Vision Pros Live Podcast
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What is your vision? Featuring Ryan Labus. Podcast Session 1.
3,152 words · 3 speakers
Tell me more about Pro Engineering Consulting.
So Pro Engineering is a medium-sized, family-owned business that offers a few different engineering services. We work with different architects and contractors on construction projects of all types and sizes. Custom homes, apartment buildings, restaurants and bars, industrial and manufacturing centers. The engineering services we provide are mechanical, electrical, plumbing and structural. So think like the utilities of the building and then the skeleton of the structure of the building itself.
So a lot of what we do is sometimes on like the boring side, but it's also
just helping piece everything together in the project to support the architect's vision for it.
Okay, makes all the sense in the world. Are you, do you all do more commercial than residential?
I'd say mainly commercial. But yeah, we do a lot of multifamily and senior living. That kind of falls under commercial, but compared to like single-family residential, yeah, we definitely do more commercial.
All right. And then your role there at Pro Engineering is Business Development Manager, is that correct?
Yes.
Okay. As a Business Development Manager, what is your part in the business? What do you focus on?
So I wear multiple hats. I definitely coordinate a little bit with the project management team, but the main goal here and why I was brought on is to just drive new business and build and maintain new relationships. Like I said, started off as a small family-owned business. We've been in business since 1985. And there was really no formal sales or marketing team until I came on in 2022. Now I just manage a small team of three. So yeah, I work with project management. I work with alongside ownership and a marketing agency that we've also brought on board to just identify and target new prospective
architectural firms and then and then go after them through a number of different methods.
Yes, yes. And so you've been with them since two thousand and twenty-two. When you decided you'd accept the position and you, I'm sure most people, we all tend to accept positions that we feel like we can make a change in. Tell me about your vision when you took that position and where it is now.
I, it's been good so far. I'd say, you know, my vision was to really come in and just help out and a small business. I'd, I'd been in a little bit more corporatized structure beforehand where I didn't have as much, um, you know, you're micromanaged a little bit more and there's a little bit more oversight and, um, not that there isn't checks and balances here, but they were just looking for someone who had industry knowledge as far as kind of just construction and design went. Um, I have a background in, in construction, having actually worked in the field for several different contractors and
then, um, also a project management position. So I kind of understood the lingo and had the experience there and, um, wanted to kind of sharpen my sales and networking skills. And when I had met with, um, Ramin, who's the owner of the company, to start talking about the position, I just really liked where he was coming from. Um, really trustworthy, family-oriented guy, someone that you just, you know, want by your side, he's supportive. So, um.
Yeah, just I guess was really inspired to just kind of come in and be a uh try to be a a bigger fish in a small pond, if that makes sense, and just make an impact in the the company's overall performance.
Absolutely. And so now you are doing podcasting um and you are the goal in podcast and to come on to the podcast. Please share that with the audience.
I guess a number of reasons. I mean, first and foremost, obviously, is just awareness. You'd hope that architects or someone who'd be in need of our services might come across this. Um, I think as well as just building your own personal brand and getting your personality out there brings a little bit of um personality to the company. Like I said, I kind of joked around earlier and said engineering is kind of boring, but if you can, if you can kind of show face and um allow your audience to get a chance to feel like they know you a little bit, that'll definitely help. Um, and then I guess just if there's any questions that I answer or anything that I say that helps out with someone
in a similar position to mine or working for a similar company or a similar industry, maybe they'll, maybe they'll get some insights or get some inspiration.
Definitely. So I have a background in real estate and commercial. And interesting enough is uh you were probably the first that I've had on the podcast that is speaking about engineering and consulting. Tell me what makes pro engineering unique in the engineering field.
Um, there's a few things that makes pro engineering unique. Um, the fact that we have multiple services in-house just makes for better coordination and and streamlines everything. Um, I mean, think of uh
think of uh the design side of things, you know, before construction actually commences on a project. Um, you know, usually there's a general contractor and they have a bunch of subcontractors. That's kind of the way it works with architects and engineers. Architect kind of quarterbacks it and there's multiple different disciplines. There are specialties, you have your civil engineer, you have what we do, the MEP. And structural, sometimes there's a landscape architect, an interior designer. Um, you have audio visual people, the list goes on, there's lots of parties, so. To cut down on the amount of uh, kind of cooks in the kitchen, we, we offer multiple services. Um, and so it's more of a one stop shop when you get to work with us.
