The Future. Built Smarter.

In the second of a two-part episode, IMEG software development team lead Steve Germano continues his conversation about IMEG’s internal, AI-powered chatbot, Meg. After a year-and-a-half of development, Meg is now live and serves as a search engine for the firm’s engineering teams and other departments, drawing from the company’s vast amount of stored data.   Built as a large language model, or LLM...

In the first of a two-part episode, IMEG software development team lead Steve Germano joins Mike Lawless and Joe Payne for a conversation about IMEG’s internal, AI-powered chatbot, Meg. After a year-and-a-half of development, Meg is now live and serves as a search engine for the firm’s engineering teams and other departments, drawing from the company’s vast amount of stored data.   Built as a larg...

Kat Klingenberg, executive director and co-founder of the non-profit organization Phius, talks about the history and current state of passive building in this episode of The Future Built Smarter. “Passive building principles are not rocket science,” she says. “We're talking about continuous insulation, airtight construction, no thermal bridging in the envelope, good fenestration components, and mi...

This episode of The Future Built Smarter podcast provides a high-level look at seismic design and preparedness 30 years after the Northridge earthquake rocked Southern California in 1994. Joining the discussion is IMEG structural engineer and client executive Craig Chamberlain, president of the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California, which hosted the Northridge30 Symposium on the...

IMEG President and CEO Paul VanDuyne talks about the trajectory of his career and the firm’s growth during his 20-year tenure as CEO in this special episode of The Future Built Smarter. The recipient of ENR Midwest’s 2023 Legacy Award, Paul entered the industry as a design electrical engineer 47 years ago when he joined IMEG—then KJWW Engineering. In 2003 he became president and CEO, and in 2015 l...

This episode features Missy Stults, Sustainability and Innovations Director for the City of Ann Arbor, MI, one of 11 communities being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office to design a community geothermal heating and cooling system. Joining the conversation is IMEG Sustainability Director Adam McMillen, who is leading the analysis and design portion of the proje...

This episode offers a preview of UW Health’s Eastpark Medical Center in Madison, WI. Expected to be fully open by Fall 2024, the seven-story outpatient facility will offer advanced imaging and lab services, destination services, multidisciplinary adult specialties, and women’s complex care. The center also will feature the state-of-the-art UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center, one of the few in the c...

Scott Campagna, Senior Director of Housing at IMEG, is featured in this episode—one in a series of conversations with the firm’s market leaders. Scott talks about the subsectors of IMEG’s housing work—neighborhoods, multifamily, student housing, and senior living—and the challenges and opportunities facing the market overall. “It's an interesting time,” he says. “There's a huge housing demand in a...

In a continuing series of discussions with IMEG’s market leaders, this episode of The Future Built Smarter features John Holbert, vice president of education. John discusses the challenges facing the market, primarily those for higher education institutions, which face ever-increasing enrollment competition, changes in student demographics, limited resources, aging infrastructure, and difficulties...

Holistic security considerations for K-12 school design are examined in this 17-minute episode featuring Ryan Searles, IMEG’s security consulting group leader. Ryan spends an average of three weeks of each month traveling the country presenting at conferences or training organizations in crisis management, active shooter mitigation, and other security preparedness—with a growing number of school d...

This episode—another in a series of discussions with IMEG’s market leaders—features Jack Kusek, market leader for water and wastewater. Listen to the episode and you’ll learn:  What PFAs are and what can be done about them  Which U.S. city has the largest concentration of lead pipes  Why security is a big concern for water and wastewater facilities, particularly in smaller communities  How two com...

In the first of a series of conversations with IMEG market leaders and directors, Brandon Fortier, Director of Science & Technology, joins podcast host Joe Payne and series co-host Steve Rhoades, Vice President of Market Development and Federal Solutions. This episode, like the others to come in the series, provides a high-level view of the trends, challenges, opportunities, and topics that are to...

