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Managing change: Rick Maniktala President of BranchPattern (Overland Park, KS), a building consultancy dedicated to creating better built environments through its many interwoven specialties.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
M ore than 20 years ago, Maniktala first started his work at BranchPattern as an intern. He did everything from working in the CAD department to running the blue-print machine. He quickly moved into project management and ran a small branch before taking on a principal role in the early 2000s. It’s working as a team to solve complex problems for the company’s clients that he finds to be the most fun and rewarding. “We are one firm with many interwoven specialties, with the purpose of improving life through better built environments,” Maniktala says. “Our intense focus on purpose is what has evolved the firm from its humble MEP engineering beginnings. The home-grown service expansion has led us to a new defining brand: BranchPattern. It better reflects that we are much more than MEP engineers. We’ve assembled a talented group of building scientists, enclosure consultants, and net-zero integrated design specialists.”
A CONVERSATION WITH RICK MANIKTALA. The Zweig Letter: Your website reads: “Improving life through better built environments® is our purpose.” Can you provide a recent example of a project that the company has worked on that speaks to this phrase? Rick Maniktala: There are many examples, as we seek better built solutions for all our projects using our human- centered design approach, the D.I.V.E. Project Framework®. A recent example that has received a lot of attention is the Pikes Peak Summit Complex. Our engineers and scientists leveraged research and first principles thinking to engineer unique solutions for the Pikes Peak Summit Complex Project, located 14,115 feet above sea level. Its impact on people’s lives is going to be the best part, with 600,000 people visiting the summit each year. TZL: How far into the future are you able to reliably predict your workload and cashflow?
THE ZWEIG LETTER M
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