The other thing is just, yeah, our levels of um. Kind of internal quality control and review, um, you know, if you're gonna make that promise that you're gonna be. You know, coordinating better and have everything more streamlined. We have multiple levels of internal review, we have obviously the experience of our, of our principal engineers over forty years. Um, and we're able to, able to just make it work with definitely a, a. Just really good project management system that allows us to take on a large bandwidth of, of projects every month. Um, and provide things at a pretty reasonable turnaround time without sacrificing quality.
I think the biggest, one of the biggest things in this industry is the cost of delay and I, you know, you hear from. A lot of prospective architects that we work with, they say, oh, we already have someone we work with. Um, sometimes cost isn't even the issue on these big, large developments. Um, in the grand scheme of things, but. When it comes to being able to just take on the work and take it on immediately and. And meet deadlines, that's where we really excel and sometimes that can make the difference.
Absolutely, deadlines make the difference, uh, saves money. Makes everybody happy in the end, and you said the services you provide are plumbing, electrical and mechanical, right?
Yes, and, and structural.
And structural, okay.
Uh, tell me about a, a recent project you've done.
Um, a recent project, I guess, I mean, we have a lot, we've worked on like fifty or sixty projects in the last, you know, month, we're starting to take on some small, some larger, um.
What about your largest? Uh, now, now I'm just, Ryan, I'm just being nosy now because
You're good.
I like it. So tell me about it. What's your largest one you worked on recently?
Okay, some of the largest projects we've worked on, um, we're working on two right now that I think are, are wrapping up to that I think have been enjoyable because they're a little bit out of the ordinary for us. Actually, working on a, um, a private airport, um, it's actually gonna be the largest privately owned airport in the US, once it's constructed. That's been an interesting process, um, just cool to see the ins and outs of how that works and how the architect laid it all out and then what our teams come up with, um. There's obviously a lot involved as far as controls and, you know, proper, just
lighting and ventilation and things like that. You have airplane fuel inside of a hangar that you have to ventilate it a certain way. So I, I can't get too technical on it, but myself not being the engineer, but that's been an interesting one. We're also working on a, um, a private school right now. We've definitely worked on some schools in the past, but this one is, um, this one's ground up, so completely new development, working with a pretty well-known architectural firm, um, and contractor on this one, and it's, it's pretty interesting to see all the factors that, um, need to be considered early on in just the the process of designing a school. So there's a lot that goes into it.
You know, and I I never even thought about it's not it's not funny, and I know the audience is gonna be like duh. But we don't, we just go to school. We don't have any idea, you know, how it's being built or what's going on or it, you know. So I could see why that would be exciting, not to mention the private airport, you know? We don't hear private and airport at the same time. Those don't usually go in the same sentences. Uh, but I I can only imagine with all the components and everything of of the challenge that would come with it as well. I guess just to even ask about that, is that time consuming to have to figure out because it's so different?
It takes a little bit of time. Yeah, I mean, we have a great team that um. You know, as far as the architect goes, that takes the lead on on how he wants everything laid out. And then in the general, in the general principles of meeting building code requirements is pretty uniform across all different types of projects. Um, but yeah, there's definitely a lot of calculations um that that go into it for sure.
What are the greatest joys of what you do?
I would say, you know, on a on a personal level, I love just making the connections and getting to know everyone. Um, pretty extroverted, so the relationship building side of things is is awesome. But what's what's also satisfying is when you you get to see the projects actually come to completion and they're and the client's satisfied with it. Um, you work, you work on some projects where there's less of a a personal touch. Maybe it's just some developer who's putting a warehouse together that they're gonna rent out. But when you do get to work on someone's dream home, or you get to work on a bar or a restaurant, and you know someone's
worked hard um and, you know, taking a risk, making it an investment um into starting a business and we have a, we get to play a role in um, just the efficiency and, you know, operations of it.
Yeah.
The way that we help design those projects, it's it's pretty great when they when they get wrapped up and you get to see that they're, you know, starting to operate.
It's uh, so initially you said you went from corporate and now you're sort of in a family oriented business, which looks like they do very large corporate things. How has it changed you coming from corporate to a family owned business?
Or has it changed you?
