As PAE Consulting Engineers expands its footprint across the country, its roots remain firmly in the Pacific Northwest, where the company was founded in 1967 in Portland. PAE brings that PNW feel throughout the region, with offices in Seattle, Eugene, Bend and elsewhere thanks to PAE’s history, but also becoming a leading national engineering firm on the most aggressive and sustainable projects.
PAE made a decisive move toward sustainable design as lead engineers on Seattle’s Bullitt Center, the first Living Building Challenge design that set the benchmark for commercial building sustainability. This led to additional LBC projects across the country and helped PAE solidify its vision of creating “clean air, energy and water for all” while giving the company a triple bottom line with a focus on “people, planet and profit”.
Christian Agulles, president and CEO of PAE, participating in a community service day.
Kim Nguyen’s photo
Mission-driven vision
Christian Agulles, president and CEO, says the focus is on PAE’s approximately 425 employees nationwide pursuing technical and operational excellence to accelerate the company’s impact. But really, he says, everything beyond engineering is about people, employees and customers. “Consulting and what we do is a people business,” he says. “The reason we are growing is that we are able to attract the best people and they are attracted to our mission, vision and values.”
PAE promotes a mission-based vision, which helps attract employees. “When you hire great people, you give them opportunities,” Agulles says. These opportunities come to work and business. Using pool staff, while more complicated to operate, puts people into multiple projects to create complete and diverse engineers. And with more than 135 staff members as owners at PAE, the company creates opportunities that give people a “sense of ownership and entrepreneurship,” he says. “It’s different when you have a part of what you’re building in the way we treat each other and how we treat our customers. It’s authentic.
What sets PAE apart is the people, says Christian Castillo, senior account executive at McKinstry. “It’s one thing to have the experience and the experience, but there’s the other side of the coin which is: Is the experience of working with your team enjoyable? I haven’t had a bad experience with anyone on their team,” he says, “and that makes it easy to want to come back and work with them again.”
“Consulting and what we do is a people business.”
— Christian Agulles, President and CEO, PAE Consulting Engineers
Justin Chitwood, an architect at Mahlum Architects in Seattle, says his firm has worked with PAE on several types of projects and has had a positive experience with the people and the ease with which the team can be accessed. He says access shows reliability and care.
Agulles says clients appreciate the firm’s rigorous engineering expertise and the investment PAE makes in each project, caring as much about the results as the client. “We care about what you’re trying to do as much as you do, and we look for solutions,” he says.
Chief Operating Officer Shiloh Butterworth says that focus on delivering to customers drives success. “Our culture helps add to why we can do this,” he says.
PAE Living Building’s Portland offices set the standard for sustainability.
Kim Nguyen’s photo
Wide portfolio
Great relationships don’t complete projects. PAE enjoys approximately 75% of its repeat customer business, branching out into a wide range of industries, from aviation and education to healthcare and even data centers. Agulles says that securing a broad portfolio of projects not only keeps people engaged, but really allows the company to focus on technical solutions across multiple sectors.
Castillo says PAE takes an active role in the projects and doesn’t expect direction. “Every time I’ve worked with the PAE team it’s felt like a true partnership,” he says. “In our world, it’s easy for the financial side of the business to take center stage and make a relationship feel transactional. That hasn’t been the case with my work with PAE. Their goal is to come together as a team to meet project challenges.”
A major rebuild of Portland International Airport’s main terminal allowed PAE to help the airport showcase the value of wood.
Photo by Emma Peters
Sustainability objectives
PAE also pledged to demonstrate its dedication to its values by building its Portland headquarters as a living building. “We developed this project, we designed it, we are equity partners and the tenant,” says Agulles. “We are as you can be.”
“I appreciate PAE’s sustainability goals and that they use their working environment as a proving ground to show what is possible with new technologies and existing buildings,” says Chitwood, adding that PAE is always offering new technology opportunities. “PAE incorporates these ideas into our healthcare projects as options – the owner may not be ready or willing to adopt them, but PAE has brought the most forward-thinking solutions to the owner’s team.”
PAE links its growth to the strategic plan to accelerate the company’s impact. “We can have more impact if we are at the forefront of sustainability,” says Agulles. PAE is part of the MEP 2040 challenge led by the Carbon Leadership Forum and includes an internal embedded carbon tool to help projects quantify and reduce lifetime carbon.
Recent successes include the main terminal at Portland International Airport (PDX), which allowed PAE to work on a massive wood project focused on embodied carbon. PAE also helped convert a central plant in PDX to 95% fossil fuel-free, while keeping the airport operational. PAE has an ongoing presence at the University of Washington and recently completed the Bush School Upper Campus in Washington with a passive cooling design. The Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion, with a 350,000-gallon main exhibit, aims for Living Building certification and reduces energy use by 70% and carbon emissions by 95% while operating 100% without fossil fuels.
“Clients come to us on our unique resume when it comes to sustainability or the ability to push the limits of a project’s sustainability.”
—Shiloh Butterworth, COO, PAE Consulting Engineers
Daniella Wahler, PAE director and director of the Seattle office, says the Bush School offers a unique story. Not only did PAE help create the passive house for the K-12 private school, an “elegant and impressive solution,” but next door, PAE also completed a historic renovation of a mansion built in 1903 that now serves as the school. Getting the mansion to install two-pipe mechanical cooling was a challenge, so the new upper school now contains all the equipment that serves the mansion. “The most sustainable building is the one you already have,” says Wahler.
Each project gives the company the expertise needed to work on the next one, whether it’s Living Building Challenge designs or even data centers. Agulles says the tension between the data center’s energy demands and PAE’s sustainability mission is not lost on the company, and is something the team discusses extensively. “But if we’re not involved in the process and if we don’t have the relationships with those who develop the data centers, then we lose our influence,” he says. “As we work in data centers, we’re on a parallel path studying and thinking about ways to help reduce its impact. That’s how we sleep at night, to be completely honest.”
After PAE’s work in PDX, it is now focusing on the new Aspen airport and its goal to make it the most sustainable airport in the world. “Our clients sell us on our unique curriculum when it comes to sustainability, our ability to push the boundaries of how sustainable a project can be,” says Butterworth. “Ultimately, they come because they know they can trust us to deliver on time, on budget and with great quality.”
National presence
Growth areas abound, from healthcare (especially in California) to aviation and education to data centers. PAE is willing to work on a multi-billion dollar project over a decade, such as PDX, or a small, niche project important to a client. West Coast revenue reached nearly $70 million by 2025, up about 10 percent from a year earlier, and the Pacific Northwest still makes up more than two-thirds of the company’s regional revenue, according to the 225 employees in the Portland region.
PAE now operates 12 offices in six time zones, with employees in nearly every state, from Alaska and Hawaii to the East Coast. “We’ve hired a lot of really good people over the last decade,” says Butterworth, emphasizing the appeal of the company’s mission. “It doesn’t just resonate with engineers, it resonates with our clients and people who want their buildings to go as far as they can with sustainability.” Butterworth says PAE attracts employees because of the culture and mission. The company’s high retention rate helps demonstrate that it is doing the right things.
Wahler says much of PAE’s growth comes from customers asking the company to be available. “The architectural community on the West Coast is extraordinary, and it’s doing work all over the country,” he says. “They want to use us. We knew there would be a limit to national projects without a national presence.”
