http://meacei.com/ MEA Consulting Engineers - Blog RSS Feed 2.0 en-us Sat, 04 Apr 2026 05:29:41 GMT Sat, 04 Apr 2026 05:29:41 GMT http://meacei.com/images/holder%2Epng http://meacei.com/ http://meacei.com/blog/21800/New-Years-Greeting-and-MEA-2021-COVID-Policies blog We at MEA want to wish everyone a Happy New Years as we begin 2021.  As we look forward to the coming year, and as we reflect on the one we just left, we at MEA thought it wise to share our office policies going into the new year.  While news concerning vaccines continues to look promising, we have continued to modify our current working situation, and adapt in order to ensure the safety of both our clients and our staff.  Going into the new year, we will continue to: We have scheduled a rotation of in office and remote work, having no more than four employees on site at any time. All workstations have been spaced out to maintain 8 feet of separation between our employees.  Employees have been assigned separate restrooms. We have our office on lockdown.  No visitors, sales reps, or client’s visits.  We can do most via conference calls. Site visits will be conducted by Spencer Aitken, Cooper Aitken, and Michael Aitken, in order to restrict the number of staff members interacting with our clients in person. We have hand sanitizer throughout the office. Employees are required to wear masks. These arrangements will continue as long as we at MEA think is necessary for the safety of all our clients and employees.  In addition, changes and alteration will be made as more information comes from the CDC and Tri-County Health Department, and we will be following the mandates and regulations of the City of Aurora, where our office is located.  These changes and policies, we feel, are essential to the safe conducting of business.  The quality of our product or our responsiveness is not affected by these modifications.  Our main phone line will continue to be answered as usual, and our responsiveness on emails will continue. We thank all of our clients for their continued support in this time. Wed, 13 Jan 2021 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21800/New-Years-Greeting-and-MEA-2021-COVID-Policies http://meacei.com/blog/21739/MEA-Closed-December-25th-and-January-1st blog MEA Consulting Engineers Inc. will be closed this Friday (December 25th, 2020) and next Friday (January 1st, 2021) in observance of Christmas and New Year’s.  Our office will remain close both days and the main line will not be answered.  Furthermore, voicemail, and email message response times will vary during both of the long weekends.  We kindly ask our clients to plan accordingly, and we want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. Mon, 21 Dec 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21739/MEA-Closed-December-25th-and-January-1st http://meacei.com/blog/21678/MEA-Closed-November-26th-and-27th--2020 blog MEA Consulting Engineers Inc. will be closed next Thursday (November 26th, 2020) and Friday (November 27th, 2020) in observance of Thanksgiving.  Our office will remain close both days and the main line will not be answered.  Furthermore, voicemail and email message response times will vary during the holiday weekend.  We kindly ask our clients to plan accordingly, and we want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.   Tue, 17 Nov 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21678/MEA-Closed-November-26th-and-27th--2020 http://meacei.com/blog/21333/MEA-Closed-July-3rd--2020 blog MEA Consulting Engineers Inc. will be closed this upcoming Friday (July 3rd, 2020) for the 4th of July weekend.  Our office will be closed and our main line will not be answered.  Furthermore, voicemail and email messages response times will vary.  We wish everyone a happy 4th of July, and we kindly ask our clients to please plan accordingly. Fri, 26 Jun 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21333/MEA-Closed-July-3rd--2020 http://meacei.com/blog/21219/MEA-is-Slowly-Returning-From-Remote-Work blog MEA Returning to Rice Place   We here at MEA are happy to announce that we are slowly transitioning back to being in our office building.  During the Statewide shelter in place orders, all of us at MEA transitioned to remote work in order to continue providing quality products in that rapidly changing time.  As these restrictions begin to lift, it is our hope to gradually return to our office space.  With the ever-changing nature of the current situation, we at MEA will be at 13771 E Rice Place part time, and will continue working remote part time.  We will continue to monitor municipal, state, and national recommendations and orders, and will continue to adapt accordingly.  However, location will not change our commitment to our clients or the quality of our product, and we will continue to be open (from home or Rice Place) from 7AM to 4PM, Mondays through Fridays. While we have begun to return our office, we have not relaxed our COVID-19 policies and will continue to implement those precautions advised by the CDC.  These policies include: All workstations have been spaced out to maintain 8 feet of separation between our employees. Employees have been assigned separate restrooms. We are maintaining our remote capabilities in the event an employee needs to remain at home or we are required to return to full time remote work. We have our office on lockdown.  