HISTORY

Fulcrum was founded in 1989, in the depths of the last real estate and banking crisis. Construction work was non-existent at the time, and the firm focused on consulting services for banks with distressed real estate assets. Our original banking clients were soon replaced by the FDIC, RTC and BONHAM, and Fulcrum provided services for all of them. Engagements ranged from construction defect analysis, cost-to-complete estimating, construction repair estimates and asset analysis. Thankfully that work ran it's course, and by 1992 we were back in the construction business.

With the market rebounding strongly, Fulcrum grew quickly into a major player in the regional commercial construction market. From data centers and clean rooms to supermarkets, Fulcrum sought out unusual and challenging projects and gained a reputation for delivering highly complex projects under difficult circumstances and aggressive timelines.

This reputation was put to the test on New Years Day, 1995 when we were asked to design and construct a 25,000sf office building in 60 days. WPI Group, a major client of Fulcrum's at the time, had lost their corporate headquarters to a catastrophic fire on New Years Eve. Fulcrum rose to the challenge, and 59 days later, working through the worst winter in decades, WPI moved into their new headquarters.

The WPI project opened our eyes to what was possible when true collaboration between all of the construction team members took place. After years of bid work, we became believers in Construction Management as the pre-eminent project delivery method. We quickly revised our accounting, estimating and project management systems to provide the true transparency and collaboration that is essential to succeed as a Construction Manager.

As we continued to grow we observed that many of our clients were intense users of energy, and we quickly saw the value in improving the quality of our buildings and systems in order to reduce consumption and consequently, operating expenses. We installed heat reclamation systems to harvest waste heat from refrigeration in supermarkets, micro turbine natural gas cogeneration systems, and cooling systems that allowed data centers to turn off the AC and take advantage of the free cooling provided by our New England winters. We became obsessed with improving the quality of our envelopes, promoting high performance air and vapor barriers long before it was trendy.

All this brings us to the present. With all of our experience constructing High Performance buildings through the years, we realized some time ago that we didn't have a lot of evidence on how our buildings actually performed. Owners were all pleased with their buildings, but did we actually accomplish what we set out to do? Could we do it better? For less money? With those questions in mind, we embarked on the next step in constructing High Performance buildings; measurement and verification. It's one thing to say your building outperforms your neighbor's, it's another to prove it.

By monitoring and collecting data on air quality, comfort, lighting demand and energy use over the first year of your building's life we can see how it compares to our expectations. To do this we employ the latest in technology, including thermal imaging, IAQ measurement devices, data logging recorders and run time monitors for equipment. We collect your energy bills and show you how your building stacks up against the inventory of similar buildings throughout the US.

The last 20 years certainly have seen tremendous change in how we as an industry do business. Fulcrum is looking forward to continuing to lead the way in the coming twenty years!