Insights

Recognizing Key Leaders at Salas O’Brien

Salas O’Brien is blessed with an amazing team of dedicated and talented professionals who model excellence and embody the Salas O’Brien difference. Each year, we recognize several of these team members for their demonstrated growth in leadership, technical skills, client or team development, and project management. The following employee-owners were nominated for an executive-level position […]

Retail at Disney Springs: Helping Design Memorable Experiences at the Happiest Place on Earth

In between visits with Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, Disney World guests can shop, dine, and find evening entertainment at Disney Springs, a themed promenade with four neighborhoods. Disney Springs houses more than 150 shops and dining experiences, including several notable flagship retail locations.

Applauding California DSA's New Electronic Plan Review

Salas O’Brien designs facilities that are a part of our everyday lives, whether they are the complex facilities where we work, produce, manufacture, and create, or the places our kids go to school, the universities that educate and research, the hospitals that rehabilitate, or the facilities that power our mobile world. We’ve always worked hard […]

Why Our Change Orders Are One-Third of Industry Average

Cumulative change orders on a large building will cause construction to run anywhere from 11-15% over budget and 10-20% over schedule. At Salas O’Brien, we’ve studied our change order rate and discovered that we consistently keep our change orders below 3% of construction costs. This means that on a typical $1 million construction project with […]

How Growing Differently Puts Our Clients First

At a recent ESOP shareholder meeting, CEO Darin Anderson spoke to Salas O’Brien’s employee-owners about how the company’s core values impact our growth, and what that means for the future. Why Grow? While growth can be a worthy goal in itself, Salas O’Brien believes that growth has never (and will never) prevent us from living […]

TRS Joins the Salas O’Brien Family

Salas O’Brien is thrilled to welcome Concord, California-based Technical Roof Services (TRS) into the Salas O’Brien family.

When Commissioning Saved $900,000

At Salas O’Brien, we believe in commissioning. And though code now requires commissioning in more places than ever, we’ve always believed that the energy savings and long-term value that commissioning provide make it the right thing to do. In fact, commissioning saved a Salas O’Brien client $900,000 and resulted in an immediate payback. Here’s the […]

Interview: Partnering with the US Military

Salas O’Brien has for many years partnered with our government and military to improve infrastructure and serve our men and women in uniform. And it’s no surprise that our office in San Diego has an especially deep and long-standing portfolio in engineering and commissioning for the military. In this brief interview, Farzad Tadayon, Managing Principal in […]

Mel Kalmans Celebrates Nearly 60 Years in Industry, Announces Retirement for End of 2018

Mel Kalmans, co-founder of Salas O’Brien’s Houston office and an industry veteran of nearly 60 years, announced his retirement yesterday in a meeting with the Salas O’Brien teams in Texas and Louisiana. To ensure a smooth transition for clients, Mel’s retirement will take place at the end of 2018. Aside from Mel’s devoted family, Salas […]

Salas O’Brien Named a 2018 Commissioning Giant

Salas O’Brien has once again been named to Consulting-Specifying Engineer‘s list of Commissioning Giants. The award is based on annual billings and includes firms performing all types of commissioning around the world.

Interview: Engineering for High-Speed Tolling

Salas O’Brien’s new Orlando office has unique capabilities in engineering for high-speed tolling. Here, Adam Levine, Principal, shares details on what exactly these projects entail and why he loves working on them. How long have you been doing high-speed tolling projects? This office has been doing high-speed tolling projects for more than 20 years. I’ve […]

Saving Energy & Advancing Careers at Alief ISD

At Salas O’Brien, our commitment to community-building means that we love contributing to education projects. That’s why we were especially excited to attend last week’s ribbon-cutting at the Center for Advanced Careers in Houston’s Alief ISD. The 235,000-square-foot school can accommodate up to 2,500 students receiving training in areas as diverse as veterinary science, manufacturing, […]