In second grade, Helen Watts declared that she wanted to be an engineer and build things. With a passion for turning design on paper into structures and buildings, Helen and Nathan Powelson, who also knew from a young age that he wanted to go into engineering, make up the structural expertise leaders at Criterium Engineers.

We sat with Helen and Nate, delving into the back-story of this powerful duo and how they are changing how engineering is done, turning it into a collaborative team process with the help of ClearCalcs. 

# About Criterium Engineers

Founded in 1957 and now one of the US-leading structural engineering consulting firms, Criterium Engineers helps building owners, homeowner associations, real estate investors, and contractors understand the buildings they own, manage, or purchase. 

In Helen’s own words: “We do a different bunch of core things at Criterium. One of them is what you call a traditional design shop, and then we also do reserve study for condominium associations, as well as building inspections.”

# How Criterium Engineers supercharge their design workflow with ClearCalcs

Across its offices, the company reviews about 200 engineering designs annually, 75% to 85% of which are done in ClearCalcs. 

“When structural things come up, it’s my job to make sure everyone in the organization know about it.”

One of Helen’s role as the structural expert leader is to allocate structural design work to the team within the organization. The design query could come externally from customers, or internally from Criterium Engineers’ many offices around the country, and the designs can vary from a straightforward to complicated.

## Speeding up routine design analysis

“The majority of our calculations, unless it’s something very odd, are done in ClearCalcs.”, Nate said.

According to Nate, in a lifecycle of the project, a client may approach Criterium and say, “Hey, I want to do this to my building. And we’ll say, okay, we can do some of that, but we can't take out all the supports in your house unless you want to run steel beams and turn it into a moment frame. And they're like, oh, that sounds expensive. We thought this was going to be pennies on the dollar.”

“And then we take what we do in ClearCalcs into CAD, or have someone drafted it, send it to the client.”

Nate concurs to the power of ClearCalcs in speeding up their work as a team.

![how_to_change_materials_clearcalcs.gif](https://clearcalcs-prod2-cms.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/how_to_change_materials_clearcalcs_e927842b24.gif)

“Here [at Criterium Engineers], we seem to get one request a week: ‘Hey, if I put this steel beam on the bottom of this 200 year old timber, how much strength do I get?’ Getting a program to do that versus spending hours writing through that is something that we're highly interested to save time.”

## Handling complex design and calculations

Every once in a while, Helen said, a complex design comes her way that her team wants her ‘to fix’.

“For example, just about a week and a half ago, Nate said to me, ‘wow, this is another really weird connection.’ I'm like, yeah, there's another one coming. And the only way that I can evaluate them is by using tools like ClearCalcs.”

“We had a guy who wanted to put a roof deck over the entrance to his little residential building.  He wanted basically no post and VMS (visible means of support). So we gave him one option, and we gave him another one which is a whole lot simpler and cheaper. We run this all of this scenario in ClearCalcs.”   

“Anyone can design a new building, it takes a real engineer to figure out how to get new and 120 year old framing to play well together.“, Nate quipped. 

“I also like the speed at which you can do the what-ifs with the utilization checks”, Helen added.

![utiization-checks.gif](https://clearcalcs-prod2-cms.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/utiization_checks_08e98d1649.gif)

“For example, a client wanted to get rid of the rafter ties, so Nate and I got on Zoom and I said, what if we do this and the utilization check lights went all red. What if we stick it this way? And we got the green light. I like the way the painful stuff are now speedy”.

## Reviewing projects across teams 

Structural engineering review is an important part of the project workflow at Criterium Engineers. Every project is reviewed by another engineer before it goes out.

“Criterium is really big in that nothing goes out without getting a second review,” Helen says.

Doing the design in ClearCalcs and being able export the printout  means our calculations are legible and other engineers can review it.

![[BLOG] printout-example.jpg](https://clearcalcs-prod2-cms.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/BLOG_printout_example_c5f754db1c.jpg)

“Part of the reasons why we went with ClearCalcs was when we looked at the various programs, Nate liked the output on ClearCalcs and how the platform explains what was going on. It meant it was easier for him to review my works and vice versa.”, Helen says.

“I like that I can follow ClearCalcs on my own”, added Nate. 

“Nate and I work really well together because I come from construction and he from the design side of it. So, we’re very yin and yang, and I think it makes our design much stronger when we work together”.