No visitors, sales reps, or client’s visits.  We can do most via conference calls. We have hand sanitizer throughout the office. Employees are required to wear masks. We thank all of our clients for their continued business during these bizarre times.   Thu, 21 May 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21219/MEA-is-Slowly-Returning-From-Remote-Work http://meacei.com/blog/21206/Closed-May-22nd-and-May-25th blog In observance of Memorial Day, MEA will be closed on Friday, May 22nd, 2020 and Monday, May 25th, 2020.  We wish everyone a happy Memorial Day, and kindly ask our clients to please plan accordingly. Mon, 18 May 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21206/Closed-May-22nd-and-May-25th http://meacei.com/blog/21018/20-Years blog We here at MEA Consulting Engineers, Inc. (MEA) want to share an exciting milestone for our company.  Today is our 20-year anniversary of being in business!  All the way back in April of 2000, Pamela and Michael left their jobs with the hope of running their own business.  In this journey, we have moved a number of times, and our team has expanded and morphed.  Our scope of work has expanded while maintaining the professionalism Michael and Pamela hoped to embody with their company. We would like to thank all those who helped us get to this point.  To our clients, we thank you for all your trust and support as you brought us in for your projects.  To our past employees, thank you for all you did while you were part of our family, and for helping us get to this point.  To our current employees, thank you all for your hard work and diligence, especially in this uncertain time. We are very proud of getting to this milestone, and even in the midst of this global situation, we are excited to see how MEA will continue to improve and grow.   Wed, 01 Apr 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/21018/20-Years http://meacei.com/blog/20982/MEA-Consulting-Engineers-Inc--is-Open-for-Business blog MEA Consulting Engineers Inc. is open and we are ready for assignments.  With the COVID-19 health issues and the social distancing requirements, we here at MEA are following the CDC guidelines.  We have implemented the following: We are a small business with six people.  Because we have a small office building, we have room to separate people.  Therefore, we have relocated everyone’s workspace to maintain a minimum of 8 feet separation. We have the luxury of having ample restrooms so that everyone has their own facilities. We have set up remote desktop workspaces so that if an employee needs to stay home, they can work from there. We have our office on lockdown.  No visitors, sales reps, or client’s visits.  We can do most via conference calls. We have hand sanitizer throughout the office. Michael will be performing any site visit requirements to ensure our staff is safe. We are available to help you continue forward in these testing times.  We are available for: Core and shell design Tenant finish design Property condition assessments Construction monitoring Project management Commissioning Expert witness Please reach out to our office if you need assistance with a project.  We understand that many of you utilize other consultants.  If your consultants are unable to meet your needs at this time, we would be happy to assist in either the short term or the long term. Sincerely, Michael E. Aitken, P.E., F.NSPE DFE, LEED AP O+M, CxA Vice President, MEA Consulting Engineers, Inc. NSPE President 2018-2019 13771 East Rice Place Aurora, Colorado 80015 720-870-5630 x2001 Office 720-320-6538 Cell www.meacei.com   Mon, 23 Mar 2020 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/20982/MEA-Consulting-Engineers-Inc--is-Open-for-Business http://meacei.com/blog/19794/July-2019-Newsletter blog                 July is always a fun month here at MEA, with the NSPE conference taking place in the middle of the month, and with the festivities of the 4th giving us an opportunity to spend some extra time with our families.  At MEA, it has been especially fun as we continue to grow and change.  Our client base has been growing progressively for the last few years, providing us with exciting new challenges and professional experience that have helped our designers, drafters, and engineers stay up to date with the current trends and new products and technologies in our field.  With this growing client base, we have also begun to slowly grow as a company as we begin to hire on new employees to meet the needs and demands of our business.  We have also seen our work diversify over the years, coming to include more Construction Progress Monitoring, Property Condition Assessments, Expert Witness work and LEED Certifications, alongside our design work.  This change has been appreciated, as it has helped make our team more effective in all these aspects of consulting engineers, allowing us to produce better products and provide more efficient services to our clients.                 We also want to take one more moment to congratulate Michael on his phenomenal year as president of NSPE.  While attending this year’s annual conference from July 17th to July 21st in Kansas City, Michael finished his service as national president, passing the torch to David Martini, P.E., of Minnesota, whom we all wish the best of luck on his presidency.  