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David Wood, president of David F. Wood Consulting, is used to keeping many balls in the air. When » I interview him, it's a Saturday afternoon and die rock engineer is talking hands-free while navigating his way back to Sudbury after investigating a sudden rock fall in a tunnel project in Niagara Falls. The GPS murmurs inaudibly in the background while Wood explains in a clear English accent what events led him to leave his job with an international engineering firm to "hang up his own shingle."
"I'm not by heart a businessman," Wood says, "but things happened."
He began his career in 1973 as the "most junior of junior engineers" at Colder .Associates. A self-described rabble rouser and long-haired hippie, Wood worked his way up to become an associate. Then, after he had spent three years completing a research project in Sudbury, he was faced with a choice: either go back to being "a small fish in a big pond" as an associate in a large fimi and a large city; or take die leap and become his own boss in Sudbury. For various reasons, he decided to stay, and in 1992 officially registered his consulting business. Ten years later, this once-reluctant businessman won the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce's Business Awards of Excellence, Small Office Home Office (SOHO) award. Now he's so busy, he's even turning down work.
"If I could clone myself I'd be happy," Wood says.
Nimble and personal
Wood's success is not unique. I spoke with engineers across die country who either work for tiiemselves or in "microfirms" - companies of five or fewer full-time employees - and all admitted to being very busy, despite the economic downturn and die growing trend towards die consolidation of engineering firms into larger, more international entities. What is it that makes diese micro-firms not only survive in die competitive world of consulting engineering, but also dirive?
Micro-firms can offer clients certain advantages that larger firms can't.
Being small keeps diese firms nimble. "We're very good at tailoring our work to our clients' needs," says Perry Mitchelmore, P.Eng., president of Mitchelmore Engineering Company (Meco). He started his Dartmoudi, Nova Scotia-based firm eight years ago as a sole proprietor and now has five fulltime...