Episode 7 | Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Transcript
00:00:05 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
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00:00:12 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
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00:00:51 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
Alright, today we're going to have Markel Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering. Markell is a structural engineer, and we're excited to have you. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and why you decided to get into structural engineering?
00:01:05 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
That's a good question. I grew up on a farm in Wyoming, and there were always problems to solve and things to figure out. And my brain was always pretty busy and kind of a dreamer brain. And then my older brother went into engineering and so I decided to go into engineering.
00:01:23 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I took some classes for a semester and thought it was interesting, but then I quickly said I want to go into business and so I took some business classes for a semester and then I had a break for a while. And then I said I wanted to go into history and become a history professor. And then my older brother’s like, you know what, you're going to make less money in history as a history professor than a structural engineer.
00:01:45 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
So, I went back and started to focus on structural engineering and quickly went through school. Then I worked in the construction field while I went to school but my guess is probably the biggest thing I wanted to do was solve problems. I enjoy solving problems and figuring things out. Engineering gave me an avenue to solve problems and look at things differently.
00:02:03 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
Why structural engineering instead of solving problems in chemical or mechanical or electrical engineering?
00:02:11 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
That's a good question. I still, I think I sit through a lot of meetings where we deal with mechanical engineers and structural engineers and I've sat in meetings with you guys where and I probably say a little bit too much because I know the systems. I think you can still do those types of systems and have a background in them.
00:02:29 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Not necessarily do the system, but have a background of what you're talking about, like different mechanical systems, and then you can do a better job designing structural. So really probably because I was following my older brother and what he did, and I have a younger brothers in structural as well. So we all got convinced to do it.
00:02:45 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
But I still apply the same problem solving skills I learned in structural engineering for other avenues in my life.
00:02:55 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
As long as I don't stop and look at too many structures when I'm at dinner or driving across the bridge. My wife's okay with that.
00:03:02 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
In the construction world, what type of role does a structural engineer play? I mean, it probably sounds obvious to most people, but why do we need a structural engineer?
00:03:15 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
There are different types of building types, so like a lot of people in Idaho area, they don't do tract homes where you design structural engineering. They've done the same thing over and over and it's worked. And so they do it and they've had any failure problems, they revise it. In bigger cities in Las Vegas or California, they make everything be engineered.
00:03:32 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Idaho's a little hybrid. Most of the stuff, like smaller projects do not need to be engineered. I feel like on the development side that we can provide a value and get the cost down and talk about systems and we can kind of meet with the developer upfront kind of find what their needs are and go through systems and say, OK, what, what do you want to see in your project and look for ways to save money and make things more efficient, whether it's mechanical systems, penetration of structural beams or rerouting the framing for the plumbing lines or whatever we need to do. If we know that up front working together as a team, we can make things I think more efficient.
00:04:10 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
Markell, are you aware of any mistaken assumptions that people have about structural engineering? 00:04:18 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Probably the biggest mistake assumption is that we're all geeks. 00:04:23 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I strive to have some communication skills. No, I think most of us in the structural engineering atmosphere, especially in smaller communities, are pretty communicative and talk and interact with people pretty well. I think sometimes [people get the idea] that if a structural engineer touches [a project] it will be over designed. It all depends on what we're doing. And if you're doing a bigger project, my goal is to always make it very efficient and save money versus just make a quick solution.
00:04:54 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
So I guess there's kind of two concepts there. One is our perception of nerds or geeks, and the other one is that we do over design things.
00:05:02 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
The next question that I would have is when should we involve you as a structural engineer in our projects and it is kind of a leading question, but I think it's an important one.
00:05:13 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I think it's all how big the project is. We'll get projects all the time that are smaller jobs and the city requires that they have certain engineering and sometimes it's better that the city reviews that, and then we get in and do minimal stuff. But the bigger the project is, I think the more money we save, the earlier we're involved, whether it's like, hey, if you change your wall lining at the lower level, we can not have to cantilever it as much or revise certain things or [we can] save on foundations. And so again probably the scope of the work. The bigger that is, I think the more important you're involved in or if there's a lot of repetition you want to make sure there's involvement early and often so you can get that value saved.
00:05:52 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I just had a conversation with a contractor today, and he was telling me about the difference in plywood prices that can be $13 at BMC or $11 right now at Home Depot. Cost is a big deal. A project that has 280 units and you increase the same thing over and over and put plywood where we don't need plywood. It can drive the cost of the project up 10s of hundreds or thousands of dollars or even $500,000. It all depends on the systems you choose.
