Fastest Growing Companies | $250,000-$5M | 1st place
CEO (or equivalent): Charles Antone, co-founder and chief operating officer
2017 Revenue: $2,597,422
2015 Revenue: $556,478
Revenue growth: 366.8%
Old buildings, such as Providence’s City Hall, don’t necessarily have to be torn down and rebuilt, according to Building Enclosure Science LLC, a Providence-based construction consulting firm. In fact, City Hall is one of the historic-preservation projects Building Enclosure Science is working on.
“Some of these buildings have had five decades of Band-Aids put on them,” said Charles Antone, co-founder and chief operating officer of the company. Building Enclosure can offer the owners of buildings solutions that don’t require starting over with an expensive building project.
Founded in 2013, Building Enclosure Science provides designs to help with the rehabilitation of buildings, prepares plans based on its expertise in building materials, and provides research and testing. The company gives clients project budgets and schedules, handles the competitive bidding process, and performs contract administration, quality control and management during the rehabilitation design.
BES works with architects and engineering companies on solutions to find ways to preserve the buildings by looking at the structure, then providing design solutions for rehabilitation of the building enclosure.
Some of the buildings and projects it is working on or has worked on include the new engineering building at the University of Rhode Island’s South Kingstown campus, the Brown University Molecular Medicine Building and 101 Fountain St. in Providence.
The growing company has been participating in groundbreaking work in the American Society of Testing and Materials, and the American Architectural Manufacturers Association.
Before starting the company, Antone and his co-founder Michael E. Kenney, also president, worked with family-owned businesses and wanted to go out on their own. Rhode Island offered a wide-open market for them.
“No other firms were operating in the Greater Providence area,” said Antone. “It was logical to open up here.”
Building Enclosure Science recently purchased its building at 1 Thayer St. in Providence and has set down roots in Rhode Island.
“We hired people from Massachusetts because that is where the people doing the business were located,” said Antone. “Our employees are now relocating to Rhode Island.
“We’re in a competitive market and these are well-paying jobs we are bringing here,” he added. “This is technical work and a lot of expertise is required.”
After going from one to 16 employees since starting in 2013, Antone expects the company and the industry to grow as more businesses look at making changes in their current structure, rather than opt for an expensive rebuild.
“We hired our first employee after 10 months,” said Antone. “Then we started to explode.”
In the first year of business, BES spent most of its time, money and energy on getting the word out about its company and educating the public on what services it offers.
BES is now growing through the phase new companies go through when they try to catch up to their growth and develop their teams. Antone said there is plenty of work available, and he expects his company to be very busy in the long term while adding more employees.
“We are always recruiting and go to college engineering fairs,” he said.
Antone says he has a robust internship program, attracting students from schools that include Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Connecticut, Brown University and the University of Rhode Island. The uniqueness and the chance to be involved in a growing industry are attractive to future employees.
“There is a lot of training time involved,” said Antone. “We are getting students from architectural and engineering schools. They aren’t being taught what we do.”
After two years of growth, Antone expects his company to slow down this year, but to start growing again next year.
“There is a tremendous amount of work available,” he said.
