Join us in this insightful episode as CMBA Architects CEO Brian Crichton and Levi Architecture's Dan Levi discuss the strategic acquisition that brought their two firms together. They delve into the motivations behind this significant move, exploring how it expands expertise and geographic reach, the alignment of similar company cultures, and the new opportunities it creates. Discover how a long-term friendship and a shared growth mindset paved the way for this collaboration, leading to enhanced client experience, improved communications, and an overall elevated standard of care in architectural services.

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Episode Transcript

(Skyler): Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. My name is Skyler, and I'm your host. And joining me today, we have two special guests, although one of them is technically the co-host of the podcast, Brian Creon, of course, CEO of CNBA, architects. Brian, welcome to the show.

(Brian): Hey, thanks, Skyler. It's good to see you again.

(Skyler): I won't do the whole bit about oh man, it's been a while since I've seen you and stuff, 'cause we do that just about every time that you're on.

(Brian): Yeah, I know, I know.

(Skyler): And then, of course, joining us as well today, we have Dan Levi, who is the leader over at our brand new Cedar Falls office, which is a big portion of this episode today that we're gonna be talking about. Dan, welcome to the show.

(Dan): Thank you very much, Skyler. I appreciate it.

(Skyler): Absolutely. And we appreciate having you. Big news, obviously within the the world of CMBA and it's something that we originally publicized in May, and so I'm super excited to be able to talk about it between or with both of you and get to learn a little bit myself as far as what this all looks like, what the process behind the scenes looks like as far as this merger with Levi Architecture and CMBA architects.

(Skyler): Kicking things off, I want to go a little bit into sort of the relationship between the two of you, Brian and Dan, where that all started and originated from, and how it developed into this merger and all being part of the same family here at CMBA.

(Brian): This conversation goes way back to probably 1993, probably 1994.

(Skyler): Wow.

(Brian): Somewhere in that range.

(Skyler): That's the year I was born, which was 1994, not to be that guy.

(Brian): Oh my God, that's not,

(Skyler): I know, I just ruined the whole conversation right there. 

(Brian): You did. Thanks. But no, back in back in architecture school at Iowa State. And that's where I met this fine fellow and his future bride. Actually, both of them were classmates of mine at Iowa State in the Department of Architecture. And we just grew to know each other. Enjoyed just a lot of the same things and had great conversations back then. And then we stayed connected. Since then, both of us have worked at a competing firm to what we have today and in different offices. Of course. He was in Waterloo, and I was in Sioux City. But we both left that firm and have had our own past, but we've stayed connected, and through friendship. Multiple different trips together in Iowa State games and all kinds of things. So it's just been a great long-term friendship that I've enjoyed for many decades.

(Dan): Absolutely. Brian was one of those guys in college who was noticeably more mature than most.

(Skyler): Okay.

(Dan): Yeah, he is just a wonderfully mature guy. But also, he was a couple of years older than us. And he has a phenomenal wife who keeps him very grounded. So in college, Brian wasn't the guy who would go out and do a lot of... necessarily "silliness." On the social scene with some of us. He was a little more put together than that. And then, as we got to know each other, as professionals, that theme continued. And Brian is a guy who, when I started Levi Architecture back in 2005, I would call regularly. I didn't have any peers. I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have any confidant other than Brian that I could lean on to talk about not just architecture, but really talk about life, talk about the stress of running and being in charge of a company, and the burdens that you have to endure.

And then, just how to run a business. They do great things in Iowa State about teaching, about architecture. They don't teach you about practice. That's why our internship program is so incredibly important for young people when they get in here. But then Brian would be my go-to when I had questions, when I had, Hey, I think I'm doing this.

Does this sound reasonable? Just a good sounding board for 20 years. And then, I don't know, Brian, 10, 12 years ago, started the gentle prodding of, We could do this together. This weekend, we can help you, man. We could really help, and we could do all these things. And of course, the answer was no, because the world is a better place when I'm in charge of everything, or so I thought.

And then, bringing on a young partner here at the office, Mike Thole, and not a guy that doesn't have an entrepreneurial spirit like I do, and wouldn't start his own, and likes the idea of collaborating and mentorship, and building a team. He really challenged me to maybe this isn't such a terrible idea, maybe you should consider this.

