Today, on June 1st, 2021, Elara Engineering attained the milestone of being in business for 20 years. Throughout the last two decades, Elara has continuously evolved and grown to meet the needs of the industry and the many clients that it proudly serves. From its humble beginning derived from the common passion of the firm’s founders to its current leadership team and dedicated and talented staff, Elara has not wavered from its mission to achieve sustainable energy efficiencies through constructible designs that minimize the carbon footprint of the environment, save money, and increase asset value. This passion will – without question – continue to carry Elara Engineering forward for the next 20 years.
As with any milestone, it presents an opportunity to reminisce and reflect on how far one has come, what has changed, and what it all means for the future. In this context, Elara’s founders and partners offer the following thoughts.
Don McLauchlan – Founder, Principal
20 years ago, with our collective passion for making buildings more energy efficient and for creating value for clients; Steve Maze, Doug Smith, and I formed Elara Engineering. With our previous experience of design build contracting, we saw a need for a pragmatic engineering firm that thought outside the 9 dots to find cost effective and innovative solutions to save energy and improve comfort and indoor air quality in the indoor environment. Our firm quickly grew with the early addition of Caitlin Levitsky, Iole Cappiello, David Lavan, and Adam Sanders; followed by Jay Parikh, Brian Malone, and Matt Swanson. We have now grown to almost 50 employees serving a wide spectrum of clients including major Universities, Health Care, K-12, Hospitality, Pharmaceutical, and High-Rise Residential markets in multiple states. We also grew our services to include full Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Fire Protection design for both new and existing buildings. Through all these changes, and as we brought in new engineers that began their careers at Elara, we have maintained the hands-on culture of our beginning. We want to thank our clients for their confidence and support over these last 20 years.
Steve Maze – Founder, Principa
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We knew we could make a difference. Don McLauchlan, Doug Smith, and I each with a unique skill set, but with one singular goal; provide a quality consulting experience. “Quality”… a focus we encountered in the 1990s while we owned a contracting company (Arrowhead Environmental Control) included taking full responsibility for the design, construction, and performance of our projects. That identical philosophy was the foundation for the 2001 formation of Elara. 20 years later Don and I along with partners Jay Parikh, Caitlin Levitsky, Brian Malone, Matt Swanson, Dustin Langille, and Bhupendra Tailor remain committed to that foundation. We teach it in different ways each day to our employees. 20 years from our beginning and again each partner with a unique skill, set but with one singular goal; provide a quality consulting experience. I know we are poised for another successful 20+ years.
Jay Parikh – Partner, Principal
After ten exciting years at Abbott Labs, I joined Elara as a Partner in July 2006 to fulfill a long-awaited dream of ownership. Elara started out as a small, close-knit family of 10 and has now expanded to nearly 50 employees because of its culture and platform of opportunities. The past 15 years have been an incalculable journey that has enhanced my professional development as a successful business partner and contributed to the growth of Elara. We have secured numerous ASHRAE awards, submitted articles for various publications, and conducted speaking engagements. We have helped clients secure energy rebates totaling over $6.5M over the last 10 years and continually work to reduce buildings’ environmental carbon footprint through innovative, cutting-edge designs.
Our culture, commitment, and dedication make the pillars of our foundation stronger, allowing us to groom and offer partnership to our young aspiring employees for the growth of this company. We may have started out in a small satellite rental office, but now Elara’s growth has allowed us to cater to clients throughout the country. We work to pave the path for our successors in hopes to lead Elara to an elite position in the engineering world.
Caitlin Levitsky – Partner, Associate Principal
Brian Malone – Partner, Associate Principal
Matt Swanson – Partner, Associate Principal
Dustin Langille – Partner, Associate Principal
Bhupendra Tailor – Partner, Associate Principal
For all of us, we have individually and collectively strived to ensure our firm’s passion for saving energy, advocating for our clients, creating cutting edge designs, and cultivating a fun learning environment for all our employees. As stewards for what has been achieved over last 20 years, we hope to see Elara continue to build and expand on these foundations as we grow in the future, adopt and advance new technologies, and implement new ways to empower our employees at all levels. Elara is continuously evolving and adapting to new challenges and we are excited to see how we can continue to contribute to our industry and our local and global communities through our work.
The Principals and Associate Principals of Elara Engineering wish to express our gratitude and appreciation to the many clients, vendors, suppliers, and former employees that have been part of our amazing and successful 20 years. We are excited, energized, and ever passionate about what we do, and we eagerly look forward to our next 20 years.
