About

Rick Barker is involved in most of our work, and all our tall building work. His background provides an unusually strong basis for this:

Prior to co-founding our firm he was Director of Technical Services at Otis Elevator World HQ, where he led technical services for major projects worldwide, and product strategy for the tall building product Skyway™. He chaired the product committee for elevator group dispatching and system planning & simulation tools, the first modern Otis strategy for product energy efficiency, co-led the Odyssey™ system integrating elevators and Automated People Movers, was the liaison for Otis WHQ & United Technologies Research Center, and was awarded 24 Otis patents.

Earlier, he led vertical transportation for Jaros Baum & Bolles (JB&B) Consulting Engineers in New York, where he was involved with the firm’s then-largest projects. At JB&B he led design of the special VT system for the 100-story Tour San Fins Paris, BDNI in Jakarta, and a major study for Sears (now Willis) Tower - resulting in an innovation for door controls for stack effect. Earlier, he was with Delta Elevator in Boston (now Otis) as elevator modernization manager, and with Westinghouse Elevator (now Schindler) in field, sales engineering, and other roles with high-rise and transit projects in the Northeast USA. See the link to our co-founders' Past Projects with other firms.

Rick has authored published works on super-speed elevators, an integrated horizontal-vertical transportation system for tall buildings or airports, multi-purpose elevators for fire emergencies (in 1995 with conclusions reflected in the 2009 IBC), and improved “VT” techniques for super–tall buildings. He was formerly a member of the National Interest Review Group of the ASME-A17 Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators, and ASME-A17.1 Emergency Operations Committee (and related NYC-NYFD elevator committees for fire safety, and a joint ASME-NIST-NYFD task group). He chaired the Vertical & Short-Distance Horizontal Transportation Committee for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, has guest lectured at MIT School of Architecture and recently at Parsons The New School for Design, and is a contributor to an upcoming book on sustainable super-tall buildings.

Rick Barker is involved in most of our work, and all our tall building work. His background provides an unusually strong basis for this:

Prior to co-founding our firm he was Director of Technical Services at Otis Elevator World HQ, where he led technical services for major projects worldwide, and product strategy for the tall building product Skyway™. He chaired the product committee for elevator group dispatching and system planning & simulation tools, the first modern Otis strategy for product energy efficiency, co-led the Odyssey™ system integrating elevators and Automated People Movers, was the liaison for Otis WHQ & United Technologies Research Center, and was awarded 24 Otis patents.

Earlier, he led vertical transportation for Jaros Baum & Bolles (JB&B) Consulting Engineers in New York, where he was involved with the firm’s then-largest projects. At JB&B he led design of the…

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