So I sat down with Kent and Brian and no one else. By the way, this was not something we were ever planning to shop around. Sure. This wasn't gonna be. Hey, maybe we should look at other firms. This was gonna be CMBA, or we were gonna ride this out. Sure. And that is, we just don't trust other people.

But Brian, because of Kent, because of those early conversations, we started to see that those pros and cons were really weighted incredibly heavily on the pros and even the cons. A lot of that worry got taken away once we sat down and really started talking through details, really started talking through stuff, and then continuously being impressed by what we saw coming out of the CMBA hearing.

Brian. After decades of football games, talk about the incredible staff. Talk about the incredible growth and how much he enjoyed working at CNBA, honestly, versus maybe some of the other places he had worked previously. Just because of the people, just because of the attitude. And it really intrigued us.

It really made us curious, what's going on over there? And we were willing to open that door and explore, and we were really pleasantly surprised about how fantastic we thought coming together could be, and how much it could benefit both sides of the table. And not just as an additive.

We were very clear on that. Early on, Brian. I think, yeah, that we both agreed that this was simply just adding to the team. Both from both sides. The, it would, I wouldn't call it a failure, but it would be an exercise in futility, if you will. This was really about a multiplicative effect. And that had to do with just a phenomenal fit, I think. And it all had to do with attitude about how we take care of our customers and how we take care of each other within the company. And so those things aligned in such a way that we thought this really has legs and we should continue to explore this.

And as we did, we got into more of the technical stuff, and that was pretty easy to get around. It really came down to philosophy.

(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. You don't want to have two clashing kinds of cultures and philosophies going up against each other now, merged together. That obviously would create just a schism, to say the least.

(Brian): Yeah, for sure. I think the quality of the person that Dan is, even though he can come across a little blustery, I'll add, on occasion. I know you're making that face, I'm looking at it in the camera here. He's truly an awesome person at heart, loves people at a different level than a lot of people do, and really cares about his clients and his staff.

And that's really what drew me truly to say, Hey, Dan, we really need to think about this, right? This is something that I can see. From a, it absolutely was a force multiplier, right? That's what we have talked about. How do we integrate this awesome knowledge and expertise, but make it even better, right?

Make it even better than what it is on both sides. His knowledge in certain aspects and our knowledge coming together, it just, it would flourish. That's what I could see. So that's really why we pushed. I pushed, and I probably wasn't as good a salesman for 12 years or 11 years, whatever the number was, but it took him a little while, and I finally had some good conversations to get it done.

(Skyler): Hey, experience and time always equate to... should be instantaneous, right? You should never really be presented with a decision and just instantly know you, you don't instantly know the right answer.

So it takes time to figure things out and develop that eventual answer. With that being said, and going into what you guys had talked about, Dan, you had mentioned that there was a strong culture, there was a strong, let's say, just concept behind what CMBA stood for, and that was a big part of what drew you in.

Brian, how do you, like, how did you relay this to Dan? Because I'm just speaking from Skyler until just recently, I hadn't seen Dan around the office. So, how do we like to showcase our culture and our philosophy is the word that I was looking for, to these outside entities, to showcase who we are. And then that would inevitably lead to this merger and this realization that the philosophies fit.

(Brian): I think it really starts with our relationship, truly. I think both of us trust and respect who each of us is personally, as the character behind the person that you see every day, right?

It's. Truly serving leadership. That's what Dan, I hope, saw in me as we've had these conversations; this isn't, it's never been about me personally, and it never will be about me personally. I want the team to succeed, and that's been the conversation. It's like, how do we make ourselves better? How do we serve our clients better?

And that's what I've conveyed to him for many years. This is a team effort. That probably comes from, background, which is on the military side as I've talked about before. But you do things in a much better way as a team, individually. You can only go so far.

That is in every type of sporting event. Very rarely is it an individual situation. And that I think I conveyed as best I could. And I think he also had an opportunity to meet a few other partners along the way. And yes, he may not have been physically in the office, Skyler and S City, but he had an opportunity to visit with some others as well.