Michael will continue to serve as immediate past president this upcoming year, as well as through his new volunteer role within NICET (the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies), where he will serve on the Board of Governors.  We thank Michael again, and wish him luck on this next chapter of his service to our field.   Fri, 26 Jul 2019 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/19794/July-2019-Newsletter http://meacei.com/blog/19645/June-2019-Newsletter blog                  As the summer begins, we have noticed some new events within our neighborhood, the oddest of which is the miniature traffic jams caused by the neighborhood ducks warming themselves in the street.   This June, however, we don’t state with a new event in the office: we are resuming a paused initiative.  We have resumed our work on our website after a hiatus in content creation.  The hiatus here at MEA came from the absence of our PR editor, Spencer Aitken, who temporarily left MEA during the school year to finish his MA at Boston College.  With this in mind, we thought it best to resume our newsletters with a “greatest hits” style update about the changes and announcements at MEA.                     The first piece of news is that we would like to officially introduce the newest member of our team, William Scoggins.  William started with us last June, and has since become a fundamental part of our electrical design team, as well as an integral part of our construction observation and property condition assessment teams.  William graduated from Fort Lewis College with his Bachelor of Science and currently holds the title of EI.  Before MEA, William worked at the Parker Water and Sanitation District, where he got valuable hands on experience of how utility systems work.  We all here have thoroughly enjoyed having him in our offices, and we are excited to see how he grows while here at MEA.                Our business has also grown in the last year slightly.  We are happy to announce that MEA, through our Vice President, Michael Aitken, PE, is now licensed in Wyoming.  With this new state, the firm is now licensed, either for all facets of MEP design or just Mechanical and Plumbing, to operate in 29 states.  We are excited for this opportunity, and look forward to showing the state of Wyoming our ability.                     Last piece of news also concerns Michael Aitken, PE.  Michael has been serving as the National President for the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) for the 2018-2019 year.  This upcoming July, Michael will end his term and become the immediate Past President for NSPE.  This last year has seen a tremendous amount of work on Michael’s part, from presentations to conference calls to state conferences.  Michael originally started serving NSPE at a national level in order to affect national change, as well as to meet the members across the nation.  Michael has succeeded in this: he has traveled to 31 states (many of which he visited multiple times) since his election in 2015 as Southwest Regional Director, as well as visiting the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam, and representing NSPE abroad in both Canada and Japan, helping to foster cooperation and reciprocated support between NSPE and their equivalent organizations.  In his time, he has also spoken to some key guiding principles that he hoped would guide his presidency.  Through his articles, he spelled these ideals as trust, communication, and volunteering, ideals both for himself as a national officer and for the field as a whole.  These are guiding principles we hope to embody here at MEA as well, and we could not be prouder of Michael and all the work he has done to improve the national environment for engineers.  As his presidency comes to a close, we would like to congratulate him on a well-served term and thank him for all his dedication to our field. Featured Image Courtesy of NSPE and Kelly Ann Gull. Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/19645/June-2019-Newsletter http://meacei.com/blog/19646/MEA-Closed-July-4th--Limited-Staff-July-5th blog MEA Consulting Engineers will be closed Thursday July 4th for the federal holiday.  Additionally, MEA will have limited staff availability on Friday, July 5th.  We shall return to full business operations on Monday, July 8th.  We kindly ask that you plan accordingly with us to avoid any preventable issues with these limitations.  Thank you for your understanding and cooperation, and wish everyone a happy 4th of July. Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/19646/MEA-Closed-July-4th--Limited-Staff-July-5th http://meacei.com/blog/16338/MEA-July-Newsletter blog Every year in July, MEA sees the peak of its natural surroundings: Cherry Creek Reservoir is bustling with visitors and its green landscapes peek out to us on our commutes, and our trees reach their fullest beauty, providing a welcome life to our office area.  But perhaps the most fun for our team is the influx of animals, as our resident rabbits, squirrels, and ducks (our President’s favorite of the three) come out into the open. This July, however, we missed out on some of this gorgeous Colorado scenery as we traveled to the National Society of Professional Engineers yearly conference in Las Vegas, NV.  