Celebrating 75 years. (Profile of the Week: Syska Hennessy Group).

The Syska Hennessy Group is celebrating its 75th anniversary as a national design and construction industry-leading organization. While stilt working hard to maintain its legacy, the firm's management is rapidly moving its focus on the future needs of its clients.

Since the firm's founding in New York in 1928, Syska Hennessy has grown nationally and internationally by providing consistent innovation and leadership in energy-efficient and cost-effective design solutions that enable its clients to succeed. As clients' needs have grown, so have the services of the firm, evolving from its core design engineering roots in mechanical and electrical engineering to become a diversified and integrated organization providing consulting, engineering technology and construction services.

Today, Syska Hennessy draws insights from its rich legacy of experience that includes some of the world's most technically sophisticated buildings--achievements that not only represent the best thinking of their time, but that endure for generations. With 12 offices nationwide, Syska Hennessy has a staff of nearly 600 professionals who provide consulting services throughout the project life cycle, helping to plan, design, build and operate technically superior facilities that are key to the success of an international roster of clients who are leaders in their industries.

Syska Hennessy operates as a prime consultant and trusted design team partner within targeted market focus segments where the firm believes it can add the most value, including healthcare, science and technology, government; critical facilities, education, corporate real estate, aviation, and sports, assembly and entertainment

Adolph G Syska and John F. Hennessy, grandfather of the firm's current chief executive officer, formed Syska & Hennessy in New York City in 1928. The founders' primary objective was to create a firm specifically focused on the design of innovative and efficient mechanical and electrical engineering systems I br prominent commercial and institutional structures in the Eastern U.S. The firm's first large commission was the U.S. Post Office Department Building in Washington, D.C. Shortly thereafter, the firm broke new ground by helping to design the Frick Collection in New York City, widely believed to be the first fully air-conditioned museum in the world.

When World War II broke out; Syska made major contributions to the defense effort, including the Todd Shipyards, expansion and update of military installations in Brooklyn and Hoboken, NJ. Following the war's end, Syska's industry leadership position was recognized with the firm's selection as project engineer for the planned headquarters of the newly born United Nations. Continuing on a path of innovation, Syska introduced several significant leading-edge design concepts into the U.N. project, including use of combination lighting fixtures and air diffusers, strip line air diffusers, and use of river water for cooling for increased energy efficiency and reliability.

In 1960, Syska & Hennessy helped design what was to become "the greatest attraction in New York's history," the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. This was followed in 1962 when the firm was commissioned to work on its largest project to date, the Albany Mall, later to become known as the Empire State Plaza.

Syska's integrated service approach and innovative engineering style facilitated a period of unprecedented growth. By the summer of 1982, Syska team members reached 600.

In 1993, the firm was selected for the design of the Ronald Reagan National Airport expansion in Washington, D.C., destined to become one of many landmark aviation projects to follow. The firm's expansion in both geographic reach and capabilities continued with the addition of more integrated services, including design/build construction, facilities management, and strategic facilities consulting.

The firm's cornerstones and keys to continued success over the years has been an unrelenting focus on continuity of ownership, innovation of design, and seamless transition of key staff. To assure that this process would continue into the future, an ownership transition plan was implemented in the mid-1990's culminating in a shill in ownership from a family-owned firm to a management owned firm in 2000. A reorganized management team was put in place that exists today, consisting of John F. Hennessy, chairman & chief executive officer, John V. Magliano, vice chairman -- chief engineer, Harvey J. Goldman executive vice president -- chief operating and financial officer, GM Ramu, senior vice president -- eastern region; Gary A. Brennen, senior vice president - western region; William T. Line, senior vice president -- construction, Ann Banning-Wright, chief strategy officer, and Richard A Fincher, senior vice president -- organizational development.

Syska continues the process of retooling its substantial resources to better serve clients and markets. The firm is taking a leadership role in such industry-leading environmental initiatives as sustainable design; building specialized expertise in specialized services such as aquatic life support, vertical transportation and architectural lighting design, and working to maintain its leadership position in building systems engineering architectural lighting design, low-voltage technology vertical transpotation, facilities management; central utilities design, and engineer-led design-build construction.