MMY becomes a little bit greener by having another LEED AP on staff. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council as “nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.” Ken Green joins Chris Hartnett as being a LEED Accredited Professional at MMY, having taken and passed the LEED AP exam. MMY has already been involved with several LEED certified projects. Learn more about LEED at the USGBC’s website.

MMY is happy to welcome two new additions to our family.  Both of our Melissa’s are celebrating “life-changing events!!”  Melissa Moening became Melissa Breiter when she married Pete in April.  Co-workers and friends were well represented at the ceremony and reception.  Damaging pictures and videos are up for auction on Ebay.  Sorry Eric, you’ve already been outbid.

Melissa Stolsky and husband Ben announced that they are expecting a baby in September.  We’re of course delighted by the news and are awaiting the first pictures — we found out ultrasounds can do more than locate rebar in concrete, who knew?!  Rumor has it that Ben has already started shopping for skates for the baby and has plans to have him or her on the ice this coming winter.

As one of the few structural engineering firms that has long provided services to homeowners and residential contractors, we’ve gained a great deal of experience specific to these types of projects.  We’re sharing some of that knowledge as we create more of the Residential Information White Papers. We’ve just added an article on Basement Wall Cracking (2.2 Mb) and discuss some of the causes of these cracks and some options for repair. Feel free to contact us if you have questions.

David Macdonald was honored in December, 2008 by AIA Minnesota at their annual awards banquet. David was given a special award by the organization to recognize his creativity, skills and clever solutions in his service to the architectural community as a structural engineer. The award that he received reads: “AIA Minnesota presents this Certificate of Award to David Macdonald for outstanding skill and creative solutions for the architectural profession as a structural engineer”.

Read the full announcement here.

MMY has always tried to help Homeowners and Residential Contractors provide safe, professional and reasonable structural solutions to new construction and remodel work. Over the years we’ve assisted in structural reviews for sellers and buyers of homes, remodeling from a single beam or header to large scale additions, attic remodels and “getting rid of that column” so the pool table can fit in the basement.  Take a look to the left for some helpful information about Residential Structural work. We’ll continue to add to this, so be sure to visit us again.

If you have questions, please contact us, we’d love to help.

We need to note that means Dave Macdonald also celebrates 25 years as an employee, and co-founder, of MMY.  We were so busy planning the Holiday Party that we almost missed it. The place where we work and the way we produce it may have changed in the last 25 years, but the philosophy that Dave and Wes founded the firm with remains.

Take a look at About MMY here.

Mattson Macdonald Young was pleased to be a contributing sponsor of the Homes by Architects Tour, produced by AIA Minnesota.

See how Mattson Macdonald Young was involved in the design of some of the homes on the tour, which includes Dave and Ellen Macdonald’s home:Homes by Architects news.

The tour took place at the end of September and was a great success.  Dave and Ellen’s house had a little over 300 people walk through in the two days!

This year, Mattson Macdonald Young is proud to have won an Adaptive Reuse Award from the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota for our involvement in helping to preserve the first Beaux-Arts style building built in Minneapolis, MN. The former Pillsbury Library has been revived into an office building that met ADA-accessible entrance requirements, preserved original stained glass skylights, and provided an environmentally green building. The new ADA entrance was a steel frame addition that needed to match existing architecture while creating new openings into the existing 100 year old building. Other structural analysis and design included reinforcing existing wood roof beams and clay tile/concrete floor arches to meet current load requirements.

We also received a Restoration/Rehabilitation Award for our involvement in the restoration of the Warden’s House in Stillwater, MN for the State of Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater. This work was a large undertaking to restore decades of deferred maintenance in the over 150 year old building. Structural work was also needed to meet new use conditions while keeping the existing architecture intact. Many structural challenges were abound when melding bygone wood frame construction methods to today’s methods.

There are some new faces around MMY lately.  Kerry Rauschendorfer, Shannon Pierce, Philip Cici and Kirk Davis have all been working hard since they came on board.  We’ve tried keeping them busy, but being young they tend to need more than “just engineering” to keep them busy.

• Shannon ran in Grandma’s Marathon this summer, finished in 4 hours, 9 minutes — and still showed up at work on Monday.
• Kerry spent a month traveling in Africa this spring.  The trip sounded incredible, but we’re still waiting to see the photos.
• Phil managed to get engaged at the end of this summer.  He even performed it in a unique way that has most of the guys swearing Phil against telling their wives.
• Kirk began as an intern last summer and has opted to remain.  In the meantime, he’s gotten married, is the proud daddy of Maylee and is finishing up his Civil Engineering degree at the U of M.  Sleep is optional for Kirk at this point.