# What has improving their design workflow with ClearCalcs done to Criterium Engineers?

Criterium has more than 30 franchise offices across the United States and Canada, comprising mostly of mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. 

“And if they need to know anything about structural engineering, they will normally ask Nate or me.”

Using ClearCalcs has really transformed the way Criterium team collaborates with each other. In addition to the webinars they host to share knowledge with the franchise offices, Helen said the ability to run analysis collaboratively on ClearCalcs online means there is a cross pollination of knowledge that makes the engineers in her team smarter.

“If you want to go and do something, I’ll say, let’s get on Zoom, bring up ClearCalcs and I’ll talk you through it.”

How Criterium Engineers is changing how engineering is done, turning it into a collaborative team process with the help of ClearCalcs. 

Megan and her team at High Plains Enginering & Consulting recently adopted ClearCalcs as part of the company-wide initiative to do things better, so we sat with Megan to understand how ClearCalcs came to be the solution for her team, why did they chose us and if ClearCalcs is solving High Plains’ problem. 

# About High Plains Engineering

Located in Weld County out of Denver, Colorado, High Plains provides both structural and geotechnical engineering expertise for residential, commercial, and agricultural clients. 

“A lot of our clients are residential people coming in. They'll want to build a house. So they'll come in and they'll have like a sketch up of the layout that they want. So we put together the architectural plans and the structural plans, and then we'll go out and do the geo-tech as well.“

“We do a lot of pre-engineered metal building foundation. We also have a lot of agricultural clients up in Weld County, people who are building outhouses, pull barns and whatnots. So a lot of wood structures.”

# The Challenge

Megan, who recently joined the High Plains team, came in with the wealth of her experience in commercial buildings. One of the highest priorities right now is increasing the efficiency for her team. 

Being able to do designs quickly, Megan says will make a lot of difference to their workflow at High Plains.

## Ease of use and doing things faster 

For example, when training younger engineers, being able to to get them to go into ClearCalcs and learn to design quickly will be a big plus. 

 “We have engineer drafters who want to get more design experience. So being able to say that ‘hey, I want you to design this beam” instead of telling them what the beam design is and have them draft it is top priority for us.”

“That way we’re not wasting a ton of time going through designs, for example, what should take 30 seconds is taking 30 minutes.”

## Cloud-based for access anywhere, anytime

So far, being able to access ClearCalcs anywhere because the software is cloud-based is a major plus for Megan, especially as she looks to the future with her evolving role at High Plains. 

“So what I did when I first tried the software, I created a test project. And then I sent out an email to my whole team and say, ‘hey, I created this test project. Go in and play with it’. It was nice that no matter where we were, like today, we’re getting a ton of snow, so pretty much everybody’s working remotely. So it’s nice being able to have the ability for everybody to go in online and see each other calcs.”

## One-stop engineering software for everyone

Looking ahead, Megan aims streamline the use of ClearCalcs for the company’s entire operation. This means having not only engineers use ClearCalcs but also drafters and designers as well as reviewers so the entire QA & QC processes are streamlined and more efficient. 

“Hopefully I can get the entire team on the same page. What we want is one software that we can go to, to do 90% of our calculations.”

And most importantly, Megan believes having an inclusive software that is easy to learn and use for everyone is going to be the key for the team as High Plains continue to grow. 

“You know, the majority of the people at our company, we’re all about the same age. But what happens when, if, we hire somebody that’s 15 years older than us who’re set in his ways, or what happens when we hire somebody right out of school, who doesn’t necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of all software programs. So just the ease of learning the program is going to be top priority for when we grow as a company.”

High Plains Engineering & Consulting adopted ClearCalcs as part of the company-wide initiative to do things better.

# About Dynamic Analysis

[Dynamic Analysis](https://dynamic-mt.com/) is a boutique civil and structural engineering firm based in Billings, Montana. The company focuses on offering specialized consulting for residential and low-rise commercial projects.

We recently caught up with Sam, Dynamic Analysis’ Principal and an experienced engineer in mining, transport, and manufacturing construction. 

# The Challenge

According to Sam, Dynamic Analysis generally deals with an equal split of designing for new builds - whether they are additions, remodels, or entirely new buildings- and reviewing repair plans. 

