $1.2 million in revenue.

For Lohmeyer, the future leans into his past. He was trained by Hood, and now he’s in the lead.

“When I started out, I tagged along with Jack on every school board meeting he’d go to. That’s how I learned, just traveling with him, making school board presentations – just sitting there and bugging him on the way home with a zillion questions. That’s really how I learned – just watching him.”

Now, the eyes are on Lohmeyer and his team.[[In-content Ad]]