Industry news

Brad R. Parrish, PE, cofounder and president of Palmerton & Parrish Inc., was installed as president-elect of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers during the organization’s 67th annual conference, held recently in St. Louis. Parrish holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla. He is a past president of the Ozark Chapter of MSPE and was the chapter’s 1989 Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

ESC Inc. staff

ESC Inc. Engineers and Architects announced the addition of Jeff Farah, PE, Scott Kastman, PE, David Robbins, PLS and John Lindner to its staff. Farah is a civil engineer with 12 years of experience in civil design development engineering and construction management, including municipal engineering projects, commercial and recreational developments, city, county and state roadway improvement projects as well as stormwater control designs.

Kastman is an electrical engineer with 15 years of experience leading the design and implementation of manufacturing control systems for discrete and process manufacturing, including hardware/software design and installation management.

Robbins, a registered land surveyor, has eight years of experience performing boundary surveys and construction staking.

Lindner is a degreed electronics technician with 13 years of experience in controls design and developing logic for projects, including automated production lines.

New Nabholz staff

Clay Faust has been named general manager for Nabholz Client Service in Springfield. In addition to his responsibilities as general manger, he will also cover business development activities. Faust has 27 years of experience in the construction industry.

Architecture billings

The American Institute of Architects has released its monthly Architectural Billings Index for June, marking the sixth straight month that U.S. architecture firms reported increased billings. According to a July 20 AIA news release, nonresidential construction activity typically follows billings for architectural services by six to eight months, indicating that nonresidential construction should increase substantially over the next several quarters.

Following are highlights from this month’s report:

• Firms in all regions are reporting stronger business conditions.

• The commercial and industrial construction sector looks to benefit the most from the impending upturn in nonresidential construction activity. Architecture firms that specialize in this sector reported the strongest gains in inquiries for new work in June.

• More than three-fourths of billings at architecture firms are for design phase activities. Approximately 13 percent of billings are services performed after the design phase-construction or post-construction services. The final 10 percent of billings are for services that don’t directly result in construction activity – feasibility studies, consulting, building code analysis and expert testimony.

“The construction industry, and all business sectors affected by it, should be encouraged by the billings that architecture firms have reported through the first half of 2004,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, in the release. “The only caveat is that improved economic conditions have had an inflationary effect on the price of construction materials, which has already created problems for the construction industry.”

The Architectural Billings Index is collected from the Work-on-the-Boards survey.

The indexes contained in the report are derived from a monthly survey sent to a panel of AIA member-owned firms.

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