“Some nerd culture, definitely,” says Michael Porco (CivE 1T0) a founding Principal of Grounded Engineering. “Maybe we should include Star Wars or Marvel trivia in our interview process,” jokes Porco in admitting to the now mainstream pop culture references brought up often in company meetings.
The new engineering firm has so many young engineers, the calculated average age of employees is firmly within the range of millennials. “We saw that our youngest staff member was, other than an intern, 23 and our oldest was 47, but our average age is 32. We’re a very young team,” according to Porco.
In November of 2019 some University of Toronto Engineering alumni banded together with a few other experienced colleagues to found Grounded Engineering. Now, some 15 months later, the original group has expanded to a staff of over 50.
As any good superhero tale should, there’s a beginning. “Our origin story, if you will, was basically myself and the other three founding principals. We all worked together for at least a decade in the geotechnical engineering industry in Toronto and Southern Ontario area. We had a certain vision for where we wanted to take that firm; we decided we wanted to do something different,” Porco explains. “You know what, let’s focus on our staff, and build a firm where it’s a great place for people to work. An environment where people really are proud to say they work at Grounded.”
The four founding Principals of Grounded, made up of Porco, Jason Crowder (CivE PhD 0T4), Matthew Bielaski and Chris Elvidge, created the firm with the goal of offering a full-service shop for ground engineering. Within a short time, additional partners included Associates Mike Diez de Aux (MinE 0T5, MASc 0T7), Bryan Crljenica, Max Ho (CivE 1T4), Amanda Li (CivE 1T1), Bruno Mirassol, Ylena Quan and Naji Shbaklo (MEng 1T3). Other U of T alumni include Chantelle Chun, Deepak Kanraj, Hussain Imam, Jason Ngo, Jessie Wu, Matthew Garcia, Nick Ng, Tarek Hamdan, and current PEY student Patricia Robalino.
The entirely employee-owned firm provides expertise in multiple engineering areas, including geotechnical, hydrological, environmental, geostructural and construction.
The rapid growth of staff ranks has come in spite of, or perhaps because of, the current pandemic. While other firms felt the need to reduce staff during the pandemic, Grounded took advantage of the opportunity to expand. Though the company’s below-ground work had to be halted during the initial construction shutdowns experienced in March 2020, a safe return to construction sites and remote working from home allowed the resumption of full-speed operations.
The pandemic has meant working from home for much of the office-based staff, save for the laboratory crew, so staying connected virtually has meant a great deal to the fledgling company. To celebrate the firm’s first anniversary on November 4, local craft beer was purchased and left at the office for employees to collect on their own time beforehand. Then, when the day of celebration came around, everyone in the video meeting “had a drink in their hand and that was nice to share together,” recalls Porco.
Recently, an “aha” moment came to the core team when discussing the sheer number of U of T Engineering alum at Grounded, and their shared experiences at university. A quick check on LinkedIn revealed about half of the current staff are, indeed, connected to the institution.
Some of the shared experiences of a U of T Engineering education means fond recollections of classes and professors. Porco points out specific links to CivMin professors. “Professors Murray Grabinsky and Mason Ghafghazi. We have a sort of, I want to say special relationship with them. We always reach out and interact with Mason, especially me personally. Seeing how we’re a geotechnical firm, I think it’s only fair that we shout them out.”
Working from home means, though the numbers of staff have exceeded the office space’s physical capacity, fortuitously there’s not yet a need to make a move to a larger space. Though there’s definitely an eye towards the future and a full complement of employees gathering for the first time. Porco states “We’re trying to make sure that we don’t lose sight of the fact we need to get together just for everyone’s mental health. Maybe, as long as everyone is comfortable, there has to be an outdoor event next summer.”
The entire company’s staff have been incredibly supportive and during the pandemic, where they’ve spent more time apart than together. “Basically, we were overwhelmed with the support of not only Junior engineers, but also of our client network as well and so we’ve grown astronomically quickly.”
In the course of the video interview Porco reveals his home office shelves were replete with familiar and popular forms of large-scale building block model assemblies. “Yes, it’s my wall of Star Wars Lego… I’m definitely a big kid!”
By Phill Snel
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Some recent projects by Grounded Engineering can be seen on their Urbantoronto page:
https://urbantoronto.ca/database/companies/grounded-engineering-inc
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