00:06:25 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
Yeah, a lot of our bigger projects, we like to pull - we do what's called concept design, but we have pulled you in on concept design earlier in situations where we felt like, hey, you know what, there's a lot of questions. And if we pick the right system earlier it's going to save the client ultimately more money, both from the design side and then also from the construction side. And so that kind of was a leading question. But I feel like again [it is] super important to recognize both the benefit up front and that's probably not where you're doing the majority of your work but it does lead to a lot better result or end result.
00:07:09 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Well, and I think that there are different involvement [levels] in clients. We have some clients that are very engaged, and some clients that aren't engaged. And I believe that design-build systems are often the best if everybody has a great working relationship and you have a good relationship with the contractor because we can get some pricing up front.
00:07:25 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
As the client sees that we are trying to have their best interest and are involved in the meetings at an early phase, I think they feel the value and their project is efficient and effective. They're more bought into the project when construction costs may go up because of unknown reasons, like we've had with COVID.
00:07:42 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
Tell us what advice you'd give to someone who's working with a structural engineer for the first time. 00:07:49 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
That's a good question. I think just have an open dialogue with them and just let them share and you listen. You may have questions because of a lot of terminology. I try when I communicate with someone who has not worked as a structural engineer, I try to communicate in a manner that's at their level of understanding.
00:08:05 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
We can talk about sheer and moment and whatever, but I try to simplify, and I often use a spaghetti noodle as an explanation. I think you've heard that before, Greg. Your beam is much like a spaghetti noodle. The more spaghetti noodles you have, the stronger it is, and people can understand that a little better.
00:08:26 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I think just probably asking good questions and not being afraid to ask a question. That's probably a better phrase.
00:08:32 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Ask questions if you don't understand it, just let them explain it. The more you understand as a developer or owner, the better you are. Time is valuable and it does cost if you're on an hourly job, but sometimes just asking some simple questions like what happens if I do this or just a better clarification so they can understand better.
00:08:54 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
I was doing some research on that today, actually for our office and how architects can sometimes use jargon also. And the point of any communication is to convey an idea and how important it is to simplify those concepts, especially for somebody who's new to design.
00:09:13 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering That's right. It's a great point.
00:09:16 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
I guess on that communication piece, how do you... We have a client. They talk to the architect and then it goes to you.
00:09:26 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
How do you ensure that you're getting the vision of what the client’s after even though the architect is directing you on something? How do you ensure that you've got the full picture?
00:09:38 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
That's a challenging one because sometimes I wish I could circumvent the architect and go directly to the developer and just being honest and say hey, do you really want to do this? Because some we do a lot of custom homes and there are things we could do to cheapen it up. Often our comments to the architect don't get to the develop - and I don't mean that all bad - or the homeowner. And so that's a hard one because I can only communicate so much. If the developer’s a part of the team meetings like we've done with you guys many times, then we can communicate to them directly or we can pass on different things.
00:10:12 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
We often like to do, like you said earlier, schematic plans, and so we'll do like a schematic layout that's very economical. Show a beam layout, show a design layout. Bring up any questions and we hope that that gets to the owners or the developers so they can do pricing and say here's your consequences. And here's some things.
00:10:30 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
If they can see that, they may say wait a second I may want to pull a wall in or shift a column, so it's just a little cleaner to frame. With the hopes that a contractor just doesn't bid it per square foot price, which they're typically doing, but sees that the structure has been simplified and then that way [the project] becomes more economical.
00:10:48 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
I know that I've gotten like red line sets from you guys because we'll sometimes, even if you're not on the project, we'll be like, OK, this project is coming to you. Here's a schematic set. Mark it up and it'll say things like if you can give us two feet of wall here, then we can we can actually shear up this and reduce our window sizes a little bit.
00:11:10 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
Ultimately, it still has these picturesque views that you're trying to hit. I think I have had the comments too, where it's like if you can shift this a little bit...
00:11:21 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
The architect will often go back to the owner and say, can we shift this and save this?[Sometimes the owner says,] "No. We want this look. We're willing to pay the money for it.