I think you, I think, you know, you still have to,
um, you know, you have corporate clients. It's not so casual to the point where, you know, you're, you're doing, you're saying or doing anything politically incorrect. But when it comes to like, I'd say more the um, the passion that you have for the business, you feel like you're making a direct impact. Um, you have a large corporate budget, you have a lot of checks and balances. You do kind of feel like um, just another ant in the ant farm, a little bit for lack of a better term. You know, it's, it's great to have a direct impact on the performance of, of pro engineering and
um, what kind of keeps you going is that on the business development side, being almost, you know, I have a small team underneath me, but being almost solely responsible for um, driving new business. I mean, that's what keeps um, everyone else on the, on the team employed. It keeps, you know,
keeps them able to continue to work to, for their livelihood and be able to feed their families. So, um, that's, that's what can kind of keep me going. And if I'm in a place of, I don't know, this is getting stressful, or I don't feel like making those extra phone calls or having that meeting today.
Yeah. Well, I was thinking earlier, you said the owner, you mentioned his name and interesting enough in corporate, that's rare. You know, you don't see the, the, the C-suite individuals down there, you know, eh, having a, a direct impact in the business. And I really think that that's, that's worth definitely saying is that this is different. We, you guys do big jobs.
With a family environment, knowing that the person that owns the business has a, you know, is still there, right? They haven't exited and alongside of you, there's three other people. So it's, it's almost really nice to say, I can get top tier service and still know the faces of whom I'm actually dealing with. If that makes any sense.
Yeah, yeah, R- Ramin is great in that sense where he's still very hands on. I've talked with him sometimes, maybe it's too hands on. Sometimes you have to stick to the, uh, the CEO duties and let the, you know, middle management handle it. But Ramin is extremely hands on. He'll still, um, you know, he'll still make it out to a job site and, and meet with the people on an initial kind of sidewalk when we're preparing an estimate for a project or they need the expert out there to, to analyze something. He's, he's in a lot of different coordination meetings. So that's, I guess that's another thing that I could have added on earlier when you asked about what's the difference?
Um, and what's it like working for, you know, a family owned business? You can, there's not that, um, such a corporate environment that you're, you're stuck calling, trying to get ahold of them through the receptionist. You can call Ramin directly and you'll have our principal electrical engineer in his case and CEO on the line. If there's an issue, you know, he'll, he'll drop what he's doing and, and jump on it right away. So it's, it's really great to see that we have such hands on leadership.
Yes, yes, and, and it's, um, not even just that now, Ryan. You're now on podcast and about to be blasted all over the place. As the business development manager of a pro engineering and consulting. So interesting enough, you two are making the same impact. One thing I think is really cool too, is the fact that you have chosen to do this and this is something that you guys want to do. It's definitely not.
Often talked about topic, right? Because pro engineering, you know, what is engineering? And you said something before, and I wanted to ask you, just for the sake of everything and everyone learning who's watching. You said MEP. What does that mean?
MEP means mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Um, mechanical is basically in the HVAC, the heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Um, electrical is power to the building. Um, and then plumbing is pretty self-explanatory. So, um, yeah, like the utilities side of things. That's it. There's a lot of coordination that goes into, um, you know, fitting wiring and fitting pipes through a space. You know, the architect comes up with, with an idea for how he wants the building to, to look, and yet there's all these different components and, and things that are inside the walls of a building and we have to conceal them to the best of our ability.
So, and, you know, do what we can do to maintain the aesthetics of the building and also, um, ensure comfort for if someone's, you know, for a workspace or especially a living space.
Yeah, yeah. So what's next for pro engineering and how do you plan to grow?
We plan to grow, um, mainly from just getting the word out there. Um, we're joining a number of different professional organizations. I'm trying to see, um, what role I can play in there, whether it's, um, getting involved in a mentorship program, um, giving back to the community in some way. There's a lot of great organizations out there which aren't just strictly based on, um, networking alone. Um, we're going, planning on going to a number of trade shows this year. Um, multiple different locations across the US. I'd love to, um, See what I could do personally, but definitely get Ramin, our owner, involved.
Possibly become a keynote speaker at any different seminars or conferences related to our industry. And yeah, just continuing to provide educational content, whether it's just simple LinkedIn posts or articles with tips and tricks on, you know, things to consider when working on a new project. Or jumping on webinars like this. Obviously, this one's a little bit more just about myself, but we could definitely get some of the engineers on here to get more technical and maybe that'll provide value to some other engineers or the architects or contractors that we work with.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
