IMEG Education Market Leader John Holbert talks about the challenges facing the education sector and other related topics in the following Q&A.  

Q: What types of facilities does IMEG design in the education market? 

A: IMEG’s education portfolio ranges from A to Z. We work at all types of institutions, both higher education and K-12. We do a variety of project types, including facilities for the arts, science and technology, and sports and recreation.  

Q: What common challenge is confronting today’s education institutions? 

A: Obviously, the pandemic greatly disrupted the education sector. Colleges and universities are facing enormous challenges with respect to revenue, enrollment, and health safety issues as they work to return their campuses to full capacity and operations. All of this is on top of the fact that all education institutions face a lack of resources — whether it be money, manpower, equipment, space, etc. There will always be challenges in education to do more with less. 

Q: How is IMEG positioned to help education clients achieve their goals? 

A: IMEG offers a wide variety of engineering solutions that are beneficial to complex education projects. We can provide the necessary supplementary services such as technology, AV, security, commissioning, architectural lighting, acoustics, and energy modeling. We’re able to deliver those under one roof.  

Q: What drives your passion for your work as a consulting engineer? 

A: My passion for engineering really stems from the ability to solve problems. I also really like working with people. I love the challenge of the engineering solutions, but I also love the challenge of developing relationships.  

Q: Describe one of your biggest accomplishments as a consulting engineer. 

A: My most memorable moment in my career was the opportunity to develop a new education client into a repeat client who eventually requested IMEG as their preferred engineer. During that relationship, which spanned about 20 years, we accomplished over 50 projects on campus. We also helped them create their functional specifications. These projects led to multiple presentations on campus and at various conferences and some prestigious awards for our collaborative work. We got our initial opportunity to work on the campus because we listened to the owner and their needs. The additional opportunities that we earned were based on the relationship we developed based on a mutual trust and respect. This allowed us to work together to deliver the best overall projects for that client. 

Watch the video version of this Q&A.