Our team managed to balance work and play as we attended seminars, networked with others in our field, and celebrated the importance of licensure.  Though we explored a wide diversity of topics and concepts, we also had our fair share of fun, including the fundraising bowling, and a tour of the water pump system for the Bellagio’s famous fountain show.  Not only did this event build our knowledge and inform us on the trends in engineering, it ultimately pushed us in the direction of interacting with clients more professionally, as well as producing more effective products. This conference was special for MEA in a different way, however.  At this conference, our Vice President and Co-Founder, Michael Aitken, was inducted as the national NSPE President for the 2018-2019 year.  This position truly reflects his service to both NSPE and to the field of engineering as a whole.  Michael has been a member of NSPE since 1999, and has served the organization in many different roles.  Locally, Michael served the local chapter as a member, before becoming the chapter Vice President in 2012, the chapter President in 2013, and the chapter Past President in 2014.  From here, Michael moved on to serve the larger community of professional engineers, serving as the South West Regional Director for the 2015-2016 year, overseeing Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.  This new position reflects his national involvement, having been elected the national Vice President in 2016, and President Elect in 2017.  During this time, Michael has also been granted the title of NSPE Fellow and was inducted into the Order of the Engineer. Michael took this opportunity to speak about his vision for NSPE, and in the course highlighted some of the most important values we as a firm have.  In his first publication in PE Magazine, Michael spoke about his driving value: trust.  He highlighted that trust is something earned, and that the goal of each person should be to be trustworthy.  In his induction speech, Michael built upon this idea, looking at what trust means for such a society, highlighting the elements of responsibility, respect, and inclusivity that this commitment to trust involves.  Here at MEA, we could not be prouder of him or of his message, which we aim every day to imbue within our own business practices.  Congratulations Michael, this is a truly remarkable achievement.   Images courtesy of NSPE and Christie's Photographic Studios. Mon, 06 Aug 2018 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/16338/MEA-July-Newsletter http://meacei.com/blog/15331/MEA-Consulting-Engineers-is-Closed-July-19th---20th blog MEA Consulting Engineers will be closed July 19th and 20th for the National Society of Professional Engineers Conference.  We will return to normal business operations on Monday, July 23.  As our staff will not be in the state, our main line will not be answered and email response times will vary.  We kindly ask that you plan with us accordingly so as to avoid preventable emergencies and conflicts.  We thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/15331/MEA-Consulting-Engineers-is-Closed-July-19th---20th http://meacei.com/blog/15332/MEA-June-Newsletter blog Here at MEA, June has been a busy month: we have digitized our documents, slightly expanded the team, and are preparing for an upcoming conference.  June has truly been full of experimentation and growth, and the list of news worthy items is far too long for every aspect to be covered in detail. Yet in this busy month, two items stand out as exceptionally news worthy. First of all, MEA has been working to move its internet presence and public relations forward. This month, we have finally given our website the update it truly needed.  Working with Denver Website Designs, our new website is finally up and running. Through this platform, we believe the client experience will be more streamlined and maneuverable, as client satisfaction is one of our highest goals. We also believe our new website will help facilitate the personal aspect of any professional partnership. Our team bios now give you a glimpse into the lives of those you are working with, improving our partnership from the barebones structure of name and job title which our old website presented through for the last few years. Lastly, through the use of our blogs and newsletters, we hope to keep our clients and partners in the loop, especially in instances of unexpected, or unusual, business hours/closings. This also is our first newsletter through this new system, something we hope will keep our clients and partners informed on the news within MEA. The second development, and without a doubt the most exciting development, has to do with our very own Mechanical/Plumbing designer Demian Go. It is will great pride we announce that Demian has taken the PE exam, and as of June has received the title of Professional Engineer. This remarkable accomplishment is the culmination of his dedication, perseverance, and hard work throughout his 20+ years in the engineering field. It is a reflection and commendation of his personal commitment to excellence, as well as the vast amount of knowledge and experience which he has put into each and every project he has worked on. We ask that you join us in congratulating Demian on this impressive achievement. Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:00:00 GMT http://meacei.com/blog/15332/MEA-June-Newsletter