5/5/2007 by Paul Lundgren

Jeffery Heller refers to Krech Ojard & Associates as a “one-stop place to shop.”

As business development director and one of five principals in the Duluth-based engineering and architectural firm, he’s seen how diversifying services has led the company to jobs all over the world.

“In the past year and a half we’ve been taken to markets that we would have never thought a little Duluth company would get into,” Heller said.

The company began positioning itself for major growth in 2001, when it merged with Duluth’s Architects IV to become a full-service design firm, offering civil, mechanical and structural engineering, as well as architectural services.

By then, Krech Ojard & Associates already was invested in becoming an engineering diving company, targeting underwater inspection work and related opportunities in marine structural engineering.

“It’s not just a marine company, not just a structural firm, and not just a mechanical engineering firm,” said Heller. “It’s all three under one roof. Not a lot of firms can say that and it’s taken us places that are pretty phenomenal.”

Though a majority of Krech Ojard’s projects are still in Minnesota and Wisconsin, its reach is quickly expanding. Among current projects:

• Designing a back-up fuel path for the Consumers Energy J.H. Campbell Generating Plant north of Holland, MI. Krech Ojard is teaming with Superior-based Lakehead Constructors, Inc. on this $13-million design/build project to create a series of conveyors to increase boiler coal capacity. Consumers Energy is Michigan’s No. 2 electric and natural gas utility.

• Redesigning and managing construction of a barge-unloading facility for USG Corp.’s Dura-rock manufacturing plant in New Orleans, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

• Designing a cruise ship terminal for the port of Erie, PA.

• Conducting a bathymetric survey and underwater inspection of bulkhead facilities for Pittsburgh and Conneaut Dock Co. in Conneaut, OH. Bathymetry is the study of underwater depth, which allows mapping of the contours of underwater land.

• Assisting Aker Kvaerner, a worldwide engineering and construction company, in conducting a feasibility study. They are evaluating rail and port facilities for the development of a copper mine in the Andes mountain range in Peru.

Krech Ojard also recently conducted a feasibility study for developing a Personal Rapid Transit system in United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich Middle Eastern nation of seven political territories. Personal Rapid Transit is a system of lightweight, three-person vehicles under independent or semi-independent automatic control, running on a network of fixed guideways. If approved, this would be the first system of its kind.

For more than three years, Duluth has been considered a potential location for a Personal Rapid Transit testing facility, but funding has not been available.

Founders David Krech, chairman and chief financial officer, and Richard Ojard, president and chief executive, said Krech Ojard & Associates works on between 150 and 200 projects at any given time.

“We’ve recognized and pursued a number of specialty niches,” Krech said. “We’re not always busy in any particular area, but one or the other is always busy, so we’re able to fill in the valleys and level off the peaks.”

In addition to its Duluth headquarters, Krech Ojard has offices in Superior, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Dubuque, IA, Bellingham, WA and Hermitage, PA. About 50 of its 72 employees work out of the Duluth office. Along with Krech, Ojard and Heller, the other principals are Russell Betts and Marvin Anderson.

The company started in 1984, when Krech and Ojard left positions as professional engineers for Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway Co. to start their own firm. For more than 10 years they focused on structural engineering for commercial buildings in Duluth, eventually branching out into industrial and mechanical engineering.

In the past six years the company has more than doubled its payroll. Ojard would not disclose annual revenue. But he said it is well above the $4 million in billings the company projected for 2002 in an earlier BusinessNorth story, but far below the $23 million it would take to crack Engineering News-Record’s Top 500 Design Firms list.

Krech Ojard suffered a setback last spring when Chad W. Scott and Craig Jouppi left the company to form their own structural and marine engineering firm in Duluth, AMI Consulting Engineers.

“We didn’t see that coming,” Ojard said. “It was a major disappointment.”

Krech said they don’t fault their former employees for striking out on their own.

“They didn’t do anything to us that we didn’t do when we left our jobs to start this company,” Krech said. “We always try to hire entrepreneurial people. The risk you run is that they will do what you teach them to do.”

Despite the loss of those key personnel, the marine sector continues to be a strong part of the Krech Ojard’s diverse business.

“Our industrial base, with a focus on marine, has taken us to a lot of markets because it’s a fairly unique realm,” Heller said. “Our ability to do railroad, marine and structural in combination is what has segregated us and brought us into different markets.”

Krech and Ojard said the company plans to develop a graphic design and marketing company with its two graphic artists, Andrew Saur and Jon Sarkela. It will be a department within the company that other firms can hire, adding a new source of revenue.

“I don’t know that our rate of growth will continue like it has in the past five years,” Krech said. “We’d like to slow things down and manage what we have, but business doesn’t always let you do that.”

Even with so much growth outside the region, Krech said the company will continue to do the majority of its work in Minnesota and Wisconsin. “There’s $4 billion of work coming up in the region and we’re planning on being part of a lot of it,” he said.

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