Yeah, in different ways. We had him in some strategic meetings at the partner level a couple of times and had some great conversations and where we're headed and where he was headed and how we can. How can we put this thing together? So I think it comes down to who we are as people first and foremost, and how we truly take care of those around us.

(Skyler): Absolutely. And I know, actually, I was just thinking about it the other day. David Brock was just talking to me about how he had done a couple of projects, I think with Mike. I think he had done some discussions or something along those lines. Maybe even just general communication with Mike.

So yeah, there have definitely been some opportunities for some collaboration already, with Levi architecture, which is awesome.

(Dan): We've done, boy,  Brian, I don't even know now. This goes back we've collaborated on going after work that probably goes back. Four years. Four or five years.

(Skyler): Yeah. That

(Dan): We've been mostly together. Because it was a good fit, but usually it had to do with geography, Skyler first. And that's just the opportunity to talk. And then, so you asked, how we got there, and Brian's Brian's phrase that he used was trust. And that's, that's for the last 10 years of Brian. Again, gently prodding. But saying, but just then we're just sitting around and we're talking regularly about, here's what's going on at CMBA. Here's what we're doing. Here's what other people on the team are doing.

Here's what this industry. Here's a project we're able to get here. Here's an image of some stuff we've done. And every time we talk about CNBA, it is never about Bryant. Sure. It was always the team. It was always other people focused every time we talked and not, and that's not just to say Brian is selfless and that Brian is a servant leader.

That's to say Brian is. Clearly portrayed it as others in the company are the same way. Again, this isn't about one person; this is about the whole team. And every time, one was just impressed with the work that was coming out. And then when we would partner, incredibly impressed with what the marketing department was pushing out on these proposals and how prepared people were.

And this is coming from a world of a very small firm where we just didn't, we don't have that kind of firepower, and frankly, so we were just blown away. And so this idea that because of the person that Brian is and the relationships that we have and his work with the military, and so his attitude to come across is always about serving others, right?

Brian never called me, as good of friends as we are. Brian becomes CEO, he doesn't pick up the phone and call me. He doesn't tell me about that. I find out about that happenstance later. Because it's not about him. This isn't about his accolades or a title. He's just in a position that was, and he was asked to be there, and he is gonna do the best darn job he can.

Because of the kind of person he is, and that comes from a mentorship philosophy of leading people. He's helped lead me professionally. He's helped lead me spiritually. He's a guy that I lead into and a guy that I could trust. And if he can speak that glowingly about everyone, he works with all of his peers.

The company that tells, and I have that kind of trust in him that he said it all to me. And then when Mike, when we'd bring Mike in to meet people, we would continually walk away with how impressed we were about everyone not being about themselves. It was always about what we are doing as a team.

What are we doing to move each other forward? Do not take credit. Now that we've done a couple of interviews since May now and Mike and I have been in on two pretty good interviews. They happen to both be with Courtney, and the amount of work that got done so quickly, and the quality of the work that we're then showing up with to do the interview

(Skyler): Right.

(Dan): It's really impressive. It is just, it is powerful. It is refined, it is impressive.

And we walk, I certainly walk out of these being impressed with the work that's being done. And the ability and the skillset of people not only to produce marketing materials, but then someone like Courtney to stand up in front of a meeting and sell.

I think I'm pretty good at selling. I've been doing it for 20 years. We've been able to keep the lights on because we're able to get work. But the skillset involved with the people that we've had the opportunity to work with in really intimate play so far is so impressive.

And it begs the question, at least for me and for Mike, coming from a much smaller firm where we're not used to seeing the breadth and the depth of skillset of the ability to interview, design, market put together drawings. It makes me wonder when I talk to our team here in Cedar Falls, and how impressed we are.

I wonder if everyone across the board at CMBA realizes how high-quality. The work that's getting turned out is, and when I say work, I don't mean just drawings, I don't mean just marketing. The personalities, the ability to talk to people. I wonder just because you're in it so much, and maybe some people grew up within the company rather than us really coming from the outside in on this very short time window that we're talking with you right now.

