CEI Ranks Among Top U.S. Engineering Firms

CEI Engineering Associates Inc. has been around Northwest Arkansas for 30 years, but during that time the firm has also worked hard to gain a national reputation.

That hard work paid off this year when CEI was named No. 446 among the nation’s top engineering firms by Engineering News Record, an industry magazine. It’s one of two firms in the state to make the cut ranked by total sales revenue. CEI had $18.5 million in revenue last year. Garver Engineers of Little Rock ranked No. 499 in the listing with $16.1 million in revenue.

Although the majority of its employees work from the CEI home office in Bentonville, the company has regional offices in six cities — Atlanta; Fresno, Calif.; St. Augustine, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; Dallas and Jasonville, Ind. CEI also has satellite offices in several other locations.

Of its 184 employees, 112 work in Bentonville where the company has a special team dedicated to local projects.

CEI is registered as a professional engineering company in 49 states, as a professional surveying company in 26 states and as a landscape architecture company in 29 states.

“We grew in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, and then we started traveling,” said Mike Shupe, CEI co-founder and chairman.

Chain Eengineering

The company specializes in “roll-out projects,” which involve the engineering for a number of similar buildings for a chain, explained John H. Nourzad, chief operating officer.

“We’ve probably done 80 percent of the national projects for Murphy Oil,” Nourzad said. “Commercial development is our thing, our expertise.”

Sonoco, Tesoro, Texaco and a number of other gas station chains have also used the engineering company for roll-out projects. CEI handles the engineering for other types of chains, such as grocery stores, hotels, department stores, banks, restaurants, health care facilities, movie theaters and pharmacies.

“It’s been really important for CEI,” Shupe said. “Even though a lot of them are small little projects, there are bunches of them when they come.”

Jeffrey D. Geurian, president and CEO, said CEI’s niche is “program management” for such roll-out projects. Program management involves more than just engineering — it involves any service the client needs to accomplish the development goal, Geurian said.

If a client, for example, has told its stockholders it will open 100 new stores, CEI can help it figure out the best way to make that happen, he explained.

“It includes some traditional engineering services, but other services as well,” Geurian said.

In addition to commercial development, CEI also handles some transportation projects, including a contract to do surveying for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department for the past six years. The firm also handles local airport improvements and is currently working on a project to build a bridge spanning Mazarn Creek in Hot Springs.

The transportation field is one that company leaders are planning to grow in coming years.

CEI takes pride in its local projects and has a team dedicated to them. Some of CEI’s work can be seen at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, the Bentonville Plaza, Steele Crossing in Fayetteville, the planned Pinnacle Hills Promenade and improvements at the Rogers Municipal Airport.

Technology Integration

An early jump on integrating the company’s computer system to adequately handle communications and shared projects among CEI offices throughout the nation has been a tremendous asset in the company’s growth, Nourzad said. He estimated CEI has spent at least $2.5 million in computer technology for its six regional offices.

“Our software systems are very high-tech,” Nourzad said. “We figured it out 15 years ago. We use the same system in California as here so we can share everything.”

Geurian said the technology has also allowed CEI to offer Web sites to its clients where information about pending projects can be gathered for easier communications for everyone involved. Updates on the project’s status are instantly available, he added.

“It’s customized to what the client wants,” he said.

As the company has grown and spread out across the country, the technology has helped CEI maintain its identity, Geurian said.

CEI Culture

CEI also takes great pride in the quality of its people. Nourzad said CEI University is an in-house training program that takes trained engineers, surveyors, etc. and trains them in the service aspects that CEI likes to provide to its clients.

“This is how we transfer the culture from upper management,” he said.

Every CEI employee goes through some type of company training, because the company’s approach to its projects is unique and its leaders want to make sure each employee understands the service-minded nature of the firm’s philosophy, Nourzad said.

Nourzad, Shupe, Geurian and other upper management at CEI regularly participate in the training programs. Geurian estimates the three of them spend about half of their time mentoring.

Employees at CEI’s regional offices aren’t required to travel to Bentonville for training. Nourzad said he and others travel to those offices regularly for training and just to stay in touch with what is going on.

The regional offices and the Bentonville office can also communicate through telephone conferencing that will soon be updated to video conferencing.

The philosophy of staying connected with the satellite locations and other regional offices through advanced technology and regular gatherings helps make CEI a strong company, Shupe said.

CEI has a nine-member board of directors that includes two local businessmen who serve as outside members — Richard “Dick” Daniel, former head of Daisy Manufacturing and later the FM Corp., and Dan Dykema, president and founder of Arkansas National Bank.

The board also includes a representative of the company’s employee stock ownership plan and a CEI regional manager from a different office.

Future

CEI plans to grow by 15 percent each year and has managed to average that during the past six years, Nourzad said.

“In fact, we grew 18 percent last year,” he said, noting that the company’s growth led to its listing among the top 500 firms.

The strong market and the reputation the company has built makes the 15 percent annual growth a realistic goal, Geurian said.

“We’ve proven ourselves and made a name for ourselves nationally,” he said. “There are some companies we haven’t worked for yet. We want to get that business.”