“Our workflow is generally drafting a model of what we’re building, and then breaking them into sizing beams and foundations before using a program to determine environmental loading for wind and snow.”

While the company has used a structural design analysis and calculations software in addition to its own Excel spreadsheets before, Sam said, one of the limitations the team encountered was that the structural members are not tied together. 

“We’ll go through each structural member and go back and forth between drafting and running calculations. When there’s a clash in size, we would go back, reiterate through the building again.””The [product we used] was so cheap before that it just made tolerating the bugs and issues fine, but, when [the product we used] updated their pricing, all of a sudden it didn’t make a lot of sense.”

# How ClearCalcs helps

For Sam and his team, after starting to use ClearCalcs late last year. ClearCalcs has become the tool they use for almost all of their projects.

“We are juggling 7 to 9 projects right now with many more coming in. Most of them, small stuff, anything from people just wanting to open up a bearing wall and put a beam in which [ClearCalcs] has been pretty handy for, and then to just full new residential houses.”

“The usability of the software has been nice. It is very clear to see what the software is doing when it comes to the calculations.”

## Linking Loads Dynamically 

One feature that Sam found most valuable in ClearCalcs is being able to [link the load path dynamically](https://support.clearcalcs.com/article/24-linking-reactions-between-beams-and-columns-load-path-tracking) from one structural member to another. 

“Easily the worst part when using [the previous product] is having to update the calculations if we make any changes and having that roll through everything.”

Before using ClearCalcs, Sam and his team usually generate a printout that gave them individual dead loads, live loads, snow loads, and wind loads for each member. 

“So anytime there’s a change, you got to go back, start over and redo the first calculation, get those loads, pull up the next calculation, read over from one screen what those load reactions were, and enter them individually. It was just a massive time suck to make one small change.”

With ClearCalcs’ load linking feature, reactions between members as point loads or line loads are dynamically tracked, so the loads inherited into the lower member are always updated automatically.

“Just the simple feature of being able to link load is a really big time-saver,” Sam said.

## Automatically Generated Loads

Having the option to use presets in ClearCalcs’ calculations was also a useful feature for Sam and his team. 

For example, getting access to different presets like ridge beam, roof rafter, or ceiling joist with prefilled settings in [wood beam calculations](https://clearcalcs.com/calculations/us/timberBeamASD) means they can save time in their projects.

“Being able to be specific about what type of beam you’re using is really nice. If we’re sizing a Ridge Beam, it just automatically throws in what our snow loads are. All we need to do is assign the width of the building and then pick our beam; that’s the only two inputs it requires. It’s already got all the loads in there, and it figures out the tributary area and knows what forces are coming down on it. It just takes like  30 seconds.”

“It’s not something I ever really thought I needed, but it’s a handy feature.”

## Helpful Reports

The ClearCalcs’ automatically generated and standardized reports have also been indispensable to Sam and his team.

“We generally use the printout for our internal checks. When someone puts together a calculation, and it’s ready for review, we run through and look at what assumptions they’ve made in their calculations.“

“We find ClearCalcs report way more helpful than some of what we’ve seen in the market. For example, [with the previous product], I’d print out a report, and I just had no idea if it worked or not. It basically just puked out a ton of information, and I find myself asking, is this okay or not?”

In contrast, having ClearCalcs printouts break down our calculation into all the different failure modes and into what’s governing or where it’s failing is very valuable to Sam. 

“Especially for repair plans, then we can really demonstrate if we had got an issue, we can just run through existing conditions and say, okay, this is this type of failure or bending failure. When we run this member through with these loads, we’re seeing we’re at 400% capacity.”

“So everything checks out that this thing is failing in bending, we need to make something stronger.”

“We also keep a little catalog of all of our calculations. Depending on the jurisdictional area, they’ll sometimes require a calculation set for a permit plan review, so we’ll use those.”

Dynamic Analysis needed a new direction for their structural design calculations and how ClearCalcs offers them what they needed and more. 

Wood Design to the National Design Standard (NDS) - including dimensioned lumber, timber, glulams, and LVLs

Software for American Standards

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Support for dynamic load linking between wood beams and columns. No need to manually copy and paste reactions between calculations!

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Easily find the appropriate standards reference, clause, and description (reasoning) that was used for a specific calculation or formula if you are unsure or want more information. 

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[GIF] wood-beam.webm

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