Many in the healthcare industry have come to recognize the significant and symbolic role that healthcare organizations, their designers, and builders, can play in reducing the carbon emissions, or greenhouse gases, introduced by the built environment of their facilities. In this podcast episode, IMEG Senior Director of Healthcare Eric Vandenbroucke and Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen disc...

The amount of data available from multiple building systems continues to grow exponentially. What this data is and how to decide what to do with it is examined in this two-part episode of The Future Built Smarter. Our guest on these episodes is Brendon Buckley, IMEG Protect Executive for Building Intelligence and Integration. In Part 1, Brendon discusses building system data and the potential it p...

The amount of data available from multiple building systems continues to grow exponentially. What this data is and how to decide what to do with it is examined in this two-part episode of The Future Built Smarter. Our guest on these episodes is Brendon Buckley, IMEG Protect Executive for Building Intelligence and Integration. In Part 1, Brendon discusses building system data and the potential it p...

The concept of team commissioning, the benefits it can bring to any large project with multiple stakeholders, and its application in the federal sector are examined in this two-part episode of The Future Built Smarter. Our guests are Thom Kurmel, President of TDK Consulting—a VA Certified Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business specializing in health systems design, organizational performanc...

The concept of team commissioning, the benefits it can bring to any large project with multiple stakeholders, and its application in the federal sector are examined in this two-part episode of The Future Built Smarter. Our guests are Thom Kurmel, President of TDK Consulting—a VA Certified Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business specializing in health systems design, organizational performanc...

What is a microgrid? What are its benefits? Does it offer a good return on investment? Answers to these questions and more are discussed in this episode featuring Mike Zorich, IMEG’s Vice President of Healthcare, and Eric Vandenbroucke, Senior Director of Healthcare. “A microgrid is a collection of power sources in addition to your normal utility source,” explains Eric. “It could include things li...

In this episode we visit with IMEG’s Cliff Schwinger, a senior structural engineer in Philadelphia and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction. Cliff has more than 40 years of experience, is a nationally recognized quality assurance expert, and presents at seminars nationwide, including the NASCC Steel Conference, where he has been a speaker fo...

This episode of The Future Built Smarter features a 15-minute conversation with Robin Greenleaf, an IMEG managing principal and the immediate past chair of the American Council of Engineering Companies—the first woman to hold that position. Robin shares her key takeaways from her time on the ACEC board and her career in general, including her insights on the challenges and opportunities that face...

IMEG Director of Sustainability, Adam McMillen, joins this 14-minute episode to provide a summary of the clean energy and climate provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. “At a high level, the act has really opened the door for taking advantage of these incentives while also trying to stimulate economic activity,” he says. One of the biggest aspects of the act is that, in additi...

Security continues to become an ever more important aspect of building design, and in this episode, we focus on the security strategy known as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED. Our guest is Ryan Searles, a senior security consultant at IMEG and certified CPTED professional. Ryan has also written about the strategy for the IMEG blog and says it is much more than just “large b...

In the first of two related episodes, structural engineer Laura Hagan talks about her participation in IMEG's internal IDEA! program, designed to foster innovation and sustainability across the firm and investigate future trends in the AEC industry. The program also frees up participants to focus on their areas of interest and take what they have learned or developed back to their team. "A big par...

Using a HoloLens to provide an augmented reality (AR) experience is discussed in the second of two episodes on IMEG's internal IDEA! program. This segment features guest Abby Coleman, an IMEG intern who participated in the program, which is designed to foster innovation and expose participants to future trends in the AEC industry. Abby describes the HoloLens and AR as a "translator" between design...

This episode of The Future Built Smarter examines equity in healthcare. Providing the caregiver perspective on the topic are guests Dr. Anne Doran, a pediatric hospitalist at Advocate Children’s Hospital, Chicago, and Dr. Megan Morgan, a registered nurse and pediatric nurse educator at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Both share their views and experiences on equity, inclusion, diversity, and bias wit...