The newly appointed seven-person executive team at Lynk Engineers includes leaders from each of the three legacy firms:
• Chris Kobayashi, CEO (formerly President, Spectrum Engineers)
• Scott Hardy, President (formerly CFO, Envision Engineering)
• Jarrett Capstick, COO—Mechanical Engineering (formerly Principal, Colvin Engineering)
• Aleksandar Rankovic, COO—Electrical Engineering (formerly Principal, Envision Engineering)
Serving as Executive Advisors are:
• Dave Wesemann (formerly CEO, Spectrum Engineers)
• Steve Connor (formerly President, Colvin Engineering)
• Jeff Owen (formerly Founder and CEO, Envision Engineering)
"This merger is a significant step forward—for our teams, our clients, and the communities we serve," said Kobayashi. "By uniting our legacy firms, we’re creating a stronger, more connected MEPT practice with the scale, talent, and technology to deliver smarter, more resilient solutions."
"All three companies have worked extensively together over the past 30-plus years [and] have had a similar client base, and by virtue of client selection, we have been teamed up together on many projects," said Owen, citing major building and infrastructure projects like the $5.1 billion Salt Lake City Airport Redevelopment, the $85 million University of Utah Electrical Infrastructure Upgrade, and the $1.05 billion Utah State Correctional Facility as examples of past collaboration efforts. "Those past relationships were incredibly significant in building trust. We realized early in the merger process that, although we could have a written agreement in place that the merger would be based on, we still needed trust to move the company forward in a positive, successful direction after the merger. Through the projects we’ve worked on together, that trust was built. and so when merger discussion began, we already had a solid basis from which to build."
"The electrical engineers on the vast majority of our projects were Spectrum or Envision," said Connor. "I grew up in the industry with Dave and Jeff, and our firms have collaborated for years, so combining our talents was a remarkably easy decision."
"Simply put, the merger makes sense,” added Wesemann. "Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and technology systems are deeply interconnected in modern building design. By bringing the brightest and best MEPT talent together, we further elevate service to our clients and produce smarter, faster, more sustainable outcomes. We’re excited to bring top talent in Utah together."
Teaming Up Trending in the Beehive State
It's no secret that significant mergers and acquisitions are becoming more prominent within Utah's A/E/C community, as firms seek to expand their respective capabilities in the interest of competing for, and landing, the biggest and most challenging projects, not just within the state, but regionally.
Combining three top-shelf firms like Spectrum, Colvin, and Envision into one entity and uniting their vast, complimentary expertise and shared values allows the firm to immediately strengthen overall MEPT skill sets, creating a more integrated, technologically advanced platform to deliver services and reinforce long-term relationships while advancing growth.
“Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and technology systems are deeply interconnected in modern building design. By bringing the brightest and best MEPT talent together, we further elevate service to our clients and produce smarter, faster, more sustainable outcomes.”
— Dave Wesemann
"We’ve seen this as a national trend for many years and have worked on building this into the Utah market for the past two decades," said Wesemann. "In other states, it’s commonplace for clients to hire one firm to do all MEP."
"For years, Utah has been an outlier when it came to large, integrated MEP firms—we’ve kept the mechanical and electrical largely separate," said Connor. "Nationally, the default is MEP, and there’s a lot of good reasons to combine the disciplines in one firm, since our systems interact with each other so much.”
The merger also helps fend off competition from large, prominent national firms who are increasingly eyeing Utah as a fruitful design and construction market.
"It’s no secret that Utah has a hot market and national MEPT firms want a piece of it," added Owen. "To remain competitive on larger projects, we felt that it was essential to create one strong combined MEPT firm.”
He emphasized the belief among executives that consultant selection for certain project types is based more on relationships than a requirement to have all MEPT services under one roof.
“For example, consultant selections in the K-12 market are based more so on local relationships with disciplines being selected from various groups,” Owen said. “We ultimately respect our clients’ choice when it comes to who they want to choose for MEPT services, whether that be in one multidisciplinary firm or consultants being selected across multiple engineering firms. We’re not here to push it one way or another, but to provide solid options for our clients."
Lynk leaders added that although there are just a few firms in Utah that offer both architectural and engineering services, they don't intend to add the “A” to their robust “E” offerings.
"To remain competitive on larger projects, we felt that it was essential to create one strong combined MEPT firm; however, we also firmly believe that consultant selection for certain project types is based more on relationships than a requirement to have all MEPT services under one roof."
—Jeff Owen
"Branch offices are already being established by national A/E design firms here in Utah, and we believe that trend will continue," said Owen. "Unless Utah-based architectural and engineering design firms have unique niche market services to offer nationally or internationally as one combined source, they will, for the most part, remain separate sources in our opinion."
"Certainly, the largest national firms are A/E, but it remains to be seen if that model works in our market," said Connor.
"We haven’t seen a lot of architect/engineer firms in Utah, although there are some nationally," Wesemann added. "Our plan is to stay with engineering only and continue to support all of our architect clients."