And it is just downright impressive. And I don't mean to be. I don't wanna speak hyperbole, and I certainly don't wanna walk in with too much pride and get people in their heads. But there is some really special stuff going on at CMBA that we are seeing that I wonder if they really understand how great the work that's getting done, and how great the skillset is of staff across the board and across all the offices, really is.

(Skyler): Hey, I can't speak for everybody, but I really think we can all say that we really appreciate that, and honestly, we're extremely ecstatic to be able to have you guys on the team as well. And to be able to integrate all the amazing skills that you guys are gonna bring to the board and and just. Heighten everything it is that we're doing even further. So that's exciting to have.

With that being said, you guys are bringing a lot with you over into CMBA, including obviously some, probably lots of highlight projects, and even, I would even go as far as to say some of the categories that we do, right? We do K12 and we do healthcare and we do higher education, and then a little bit of the municipal as well, and we're getting a lot of those. What kind of stuff was Levi Architecture really specializing in that's getting merged over as well?

(Dan): That's a great question. I appreciate that. Yeah. Really, I think we'll break it down into classifications. One is the project type, and the other is the delivery methodology. So we'll talk about project types. We do a substantial amount of industrial.

(Skyler): Oh, nice.

(Dan): And commercial work. We do a lot of work with pre-engineered metal buildings, a lot of which isn't necessarily always the most exciting work. But it certainly is work that pays bills and then affords us opportunities to spend a little more time on other projects and work on our design.

In regard to, to take a tangent here with regard to design, we are ex Mike and I, especially I should say, I can't, I don't wanna speak for all this stuff, but Mike and I have had detailed conversations about how excited we are to get some design help. We are, and we know we are in a bit of a rut, right? It's easy to fall into, do the same thing, and use the same material palette. So we are excited and humbled by the idea that we can have some people from the different offices. That we could bring in on projects early on and have them help us, maybe move our design opportunities to another level.

We get into that mode of doing a lot of industrial work, where it gets a little bit of a factory mentality, where we are the factory, we're turning out work. And frankly, not putting the emphasis on design like we should. And so we're excited with the opportunity to bring on some people that can really push back on some of the work we're doing and say, guys, you need to, maybe you need to go back and look at that again. What about this? And so we're really excited, 'cause we've seen so many great designs come out of the office, getting on the quad, seeing the post pictures that are posted. So we're really excited about that. But. A lot of industrial work, a lot of commercial work, a little bit of municipality work.

And then in years past, it's starting to the industry of childcare is starting to get a little thinner 'cause there's not as many government dollars involved right now in terms of grants and that free money. Yep. We'll but but we do a substantial amount of childcare work. And our childcare work ranges from designing buildings and getting them built all the way at the beginning up to doing market analysis.

Community surveys, community engagement meetings, pro formas, and business plans. Furniture acquisition program design ourselves, and a consultant that we bring on. We've got a long story. We can get into that, maybe on another podcast, but our work in childcare ranges so broadly that we have been asked to do a series with the National Chamber of Commerce.

In DC, we have had the opportunity to present as an expert witness in front of a congressional subcommittee. Capital in DC, we've done a lot of work in the childcare industry and trying to move the childcare industry to the front burner issue of how we stave off population shrinkage in rural America and how it can help be an economic dry move in, and especially in rural America.

So a lot of childcare work, a lot of industrial work, and then all the other things that you guys do. Other than hospitals. And K12, we get just a teeny to the K12. Very small projects, very little work in that area, versus very few projects, I should say. And then some dental. We didn't do much in the medical field beyond dental.

(Skyler): Okay.

(Dan): Orthodontic work in family practice is also orthodontic court.

(Skyler): Very cool.

(Dan): The other side. That is, I think really exciting for CMBA now will be a project delivery method that we specialize in, which is design-build, or more appropriately, negotiated work. Where we will come in contractually, we may be contracted directly with the client. We may be a subcontractor to the developer slash GC slash CEO, but we're still gonna perform our work the same way. We still have the moral and legal obligation to protect the client, ultimately the owner, from the contractor.

That's still our job to be that watchdog, but we have, if CMBA is 95% prior to May 1st, if CMBA was 95% plan and spec design, bid build, relative to negotiated work, we would be the opposite of that. We would be almost 90% negotiated. We get a substantial amount of our work, probably two-thirds, I would say, of the volume of construction value of the work we do annually is run through or initiated by the developer or general contractor. We do a substantial amount of that, and it is just a different philosophy.

How you deal, how you come into the room as a team member, how you build the team, what that looks like, and it's just all attitude. And to some degree, it's a drawing issue. Maybe less. Sometimes we don't even provide specifications. We put a lot of notes on the drawing. And technically, there's certainly a difference. And it, what it is for us, is it's far more relational than contractual schools. Sometimes, if it's designed to build, you're gonna RFP RFQ, you're gonna negotiate a fee, you're gonna move on. Hopefully, you do a great job, and they hire you again.

And CMBA has an incredible record of getting hired again, des negotiated work. It is about building relationships. We're not; rarely do we actually compete. For that work. We are not doing RF, QS, and RFPs regularly. We might do one or two a year. That's it. Otherwise, it is word of mouth. It is relationships, it is getting to know people. At this point in the podcast, it may be pretty obvious. I'm usually not at a loss for words,

(Skyler): Hey, that's the whole point of a podcast, right? I love it when the guests talk more than I do.

(Dan): Particularly to Mike's point, I tend to dominate conversations. Unfortunately.

(Brian): We can tell in the slowdown anytime, Skyler, if you want to.

(Dan): All right. And it's about relationship building. So one of the charges that we have been talking about with the board, week that Mike and I have had these conversations with the board, going back over a year, 'cause it's this deal. It took a long time to put together. Unfortunately, it's just very technical and complicated on the legal and accounting side.

Philosophically, we were ready to make this happen over here. Sure. It just takes time. But since then, we've been talking about what those strategies are, what are the concrete moves we're going to do next? And one of those that we've talked about, and that is my charge. Start to organize. What does that look like in practice?

And that's gonna be myself likely coming to every office. And talking about negotiated work, talking about design build, talking about interaction with contractors and developers. And we've already started that in Sioux City, just scratching the surface. But coming out to all the geographic regions that we cover and start to meet and start to develop relationships that hopefully will garner us some incredible fruit of those negotiated works, where we're not competing.

It is simply a phone call. Hey, we've got a project, we've just wanted to team up. Let's make this happen. So we're gonna formalize that and we're gonna come out and start to market that in a very intentional way. In a very concrete way, as well as continuing to market all of eastern Iowa.

We, we, Levi Architecture typically would handle anything in southern Minnesota, Southeast Minnesota, somewhat into southwest Wisconsin, western Illinois, all the way down into Southeast Iowa, as far over other than childcare, maybe as far over as Des Moines. Now, CMBA has this incredible blanket that covers an incredible region. And so it just opens up with the marketing again that we have seen. It opens us. Opportunity then to be able to market actively entire industries that we just haven't even touched. Yet. That's all because of this incredible firepower that is already in hand. And then we're gonna work with marketing to increase what that looks like to include those other industries we don't cover currently in our marketing material, as well as project delivery methods.

So we're really excited to bring that brand to that point. Since our merger has been announced, I've already received multiple phone calls from fairly large contractors slash developers in the corridor, Cedar Rapids, North Liberty, Iowa City area, asking us, Hey, we saw this. We'd love to talk to you about what we can do and how we can help CMBA.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Dan): And we're so we're really gonna take advantage of those opportunities and walk in that door and say, no. It's about how CMBA can help you and your marketing, 'cause at least in Eastern Iowa, we are seeing an incredible amount of. Marketing is being done by contractors and developers, where they're going out and finding the projects. They're not waiting for bid work. It is really aggressive on this end of the state about contractors generating the work for themselves.

(Skyler): Very nice. Opportunities open up. We take advantage of 'em, we jump on 'em and and find how they can work for us. Brian, I'm sure there's probably the other side of that, too, where we're really excited to have a little bit more or to have an existence over in the eastern side of Iowa, across the state from here in Sioux City. We do a lot of work with Nebraska, right to the other side, right next to us. And now we're on the other side of Iowa. Able to connect with and work with some of the clients and people over there.

(Brian): Yeah, for sure. And historically, we've chased a few projects over there. I wouldn't say probably more than 10-ish, but where we come together, as Dan mentioned, is probably that corridor, that Iowa City, Cedar Rapids area that we do a lot in that neck of the woods, which isn't northeast Iowa, but it's part of that eastern side of the state. And we saw. This opportunity is giving us geographic reach that we could potentially go after other, obviously, healthcare clients, other K12 clients higher ed clients in addition to bringing that high level of client service that we expect. Because as we've seen in the past, if we have to travel, three to four to five, six hours. It becomes a little harder to do that, right? Harder on staff. It's difficult to expect a client to give up a whole day if we wanna hold a full day of meetings, that type of thing. So having a place that's a little closer, potentially as a landing spot for some staff from other offices, is awesome.

But then, as we build the team in Cedar Falls, they're able to not only serve the clients they have today and those sectors, but also bring on that expertise. Potentially to do similar projects across the board, across the whole company. It's gonna be an investment in that location to potentially bring some of that internal expertise to that location, but also to supplement as we need to chase more projects on the eastern side of the state. Yes, geographic diversity is awesome. But serving clients in a much quicker, better way. That's probably the number one goal here.

(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. Trying to create the best experience for the clients, and that is correct, this creates such a unique and amazing opportunity to do just that, right? To be closer to the clients, to be able to broaden our reach to clients. So yeah, very exciting. Now speaking of clients. Dan, since the announcement. Ha. Have you guys had any feedback from clients? I know you just mentioned that contractors had reached out to you and some other collaborators. What about some of your past clients?

(Dan): As a matter of fact, Brian had an opportunity to come over to the office. There, a lot of onboarding, a lot of that stuff. We had incredible opportunities for marketing to a couple of partners to come over, meet our staff, see the office, and really make this feel real, rather than jumping on teams all the time. And looking at it, because we actually got to see people in real life, which is always fun. Brian came out. With them or at the same time. And Brian and I drove around for that day. We scheduled a whole day's worth of meetings for quite a few of our biggest clients. Yes. And they really saw, and we got this feedback either immediately or just following it.

We got the feedback of they felt the excitement when, certainly, when I talked about it, about how excited I was for this opportunity. They saw again the. The maturity of Brian and the way he talked about it, how excited he was about this. As we sat there together and talked about the collaboration and coming together and what this could do, and we always put it in the terms that are most important to us, which is how are we serving clients? And we said, this is the best way for Levi Architecture to continue to serve our clients. With the best possible design and value, it is bringing on expertise. That we simply don't have on capacity to help that we have lacked for the last 10 years. I love going out and getting work, but we're not serving our clients. 'Cause I'm getting the work, but we're not able to complete it or not complete it well enough. And we're saying our design isn't good enough. How do we solve that? Yeah. I'm not gonna match to become a better designer, but boy, I know people who are really good at design. I asked Brian, and he said, "Yeah, I've got a bunch of people."

(Skyler): There you go.

(Dan): So when we tell these stories about how this came together and why we're doing this. I mean to a person. Our clients were really excited. We had a particular hospital we looked forward to talking more about. This is really great. We had a higher ed say, "I can see the excitement. This is gonna be great. There isn't anything on our campus, you guys can't do now, is what I presume." And the answer was yes, because prior to that, there were clearly projects we were not gonna be handed because. We were not big enough to handle those projects, and that's reasonable. There's, there, there's nothing to say that we're not, we weren't good enough. We just weren't gonna be large enough to be able to serve that client well. That merger didn't happen, but a couple of weeks later we got an RFP that. Frankly, I'm not sure we would've gotten prior to the merger. Sure. To be quite honest. And we ended up and we won that project. Nice. Okay. Beat a competitor.

(Skyler): Yeah!

(Dan): That certainly would've had a portfolio to discuss, but we, we crushed that interview, frankly. Nice. Courtney was amazing in that, and we walked out with our new knowledge we had from that project. Since then, we've had. Again, several large developers, contractors reach out to us, interested in making sure that we are known to them on this end of the state. They already knew CMBA, but they wanted to be known here a another client we already had as a collaboration. And they were incredibly excited to hear that instead of just collaborating, we were now merged. That was a school project. Brian, if you recall that one. Yeah. How excited they were because they were debating whether they would call CMBA directly prior to the merger.

