As a teen-ager, Kirk Harman loved watching buildings go up. Today at 52, he is riding a boom in casino construction as president of the Harman Group of King of Prussia, the only structural engineering firm in Pennsylvania with significant gaming experience.
In 2001, his firm landed the coveted Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa project in Atlantic City, a towering Las Vegas-style mega-casino. Now its credits include the Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos, Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Wilkes Barre, the parking garage at Harrah’s Chester Casino and Racetrack, and the Majestic Star Casino and Valley View Downs, both in Pittsburgh.
Harman has landed the Foxwoods and SugarHouse accounts in Philadelphia. In New Jersey, it is working on the $2.5 billion Revel Entertainment Group casino on the Boardwalk and is wrapping up work on the new hotel towers at the Borgata and Trump Taj Mahal.
A graduate of Lafayette College and Drexel University, Harman started a firm with Jim Cagley in 1984, then in 2004 bought out Cagley and created the Harman Group, now with three other shareholders -- Janis Vacca, Malcolm Bland and Cliff Schwinger.
Q: Why did you get into this line of work?
A: When I was in high school I worked for a residential contractor in the summers, and I was completely thrilled with the whole prospect of building things. Although after a couple of summers digging ditches and cleaning out completed homes and all that labor-type work, it was clear it’d be a really good idea to go to college and do something in the construction process.
Q: Can you describe structural engineering?
A: Think of it like the human body. Without the skeleton, what would happen? Our design keeps the building standing.
Q: How has your company expanded along with the expansion of gaming in this region?
A: Well, we’re over 60 people now. We have offices in Philadelphia, King of Prussia, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas. We opened in Las Vegas in August of 2007. A number of our gaming clients, both casino owners and architects, are headquartered in Las Vegas, so it was a natural for us to go ahead and open a office there to service those clients.
Q: What’s been your best casino?
A: When we were awarded the Borgata, that became a great stepping stone to the next level for us. Nothing had been built in Atlantic City for some 13 years, and the Borgata was the biggest state-of-the-art, most unbelievable project for Atlantic City. It was 4.5 million square feet for the first phase alone. The largest thing ever built in Atlantic City prior to that was probably 1 million to 1.5 million square feet. ... And it was a $1 billion project. There had never been a project in Atlantic City with a budget starting with a "B."
Q: With casinos now so much bigger and grander and architecturally pleasing to look at , what are you seeing as far as trends?
A: Just in the last five years, projects have gone from what was at the time unbelievable -- a billion dollar project. Now there are $2.5 billion projects. So they’re getting larger. ...
One of the things that everybody in our office likes most about the gaming industry is that the name of the game is to make it bigger, better and different. Each project is completely different, and everybody is trying to achieve the next level. So for us as engineers, it’s always a new and challenging project.
Q: With older properties, is it sometimes better just to start over and reconstruct?
A: Absolutely. It’s difficult to take an old property and convert it and make it new because of the physical constraints.
Q: With the casino building boom, is there a shortage of engineers who do this type of work?
A: There is. It’s improving, a little bit. But there’s a shortage overall of engineers graduating from colleges and universities, and that’s been a problem for the last 10 or 15 years. Nobody with over five years of experience walks in the door looking for a job with us that’s ready to go.
Q: With the supply and demand pressures, is the cost of materials to build these things going up?
A: There was a jump about two years ago of something in the order of a 30 percent jump for construction materials, particularly steel. China went into a boom and started sucking a lot of material off the world market. ...
And with the increase in gasoline, fuel and oil -- all construction materials is heavily laden with transportation costs, so all those things have caused construction to move up.
Q: I know you just expanded to Las Vegas, but what’s the end goal for the Harman Group?
A: One of our goals is to double our size over the next 12 years.
Q: Last year was a good one for your firm financially?
A: Yes. We blew through last year’s goal by 15 to 20 percent in terms of net revenue. We made over $8 million annual. In our business, net revenue means net of any sub-consultants. We have gross fees, and then you take out what you’ve paid out to subcontractors and sub-consultants. So our fees were substantially over $8 million.
Q: What would be your advice to an 18-year old, budding structural engineer?
A: Work for a firm that is doing exciting, large scale, complex, interesting projects. Get experience. The salary stuff will come. Paramount is the experience. ...
Another item I would give them is they ought to get a master’s degree. The structural engineering industry is becoming more and more complicated and more highly technical. A young engineer with a master’s degree comes out better prepared and will naturally move up faster because they have that additional technical training that a master’s gives you.
