Richard Vezie & Associates

About Richard Vezie & Associates

Richard officially started his construction career in 1970 with a four-year carpentry apprenticeship. His early work was in commercial construction. Then, in 1978, he became a general contractor, mostly designing and building for residential and light commercial projects.

"As a carpenter, I've worked on everything from bridges and large commercial or industrial buildings to homes and small remodel projects. As a building designer, I've designed numerous light commercial projects, homes, additions, and remodels."

Since he especially enjoyed the design aspect of his work, Richard slowly began an effort to do design exclusively. He started his design practice, Richard Vezie & Associates, in 1988, and now works exclusively in Southern Oregon, with his office in Ashland.

"While I've had employees in the past, I am now a sole proprietor of my business. I do everything having to do with my business. Wearing many hats keeps it interesting."

Richard's top business priority is to provide excellent, cost-effective solutions for his clients.

"I get many strange and interesting projects. There's something about the problem-solving I thoroughly enjoy, and the answers always seem to come."

The challenge

As a building designer, Richard generally works with licensed engineers when he encounters project elements beyond his capabilities or when required by building codes. For routine design work, he began computerizing his work with a CAD system in 1989.

"I started using a structural design software when it first appeared in the late 90s, and I had been using it until I discovered Calcs.com."

According to Richard, since another company took over the software he was using, the support had not been the same - and as a sole proprietor, he needed structural software that is intuitive, easy to learn, and offers excellent support.

"I searched the web off and on for months to find the right solution. I read lots of comments and reviewed plenty of website ads."

"The way Calcs.com was presented made sense to me. I knew the trial would cost me some time, but the potential seemed worth the risk. I'm glad I tried it out."

Effective customer support

In Calcs.com, Richard relies on a range of calculators including wood beam, wood column, and concrete spread footing calculators, as well as occasional steel beam and column calculators.

The technical and overall support he received from the start convinced Richard to continue using Calcs.com as his design software.

"Great support is essential to me, and Calcs.com gets that. Calcs.com has actual people on support staff that appear actually to give a rip about their customers."

"That's the way I try to run my business. I want to be a great value to my clients. I believe Calcs.com shares those values. You folks also seem to understand that at the heart of it, you are a service business."

Easy to use for non-engineers

Richard relies on and greatly appreciates the seamless load linking integration that Calcs.com offers. He also values the simplified output that caters to the needs of structural designers who are not engineers.

"The folks in the field who are end users of my drawing plans don't want a lot of stuff on my drawings that they don't need or understand. They're hot, dirty, tired, and just want to know what they're supposed to do. I used to be one of them."

This practical approach has served Richard well. Over 60% of his business is with repeat clients, and the rest have been direct referrals - a track record built without advertising.

Learning as a business investment

Looking ahead, Richard is allocating more time for learning as part of the next phase of his business. To this end, Richard said the educational aspects of Calcs.com offer great promise.

"Over the years, working alongside structural engineers, I've gained a lot of knowledge, but there are still moments when I come across something unfamiliar."

"One of the things that I dig about Calcs.com is it has all those code references in there. So when I get to a part of the calculation that I'm not particularly familiar with, I can use that data to go directly to the code sourcebook, pull it apart, and find out why the calculation works that way."

"I've been at this a lot of years, and I still enjoy learning. I'm learning from Calcs.com and that's a good thing. Learning new things may take away from my profits, but I see it as an investment."

When asked how he would convince a friend to try Calcs.com, Richard's response was direct: