by Valerie Hendel
In the same year that the Beatles played the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon, when gas was thirty-one cents a gallon, and an attempt to move the Cleveland Indians to Seattle fell apart, Hansen, Adams, & Chalker Engineers was established in Tacoma, Washington. Fifty-four years and a rebrand later, PCS Structural Solutions continues to build on its legacy, delivering structural engineering solutions to clients throughout the Pacific Northwest.
On December 1, 2017, PCS Structural Solutions opened its Portland office. “We’ve had strong ties to Oregon for over twenty years,” says Luke Heath, principal at PCS Structural Solutions Portland office. “Our relationship with our clients drove our decision to open the Portland office. We wanted to provide face-to-face service to our clients, and we wanted them to know how really important they are to us.”
PCS Structural Solutions has three offices—Portland, Tacoma, Seattle—which function as one unified firm “Our internal structure allows us tremendous flexibility,” says Heath. “We have the ability to align expertise with each project and to redirect our energies when markets are active—it’s a huge strength and serves our clients fantastically. Our success is really about how we’ve internally organized around client service and the way we use technologies to facilitate communication throughout the collaborative process.”
PCS Structural Solutions has chosen not to focus exclusively on company growth. Rather, PCS is invested in developing partnerships with a shared passion for client service. Its preferred approach is to actively prioritize client needs and foster effective collaboration. Brian Phair, CEO of PCS Structural Solutions explains, “We actually deferred an obvious move to open the Portland office for a year to get the right people aligned and to set a foundation for a unified culture in all three offices. We even had an opening-day lunch in Portland and bused down every single employee from the Seattle and Tacoma offices. Portland was successful immediately, reinforcing what we knew: that if you’re honest with your clients and prioritize culture and collaboration in your company DNA, you will succeed.”
PCS has enjoyed a warm welcome from the Portland community. “We really enjoy the Portland experience,” says Heath. “The people are so friendly. It’s a vibrant city … full of energy.” As the community addresses its challenges and defines its future, PCS Structural Solutions nurtures the vision to be a full-service partner. “It’s really important to us that we are a part of building meaningful, quality infrastructure that can help a wide range of people. We want to leave a legacy that reflects the local community values of sustainability and resilience.”
