Description
Bio
Kirk Mettam is an Executive Vice President and Senior Principal with Silman Associates. He has been active in the design profession and a leader in the structural engineering industry for nearly four decades. In 1998, Kirk established our Washington, DC, office and has served as its managing partner since.
Kirk’s project experience has included government facilities, corporate headquarters, high-rise office buildings, retail and mixed-use developments, hotels, airports, bridges, and sports facilities. He also has special knowledge and experience in the structural engineering of historic structures ranging from heritage buildings of unique archaic construction, to Mid-Century Modern architectural landmarks.
He has propelled the firm’s growth through participation in federal design excellence programs and by expanding service offerings to include seismic engineering, building envelope/façade design, and blast design.
Kirk has maintained an active participation in the industry through lectures and involvement with national committees that cover subject matters such as structural condition assessments and the evaluation of building envelopes. In the academic realm, he has taught courses in structural engineering and architectural technology.
Show Notes
- Silman Engineering- Wider variety of services…primarily structural engineers (4:10)
- Structural engineering is a subset of Civil engineering (4:45)
Origin Story
- Grew up in Montgomery County, MD (5:40)
- Remembrances of growing up in Washington DC (6:15)
- Mother was active Washington Gourmet Club and foreign dignitaries would come to their home when he was a child (8:00)
- Gave him a perspective of international perspectives
- Father was an aeronautical engineer with Booz Allen and was a visionary (9:10)
- Inspirations from parents- design and passion for engineering (10:30)
- Pivotal moment- took a course at American University in the summer during high school- story about building a model (11:50)
- Teacher gave him a couple books about “Architectural Engineering”
Education
- Pratt Institute- NY Architectural school and enjoyed it but ran out of money (13:30)
- Attended University of Maryland- Engineering focus (14:30)
- Science and math comes natural to him (16:00)
- Went to Cornell for Engineering graduate school after three intern level jobs and because of the job market challenges (16:40)
- Advises people to get a Masters in Engineering because the depth of information learned allows one to become a specialist (18:00)
- Communications is the most important task in engineering (19:30)
- Internships
- Bureau of Standards- Metallurgy division- enjoyed it but didn’t like government (20:20)
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission- computer junkie (20:50)
- Small firm in Rockville and actually designed buildings and loved it (21:20)
Career Arc
- Joined Skidmore Owings & Merrill after getting 11 job offers after receiving a Masters at Cornell (22:20)
- Grew structural engineering group to 36 until the early 1990s when it was reduced to 6 people and he became the leader (24:00)
- Moved over to Federal projects after private sector slowed
- Transitional housing
- Great mentorship and support- David Childs &