(Skyler): Okay.

(Dan): They didn't know that we do each other, and they had heard such reputational gold, about CMBA; they considered just cold calling CMBA. And asking them if they wanted to participate in a project, a school project for them. And then when they heard that we were collaborating, they were ecstatic, and then we said we had merged. They were even over the top. It was crazy. And then just recently, a local school district in Cedar Falls. Cedar Falls School District. Who has been closed for two decades, on who provides their design services. Reached out to our office and said, "Would you be willing to come talk to us?"

(Skyler): Wow.

(Dan): Like, we'd be willing to come talk to you? Yeah! So again, Mike, Courtney, and I went over there, had a great opportunity to meet with them. This is, again, a closed client for 20 years. And now we're looking for a new long-term partner. Wow. And they asked us to come visit if we had time to visit them. And that's only because of the reputation. The capacity, the marketing firepower, the design, and the client referrals that come with the name CMBA Architects. Otherwise, we don't get that phone call.

(Skyler): Wow. That's incredible. That is truly incredible. Again, we're so excited to have you guys be a part of CMBA, so we're just excited that we get to collaborate in a more, again, family-oriented way. We're all part of the same company now, so it's exciting that. Obviously, you guys have connections over in that area and we get to be a part of that, but now you also get to be a part of the connections that we've had and we're gonna bring all of that together and create this, I don't know, super weapon that we are as a firm is the way I like to put it.

Fantastic. And then, I guess really what it comes down to is looking forward, right? We are recording this in July. We announced this merger in May. Obviously, there were discussions about it long before that, but obviously, leading up to May, all the finer details were put into place. Looking ahead where in the next, like maybe the rest of this year, what are we looking at as far as coming together? Making whatever remaining transitions exist, what do those transitions look like? And yeah, what are we hoping to see happen within the rest of this year?

(Brian): I think there are a few layers to that or levels to that, I would say at the operational level. So at the day-to-day work level, we're integrating our BIM plus team, Skyler, with Mike and a few of the other staff members there. Gage, I believe, is on that or sitting in on that potentially, and looking at how we do our. Revit work, our daily work with our true production side, and making sure that we are providing, again, the same client experience, the same type of documents, the same type of clarity. Maybe different levels of information, as Dan talked about, depending on the project delivery, but the same type of clarity and quality of detailing.

So that there is no difference between offices and rights. As we work across offices, some staff members in Cedar Falls may be working on a project and probably are right now working on projects outside of that market, helping other locations, and there should be a similar way in which we work, right?

That makes it easier on a day-to-day basis for our team members to get that work done if they're not wondering. How am I supposed to do it if I'm working with Grand Island, or how am I supposed to do it working with Des Moines? It shouldn't matter where we sit and what we do. It should matter what the outcome and what the deliverables are, what our project in the end supposed to be.

And it, it's similar across the board. So operationally, we're working on things like that. Implementing different approaches to bring that knowledge together. I would say technology is always a question, trying to integrate that. If you've been a part of bringing things together in different locations, it's a challenge.

And Dan's probably rolling his eyes as I say this, because it can be a challenge every day. And technology is just funny sometimes. But trying to stay. As connected as possible to make, again, make it simpler for our employees, our team members, to do their work. Without roadblocks, without challenges, we have to have technology that's state of the art and pushes that envelope as far as we can.

Strategically, we're having conversations about what clients, what areas, what types of projects we want to chase. Every day. Dan and I have conversations quite often about that, and what's the next step? What's the next potential opportunity that we want to chase? After we're talking about people, we're talking about projects, we're talking about companies that he knows very well but may not have had an opportunity to talk to them, potentially with expertise or.

He is coming our way as well, because this isn't just a one-way; this is a two-way scenario, always to all offices. Absolutely. How do we bring his knowledge to those in our areas to again create relationships? Because that's what our work is, relationship-driven. How do we create those relationships of trust?

