Founder and principal of Cuono Engineering, an engineering firm dedicated to renewing the past and building the future through structural engineering design.
By Liisa Andreassen
Correspondent
A 2024 winner of Zweig Group’s Best Firm to Work For award, Cuono, founder and principal of Cuono Engineering (White Plains, NY), says his life circumstances at the time first pushed him to start his own firm and now he’s so glad he did. He had young kids and a long commute and wanted to spend more time with family, so he launched the company in his hometown, White Plains, New York, in 2012. He now has a second location in Manhattan.
Taking a deep dive into firm management. It was during the early days of COVID when everyone was sitting at home that Cuono and his staff decided to really dig in and focus on “designing” the firm. They treated it like a design project and at the end of the process emerged with two comprehensive documents for overall firm management:
- A position matrix. This outlined every position in the firm and included technical and managerial responsibilities. This was done for staff level engineers up to principals and everything in between, including all current and future anticipated administrative positions.
- A “path to principalship.” This became their defining document and outlines company culture and serves to demystify the career path process. Once these documents were developed, they shared them with the team and began a new strategic planning process centered around the company values defined in the core document.
“This well-defined company culture and clarity on career path has given us an edge in hiring some of the best and brightest and helped make us shine even more,” he says.
Creating opportunities. At the same time, they also started working on an ownership transition plan. While it’s likely earlier than most companies, Cuono says one of the main reasons behind it was to create opportunities for its current leadership team and to make sure a pipeline of future leaders is ready to step in when the time comes. He also teaches a course at Manhattan University (formerly Manhattan College) and finds this has been a mutually rewarding experience. He’s honed his presentation skills and learned a lot through the student interaction while also developing a pipeline of potential recruits.
“Working on the ownership transition plan has forced our leadership to think more strategically, because when you become an owner your mindset changes and you focus on your greatest assets,” he says. “In an engineering consulting firm, our books, desks, and computers are virtually worthless. The value is the sum total of the people in the firm.”
So, by opening up real opportunities for leadership they’re putting together the ingredients needed for great people managers.
“Leadership also works to set an example and has created a system of accountability from the staff level up to the top,” he says.
A new world of possibilities. Cuono says he’s most excited about this post-COVID world.
“We’ve emerged into a world of seamless technology that has opened up possibilities of hybrid and remote work, paperless offices, and the ability to do more with less,” he says. “A really good Revit model (which takes a lot of effort to build) can allow fewer people to manage the construction administration process than before.”
While generally leery of AI in design work, he says he’s seen clients use it for things like meeting minutes and some architects use it to accelerate the initial conceptual design process. So, the promise that technology has for the next generation is exciting.
Managing organic growth. Aside from incorporating AI, a top challenge now is managing growth experienced in 2023. The company went through an organic growth spurt from being just him 13 years ago, to a steady five to six for several years and then a jump to 25. This forced them to make some changes to their internal operations that would allow for more scalability.
“When we only had five to six people on board, it was easy to make quick decisions and adjustments on the fly,” he says. “Now, with 25 people in two offices (with a hybrid component) and different layers of responsibility, adjusting to these changes is taking time.”
And, he shares, all this is happening while the market still seems to be uncertain. The company’s first quarter in 2024 was slow, but the second and third were quite busy.
“We’re handling it through constant communication and remaining focused on our core values and strategic planning,” he says. “Our current goal is 10-15 percent growth year-over-year.”