00:11:30 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
We're currently trying to push a project your way where we're kind of the lead design of an industrial building. We're laying the whole thing out and then trying to shift it your way, which is kind of different than often done in the industry. But there can be a value there as well because it's mainly a structural thing and then we have to work on exiting and fire rating assemblies.
00:11:52 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
It’s kind of a different approach, but the same thing is the owner’s got to get your feedback and they can't have us filter it.
00:11:58 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
Right. Yeah. And that's probably a similar approach where it's like, hey, here's the red line sets in terms of what life safety issues that we see.
00:12:11 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
Markell, you have good experience as a structural engineer. What are some of the ways that structural engineering has changed over the course of your career?
00:12:24 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I've been in the structural engineering industry for 25 years and I would say it's actually gotten more difficult versus easier. And maybe it's because I manage more than I used to.
00:12:39 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
But I think that the technology has increased the expectation of clients saying this should be faster because you have technology, but we also do larger volumes of projects. And so we have to mix the mix those in. And so I think that's one of the more challenging things, that change is just the expectations. We want it faster. Let's get it done quicker. This saves us money.
00:13:03 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
We've also seen the last few years just since 2020, where the increase of construction costs have really kind of hampered development. We’ve had to come back and do redesigns quickly when you're already very busy, but trying to keep the owner and developer happy. Many people don't realize that you when you book out, just like you guys, you have your two to three months out of work. You want to keep this client happy.
00:13:23 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
But they need a redesign because they're out there pouring foundation, and they have to have the framing change because the cost of construction has increased. So that has made it a challenge - fluctuating markets currently.
00:13:36 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Overall it's still good. It's still progressing, and things are getting better. 00:13:42 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
You say the calculations that you guys have to do are more frequent, but on top of that the number of drawings that we produce is ridiculously high. I was in Washington, DC this year in the Capitol building that has all that ornate detail. It's like today it would be hundreds and hundreds of sheets, probably thousands of sheets. Back then it was like, here's the sketch and run with it. And even as we pull up historic drawings here in Idaho Falls a lot of these buildings only had 7-8 sheets total at least from an architectural standpoint. The number of sheets that are being produced is ridiculous, but that's what the jurisdictions are requiring, and that's what it takes to get the intent out there.
00:14:38 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
Otherwise, with a contractor there's nothing to hold their hand through the process because we don't build like we used to. To get the level of quality that we want, we have to document more.
00:14:51 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Well, I also think the liability has increased. Today I was working on helping someone out with a remodel of a house and we added a little deck on.
00:14:59 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
We are more sheets for adding the little deck on than they had. For the architectural structural drawings, it was 4 sheets, and I think we're like 10 when it's all said and done just to communicate intent like you said. More and more people don't want to see a crack in sheetrock where before they were OK with cracked sheetrock. Or they were OK with figuring out certain finishes, and [now] they want it figured out for them. And so then they can apply it. The contractor doesn't want to do it because then he's held liable for doing something with no communication.
00:15:30 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
How do you, I guess, following off of Jamee's question about what you've seen in the past, how do you feel like - what's the future of structural engineering? What do you see 5 to 10 years out?
00:15:40 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I've thought about that as we continue to strive to grow and I wonder if [as] we're growing, if we have to kind of adapt. I often think about Sears Roebuck and how they used to control all the markets and now they're pretty much gone. And so more and more as a business or in our careers, we have to adapt or we die.
00:16:03 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
We don't know what business is going to take us over and so I do feel there's a lot of changes coming and the process to engineer will become faster.
00:16:11 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
With AI (artificial intelligence right? I always just call it AI). I think there's some opportunities to increase speed and accuracy and then have someone who checks it, but they have to have a very thorough checking process to mix that up. I think there's things you can do where they can pull in standard details and in seconds, tweak the slopes.
00:16:34 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
The miscellaneous items that would take you 30 minutes to an hour to draw up, and you can quickly just tweak by having a standard and say, here's my slope and my overhang distance and it automatically just generates everything. So I see that in the next 5 or 10 years it'll become faster, but there is a huge demand right now for engineers and so maybe that helps lift the demand.
00:16:55 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Engineers and architects as well - it's hard to hire them, so I think it’ll help lift the demand, but also increase the expectation of precision, that there's no mistakes and they will be held liable for any anything that's a mistake or a cost break.