Understanding expertise that they can call whenever they have a project, whatever it may be. That's what we're trying to do strategically. So building that network. You may see a lot of travel here or there. You might see some people outta the office in Sioux City, specifically like Dan Munch, Dan the two Dans are gonna come together and have some conversations, specifically with general contractors and some other industry partners, about that type of relationship.

So strategically, we're pushing on the business development side, trying to do that. I can't get into everything, Skyler, because then, if our competitors listen to this, what are they gonna say? We're gonna do exactly whatever we're doing. So we have to think about that. But we're always pushing, we're always pushing to think about what's the next layer, the next step. Because if we stop, if we put it in neutral. We're going backwards, right? Yes, 'cause our competitors are continuing to do that. We know that every day we must earn the work that we have and want to have through good service and good client relationships. If we're not, someone else is making that phone call. And it's an ongoing effort. So at every level we're thinking that through, for sure.

(Skyler): Absolutely, and I'm glad you mentioned that, Brian. There is no staying stagnant; there is no just stopping and saving your progress, right? If you're not moving, you're falling behind. People are passing you. So I will say that obviously this merger with Levi is a massive step forward, a massive step ahead of the competition. Obviously, I speak for all of us when I say that we are incredibly excited to have you guys. I've had some great opportunities to work with Jorja with the Culture Club, and it's been a lot of fun kind of collaborating with her. I'm excited to see where things go with that.

Getting you guys integrated in kind of some of the fun stuff that we do, and hopefully get some stuff from you guys that maybe we can integrate some of the fun stuff that we like to do across all of our offices. And of course, I'm incredibly excited to get to meet everybody in person, come this All-Staff. I think, Dan, you're probably the only person that I've met so far in person. You came down by the Sioux City office at one time, not too long ago, but I'm very excited to get to meet everybody else. In person. So again, I just wanna say a huge thank you to you guys, and this has been a nice long podcast episode talking about this.

It's a topic that has a lot to talk about, so extremely excited that you guys were willing and able to sit down with me and chat with me about this whole merger. It's a big thing. There are a lot of elements to it, and I know from my end, I've never gotten to see the side of things. I know we've had some firms in the past that we've merged and worked with, and that's how we have the CMBA title in the first place. Brian did a fantastic job giving me a history rundown in one of our previous podcast episodes, and it's really exciting to get to see what that looks like in the moment that it's happening and to be able to meet. Everybody and to be able to collaborate on all these ideas and these new elements altogether to create something even better. So seriously, Dan, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to sit down and talk with us.

(Dan): No, it was my pleasure. I think this is a ton of fun. It is a big company. We do wanna make sure everybody gets to know each other. Yes. Also, I am really looking forward to the all-staff meeting, but then also give them a little background that they can listen to at their leisure. And just deep dive and how we got here, why we got here. And Mike and I and the rest of our staff are just incredibly excited about this merger, about what skills we can learn from you, humbly, that CMBA would be interested in. The geographic stuff is easy. But there are a lot of firms over here in Eastern Iowa that CMA could have focused on. This came down to the relationship more than anything else is what got it started.

But again, the philosophy alignment and the idea that. CNBA was that excited and that interested, really was humbling both to me and Mike. I don't wanna speak for him, but I can talk about it all the time. We were like, they're serious. They really want to do this.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Dan): Like really? They want us, like, okay, maybe they don't know what they're getting into. Here we go. We're gonna find out, we're gonna find out together, but humbled and honored that we can now call ourselves CMBA. And again, just impressed with every person that we've met so far and gotten to know at a deeper level, through personal as well as business. What an incredible group of people who all seem to be pulling the rope in the same direction. Which is really hard to do in a company this size. But you're, but somehow you're doing, and it's just fantastic. So we're excited just to get in line and pull just like everybody else.

(Skyler): Awesome, awesome. We're so excited to have you guys, and we're excited to be on the same side of the rope now. Pulling alongside you guys. So awesome. Fantastic. Once again, thank you both. I really appreciate you guys taking the time out of your day to sit down and chat with me and to give our amazing listeners a rundown on what's going on inside the company and what a merger even looks like, because I don't think a lot of people get to experience that, especially not from the inside. Thank you both. And with that being said, we will see you guys next time on another episode of Laying the Foundation.

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