The Satisfaction of Building Drives Masseys CEI Career

As principal and vice president of operations at CEI Engineering Associates Inc., Brent Massey sees a common thread between the technical and administrative facets of his career.

For Massey, who has worked at the Bentonville firm for 20 years, structuring the organizational framework of the company brings a similar gratification to overseeing completion of a large-scale, commercial development project.

“It’s about building things,” he said. “I want to leave my mark on something that will last — not just the physical things that you can see and drive by, but also within the company, by adding staff, offices, specialties.”

At the same time, Massey also takes pride in some of CEI’s banner projects, the merits of which have not gone unnoticed by the engineering industry.

The American Council of Engineering Companies gave CEI top recognition in 2012 through its Grand Conceptor Award, a nod to its six-year civil engineering project on the grounds of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

CEI built structures that redirect water from a tributary of McKissic Creek that flows through the museum property and under two of its buildings. 

The stream is a central focus and amenity of the museum, but it is also a source of potential catastrophe, because of a risk of flooding, intensified by the fact that the property lies in a floodplain.

CEI performed 100-year, 500-year and probable maximum precipitation studies to assess flooding potential, and it designed the system to withstand above and beyond the potential water volume indicated by the studies.

To help control the volume of water flowing on the property, the team built a labyrinth weir, a dam-like structure that is the only one of its kind in Arkansas and one of only a few in the world, Massey said.

“Seven-hundred acres of land drains onto the project, which is topped by a one-of-a-kind structure that houses priceless, irreplaceable artwork,” he said. “If anything happens, my name is on it.”

The system has well protected the region’s world-class museum for the four years it has been in operation. However, no amount of dams and civil engineering safety measures could have protected CEI from the fiscal crisis brought on by the Great Recession.

Shortly after Massey was featured as a member of the 2008 class of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40, he was promoted from division manager to principal and vice president, where he manages all technical personnel in eight offices throughout the nation, overseeing CEI’s architectural, engineering, landscaping and surveying operations.

This higher level authority and responsibility was instated just as the firm started to feel the effects of the recession.

“The recession changed everything. To protect the longevity of the company, some people who didn’t do anything wrong had to sacrifice their jobs,” Massey said.

“It was not pleasant. I was the guy who had to let most people go,” he said. “It made for some tough decisions, and it was not fun for anyone, for the people who were let go, or those who stayed.”

Massey said CEI started to see a turning point in late 2010, but the firm has not fully recovered, in terms of showing the type of robust growth he would like to see.

“We’re much leaner now than we were in 2007-2008, and that has carried over for longer than we anticipated,” he said. “I’m not sure we’ll ever see pre-recession levels, but that’s probably a good thing.”

One remnant of the financial crisis is a staffing shortage. A lot of technical talent has left the industry and not returned.

However, CEI has fared better than many, because of the longevity of its tenured staff, who have the know-how and client relationships to lay a strong foundation for recovery.

One-third of CEI’s staff of about 120 has been with the company more than 10 years.

And if Massey has his way, that percentage will continue to grow.

“The most satisfying part of my job is seeing young people come up through the ranks and be given the opportunity to further their career, a chance to lead and take on challenging situations that they might not be given at other firms,” he said.