00:17:11 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
Do you feel like, I guess on that front with the 2008, 2009 crash, there were a lot of architects and probably a lot of engineers as well for whom there weren't jobs. And so we find, at least in our industry, and I'm assuming this is the same for you guys where it's like at this point, anybody who graduated 10 to 15 years ago doesn't really exist. There's not a lot of them.
00:17:43 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
And so from a project management and experience level, you have these weird ups and downs of experience levels and how does it, I mean that's been the concern that I've had with AI is how do you get the experience when somebody's jumping from I don't need to do details anymore? Like there's some of these things that they start to not do. And then is there a knowledge gap of well I don't actually know what I'm checking anymore?
00:18:15 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
When I think that goes back to 2D versus 3D, right? When people all drew in 2D, you had to think in 3D to solve the problem. Now the 3D is drawn for you and so it's sometimes simpler and you can't see the problem because you're so used to looking at 3D that you don't think outside the box.
00:18:38 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
That's one thing I think I'm grateful for that I've had the 2D experience and had in my mind put it in a 3D realm. So now when I look at drawings that are 2D without the model, I can see beyond the 2D without having the model. When our guys in our office who have all seen everything in 3D can't visualize what it.
00:18:57 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
The gap kind of exists right now from a 2D to 3D perspective and now we're going to go from a 3D to an AI perspective where some of that work is just being generated and I guess you're saying that the gap is going to continue to kind of grow a little bit?
00:19:18 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I think that's what's really crucial in developing the next generation is we as older experienced (hopefully), maybe wiser share our knowledge and help develop the next generation. That is what I believe is one of the most critical things I do is I'm a teacher. I develop and I create better systems and I help the younger generation see the gaps that are missing like you said. [I show them] something to consider here and something to recognize here. Using the 2D elements, you can catch these things in 2D without seeing the 3D.
00:19:55 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
That's one of Resin’s core values also is being dedicated to teaching and learning, both in the office and with this podcast for our clients also. Tell me a little bit about how you balance the rigorous demands of engineering laws of physics and the way the world works with what a client wants.
00:20:20 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
My goal is always to provide a great service, and sometimes that's hard because sometimes, for example, if the government (the city jurisdiction or the county jurisdiction) requires engineering, often we have to put in things more in the drawings to meet the current code than what they typically are going to be used to.
00:20:44 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Often we'll get pushback from clients saying, hey, I haven't done that before. I was like, I can't change that because this is what the jurisdiction requires. Now that you do the full engineering versus before, it was a more prescriptive method. So often what we'll try to do there is like, hey, here's the situation. You brought a project in that typically hasn't had to do engineering, but now they're requiring engineering.
00:21:04 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
So we'll say maybe submit it to the building department and see what they kick back and we'll only engineer the parts or the pieces that they require. So we're not to touch the whole project. And so we try to limit our liability by saying this is the scope of work we're providing, but also not increase the cost of project.
00:21:25 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
As a final take-away our last question is always based on your experience what's the one piece of advice that you would give to a client that is looking to build a building?
00:21:38 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Kind of going back to what we talked before, if it's a really large building, it's important that we again I think bring great value upfront in a bigger scope of project is getting into structural engineer involved earlier versus later even if it's minimal fee to make some decisions. You can save quite a bit on the structure and make things stack a little better, a little cleaner and still get the architectural appeal that you want.
00:22:01 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
I think that on small projects, maybe not. Maybe it's just hey, there's minimal things we want you to do, but engineering it can be very, very valuable and I often struggle where more and more the local jurisdictions are forcing engineering upon everybody. I understand why to create a quality product.
00:22:24 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
But we as engineers, want to make sure we want to feel like people appreciate us versus feeling forced to use us. And so I think maybe we to reiterate the question why do you want to get us involved earlier or what do we bring for the client? We can provide opportunities, help people think differently.
00:22:45 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering
Sit down and talk to you about it. Give you options and then you make a decision. You what you want to do? I much prefer that versus them being compelled to use us.
00:22:56 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture Awesome. Well, thank you for your time today. 00:22:57 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture Yes. Thanks Markell.
00:22:57 Markell Bateman with Frost Structural Engineering Thank you for the opportunity.
00:23:00 Greg Croft with Resin Architecture
And that wraps up another enlightening episode of Vision Driven. We hope you enjoyed our conversation and gained valuable insights into the world of architecture , development, and construction. And don't forget to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us grow and improve our content, and it also helps others discover the podcast.
00:23:16 Jamee Moulton with Resin Architecture
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