Providing a multitude of industry and manufacturing as well as buildings and facilities engineering services

James Angelo is the president of TAI, an engineering, management, and technical services firm. For 27 years, TAI has served a wide range of industry and manufacturing clients in market sectors that include food and beverage, natural gas, chemical process, wireless telecom, power generation, and many more. TAI also designs buildings and facilities for healthcare, laboratory, government and military, and commercial and office clients, as well as building envelope systems. The company employs over 200 professionals in more than 16 divisions across five office locations. TAI’s corporate headquarters are located in Owings Mills, MD.

OFFIT KURMAN: Can you tell us some more about the ways in which you provide services for your clients?

JAMES ANGELO: We bring the know-how of the engineering, management, and technical services consulting and we combine that with the insider’s knowledge of the people who have worked at our prior client sites. They bring firsthand knowledge of what it takes to have capital appropriated for a project, to deal with internal structures within a corporation; safety, health, and environmental issues; to understand what it takes to actually get things built from the inside. We put those people in leadership positions within each project. That enables us to provide all this technical knowledge and know-how in the best means that enable the customer take advantage of that knowledge. It results in projects, which go in right the first time, don’t need a lot of rework, and which are easier to work through with the whole process, because we understand the outcome and the desired use for the facility.

We don’t have machines that make things. Our people and their knowledge and what they bring to work everyday within the culture that we have, within the corporate structure we have, within the reputation we have, enable us to be able to go out and provide those employees knowledge out to our customers. That’s all we have: those employees. So, us understanding that makes us consider how we want to work with those employees differently. Beyond that, our structure is a very flat structure. We understand that the people who are in the best position to make an important decision are the people closest to the issue. Those voices are heard throughout the organization. We take them into consideration and they’re front and center.

Would you be able to give an example of a typical client project?

The diversity of projects that a person could work on who joins the firm is unlimited. I was watching a TV show, “How It’s Made.” On shows like that, you get to see a crayon factory one day; three days later it’s a cast iron foundry where you’re making huge, cast-iron cylinders. Next, it’s the benzene plant where we’re manufacturing benzene. Day by day the challenges change. You see things that are interesting, and it’s a fun, enjoyable experience.

You mentioned the flat structure. What else do your employees gain by working at TAI?

Within TAI, we’ve historically grown 15% year over year since the company was founded. What that growth has enabled us to do is provide opportunities within the organization for people to pursue whatever opportunity they desire to. We don’t come in and put people into preset roles. We talk with people; we look at what capabilities they bring, what their desires are, what they wish to achieve; and we try and work our corporate structure around making that employee able to realize those goals. They typically align with the company’s goals and if they’re successful, the company is successful, and we go on together. The company’s growth itself inherently provides more opportunities for those people to continue to advance their careers. It’s not a dead-end street.

Connect with James on LinkedIn

ABOUT OFFIT KURMAN

Offit Kurman is one of the fastest-growing, full-service law firms in the Mid-Atlantic region. With over 120 attorneys offering a comprehensive range of services in virtually every legal category, the firm is well positioned to meet the needs of dynamic businesses and the people who own and operate them. Our eight offices serve individual and corporate clients in the Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Northern Virginia markets, as well as the Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City metropolitan areas. At Offit Kurman, we are our clients’ most trusted legal advisors, professionals who help maximize and protect business value and personal wealth. In every interaction, we consistently maintain our clients’ confidence by remaining focused on furthering their objectives and achieving their goals in an efficient manner. Trust, knowledge, confidence—in a partner, that’s perfect.

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