My name is Mike McMahon, and I'm the founder of Encompass.  I am a project management and business development executive with extensive experience in construction engineering and senior management.  From my early work as a Project Manager to my more recent executive assignments at Fluor Corporation, Jacobs Engineering, CRS Sirrine, and my project management-consulting firm, I have been an active and dedicated contributor to the EPC industry, with recognized achievement in project turnarounds, business development, managing key accounts, process controls, and improvements, startups, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and profit improvement initiatives.

 

In 1981, during a Fluor training class, our facilitator asked two questions.  The first was, "How do you want to be remembered as a person after you die?"  The second was, "How do you want to be remembered in your profession after you die?"  I don't know what I said about the first, but the second has always stayed with me.  What would I want the engineering and construction industry, my profession, to think of me?  I wanted my epitaph to read, "The engineering and construction industry is better off because Mike was here."  

 

I wondered how I would do that.  I entered the EPC world with an unorthodox background: an economics degree from the University of Cincinnati.  What was I going to add to the equation? What could I contribute to a world of architects, engineers, and tradesmen who collectively represented thousands of years of "the right kind" of experience? 

 

The answer came to me in 1985 while attending a roofing subcontractor meeting. I observed that questions were coming from all corners of the room, but no one had a comprehensive list of questions to ensure the project's successful roofing program.  There was no consistency or way to transfer knowledge from one job to the next, aside from the mix of people.

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After the meeting, I spent about an hour meeting with each participant, asking how they remembered, from project to project, the right questions to ensure the roofing would be successful.  Some said, "Well, I've done this 10 times, and I just remember." Another said, "I just look at the specs." Another said, "I've got a few notes scattered in notebooks that I try to pull together before these types of meetings." The subcontract administrator said, "I just refer to the previous project contract notes."  

 

After speaking with these people, I identified 4 additional questions that should have been asked in that meeting, in addition to the 23 discussed.  I then went to the field.  I asked the roofing subcontractor superintendent what he was worried about on this project.  He raised 17 additional issues for me to address.  To fast-forward, I followed this specific contractor throughout the project.  19 other issues were raised.  So, we started with 23 questions when it should have been 63.  Today, the Beacon roofing checklist lists 104 issues related to roofing quality and 44 related to safety, contracts, and administration.

 

For the remainder of that project, I asked anyone who would speak with me about their respective responsibilities.  By the time the project was completed, I had created a checklist of over 3,000 questions.  I engaged 37 people across all aspects of the job, drawing on nearly 750 years of collective EPC experience. The EPC Beacon system originated with that first checklist.  This was an organized approach to moving to the next project and beyond, leveraging accumulated knowledge.

 

Importantly, Beacon wasn't built by a think tank of brilliant engineers and architects.  I did get their input, but I also went into the field to gather information from the people who dug the ditches, set steel, hung process pipe, and pulled electrical cable.  I got it from the owner, who was frustrated by missed schedules or cost overruns.  I received it from vendors who were given incorrect information or who showed up on-site to install equipment when nothing was ready. In other words, Beacon by Encompass was developed from the knowledge of the folks who know what they're talking about because they've done it.  More than 2,000 industry professionals, each with an average of 20 years of experience, have reviewed or contributed to our system. 

 

After 35 years of passionate information collection, the Beacon by Encompass has compiled over 50,000 pages of knowledge into over 1 million specific, proactive, actionable questions across over 13,000 industry-best checklists, forms, procedures, and testing and training documentation.   

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Our mission is to provide a one-of-a-kind set of products and consulting services to significantly reduce the risks that affect cost, schedule, quality, and safety throughout the life cycle of any project.