Philosophy
Firm Organization
IDG is a Pennsylvania based partnership. There are two partners: GRP Architecture Inc., owned by Greg Peterson RA, and TRH Architect Inc., owned by Todd Havekotte RA. Both are architecture, planning and interior design firms. We have structured our Partnership so that our individual corporations are the partners in order to provide you maximum benefits; e.g. lower overhead, simplified accounting, contractually committed staff ensuring consistent project teams, and access to the most experienced staff [the Principals] with market competitive rates.
IDG is an umbrella partnership for the two corporations owned by the Principals. IDG has no full time employees, as defined by the IRS. IDG does however, contract for production assistance available to us from our network of contract-staff. This is not a drafting service, but is a network of capable professionals who we know, and who know us. We have found an abundance of people who prefer the flexibility of our virtual office structure. The benefit to you is lower overhead and truly dedicated personnel [by contract] for your project. We are as big or as small as we need to be. All our contract-staff are linked through the use of our virtual office remote server, Ciphershare.
All those with responsibility for your project access the encrypted secure server and can post information, view current and previous versions of drawings and documents, post comments for others to act on, engage in live-time on-line chats with recorded logs for the record, send messages through email and maintain project archive records, and coordinate documentation as documents are developed.
All this...from anywhere in the world.
Firm Philosophy
IDG was envisioned as a different kind of company for the 21st Century, built to fully utilize the expertise and time of our people, and the technological resources available to better serve your needs. When we began IDG in 2003, our business plan was specifically designed to address issues clients had been asking of the profession for the last twenty years … issues the profession had refused to accommodate...until now.
"We want focused, priority treatment by consistent, qualified staff.”
In the traditional sense, we have no full time employees. Instead we have a carefully screened contract-staffed network directly trained and managed by the Principals. We use our network to staff the work under specific project agreements. This allows us the flexibility to be as big as we need to be with personnel dedicated by contract to meet the demands of your project.
You don’t pay the fully loaded employee cost or the expense of our down time, which translates to lower cost and greater value for you.
“We want Principal level involvement.”
So do we! The delta between our significantly lower overhead and market rate fees allows hands on Principal involvement. Principals will direct and actively produce your project as the primary contact and delivery point. Quality control is performed by the Principals … the people with the most experience watch the details of your project.
When you hire us...you get us.
“We don’t want to pay for overhead which has no direct benefit to us.”
At IDG we use technology to lower cost and connect the team. Our offices are the individual’s workstations located anywhere in the world and connected by a central remote server service … hardwired or wireless. You don’t pay for office space, or server network equipment, or IT personnel. We provide a completely secure networked site, accessible by all the players. Through Texo and the Ciphershare network, we offer virtual network technology connecting our clients, our staff, our consultants, and ourselves.
In short, you only pay for things that benefit you.
“We want personal service close by without paying for travel hours or overhead office cost.”
Our official registered office is at 227 Spring Run Road in Crescent, PA, near Pittsburgh International Airport. Our remote server network, with its live time “chat” and information exchange capabilities, covers most issues remotely. We believe that when face-to-face discussion is needed, however, that we should come to you not you to us.
Our office is wherever and whenever you are.
Quality Control
IDG’s Todd Havekotte, with 25 years of successful project coordination experience, leads the efforts and is responsible for all quality control processes and discipline coordination.
IDG’s proactive quality control plan is built into our business model:
- IDG’s practice is to conduct weekly discipline coordination discussions. Additionally IDG will lead specific discipline coordination efforts surrounding individual systems integration.
- The Principals provide hands-on work. The application of senior experience prevents problems as opposed to finding and fixing them latter in a quality control check.
- Our overhead allows us to put the most experienced people on the project, not just managing less experienced people.
- The people doing the work are the ones who, in most firms, would be performing quality control, discipline coordination reviews...a built in quality control program.
- We require consultants to provide us with their own QC review log.
- We commit to an independent third party construction services firm to perform periodic document review, discipline coordination review, and constructability review.
