www.sci-engr.com
www.sci-engr.com
To make the company a little more personal, here are a couple short stories from our employees.
Structural Concepts has been around a long time. Even years ago, back when the kids were little, they had seen many buildings designed by their father. Whether the family was traveling in town or in the country, Jody would proudly point out completed projects to his children. After seeing everything from big factories to small additions, they understood that their father could design all kinds of buildings.
One summer day, 
the family took a trip to Washington, D.C. The city is full of tourist destinations and landmarks, so it makes an educational day trip from where we live. Traffic and parking are always difficult, so we walked. Strolling down the national mall on a sunny day like the one shown at left, everyone was having a good time.
The youngest boy was trying to catch one of the many pigeons that were walking on the sidewalk between the tourists. To distract him from the pigeons, Jody said, "Matthew, do you see that building over there?" The building looked like the one on the back of a penny. This was, after all, an educational outing.
Matthew barely looked up. These pigeons were almost tame enough to catch, and if you sneak up on one like this... Besides, he had heard this question a thousand times, and knew the answer. "Yes Dad, I know. You designed it!"
"Well," Jody replied, "I was going to say that is where Congress meets, but thanks for the vote of confidence."
While playing Legos with his three-year-old nephew, one of our engineers built an arch. Of course he also built houses and towers and all the normal Lego stuff, but engineers like to keep things interesting. The arch started on one side before going up and over and down to the other, like this:
"Look, a bridge!" Of course, bridges carry stuff, so Joel had to put something on top. Curiosity demands that this load increase until something gives way. When the Lego arch collapsed, our engineer cried with mock horror, "Oh no! A structural failure!"
At the office, we design to avoid such occurrences, so it is always in our minds. But who would have thought that the mind of a three-year-old could comprehend this? In spite of that, a small voice repeated with wonder, "chuck-CHOO-rel failure?" We built the arch back up and again applied loads until it broke. This time Joel was paying attention to the words that dismay an engineer.
Now each time we rebuilt the arch and repeated its destruction, the little guy would gleefully proclaim, "Structural failure!" Our engineer would look appropriately horrified. Joel didn't forget. His parents tell how after he arrived home, he would practice causing the structural failure of his own block towers. Perhaps we have inspired a future engineer!
