McKinstry's Moment

Amid the sea of people braving the Washington, D.C., cold during Barack Obama’s inauguration, stood Dean Allen, CEO of the Seattle-based McKinstry Company.

It was happenstance more than anything else that made his presence possible. Allen, who for months had found his company uniquely and surprisingly tied to the Obama campaign, was planning a family reunion with his two grown children at the nation’s capital on the week of Jan. 20. So, Allen and his wife, Vicki, decided to take the opportunity to experience this historic moment and, perhaps, take in a ball or two.

But it is also fitting that Allen was able to attend the inauguration. After all, the swearing-in of Obama as president could potentially mean more to the full-service mechanical contractor and engineering company than Allen could ever have imagined.

McKinstry and Obama became inexorably linked after an unexpected visit by the presidential candidate in February of last year before a rally at Seattle’s KeyArena.

According to Allen—who says, for the record, that McKinstry remains politically neutral—Obama’s advance team had conferred with the staffs of Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels about the fact that Obama would have some free time before the rally and was interested in touring a nearby business that was involved in the “green” energy movement. The local democratic leaders offered up the McKinstry Co.

The firm has long been expanding its mechanical engineering business beyond designing and building new electrical and mechanical systems to include managing those same systems once the projects are completed. The idea being that McKinstry can manage all the machines that make a building work through their life cycles, and retrofit those machines and systems as the buildings mature.

This isn’t a new idea. Other companies, such as Seattle-based MacDonald Miller, are also using the same techniques. But at the moment, McKinstry’s servicing and retrofitting business is in high demand. It’s easy to see why. Experts estimate that America wastes between 30 percent and 50 percent of the energy we all use; our concrete, glass and steel fortresses of business are among the worst sinners, squandering about 40 percent of the energy used to heat, light and keep them running.

So, anything companies like McKinstry can do to make systems work more efficiently will save clients energy, money and even reduce their carbon footprint.

“It is a

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