Bob MacIntosh picked structural engineering as a career because of his love for models, drawings, calculations and math, and the collaboration between so many people to create buildings that become their legacy. His passion for his vocation powered a 40+ year career in the industry, where he started working alongside people who mentored him to later mentoring engineers that worked for him, many of whom he would come to call Family.
After his many years in the industry, Bob is stepping away from the company he built and into retirement at the end of February. It’s been a long and adventurous road for Bob, which began all the way back in high school, allowed him to meet and make lasting relationships with wonderful people, and rewarded his dedication in more ways than one.
Bob first got interested in a career in engineering when he was a student at Saint James Catholic High School in Chester, Pennsylvania. During career night, a representative from Drexel University talked about engineering and how it’s a good route for students adept at math and physics. Bob was always good at the two subjects, so he thought engineering was a perfect fit for him. However, Bob’s family would struggle with tuition. To pay for college, Bob entered Drexel’s co-op program, earning money for each subsequent year of college and gaining valuable engineering experience.
Upon graduating from Drexel in 1980, Bob entered a shrunken job market and went to work for an engineering firm that specialized in power plant design. He spent three years working there before he was hired by the Philadelphia engineering firm O’Donnell & Naccarato in 1983.
GROWING A BUSINESS
Bob stayed with O’Donnell Naccarato for 15 years. In those years, Bill O’Donnell mentored Bob about the business, giving him advice on running a company, maintaining relationships, keeping employees happy and more. Then, in 1998, he and his bosses started a new venture in Wilmington, Delaware: O’Donnell, Naccarato, MacIntosh. This new firm would tackle jobs in Delaware as well as Delaware and Chester Counties in Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Within five years, Bob acquired full ownership of the firm, and MacIntosh Engineering was born. Although he had an agreement with his former bosses to buy the business after 10 years, he wanted to buy early so he could grow it himself. Five years after he ventured out on his own, he brought on Steve Krumenacker, who’s been with the team ever since.
The MacIntosh team grew, staying around 25 to 30 people from the late 2000s through the 2020s. Bob loved watching his people grow their professional skills and their responsibilities, and watching their families grow and thrive. Bob said MacIntosh always was a family-oriented practice, which would even pay for staff and their families’ health care, making it easier for his employees to stick around for the long haul with Bob, something he’s particularly proud of.
In 2022, DCI Engineers offered to merge with Macintosh Engineering. When Bob was starting the process of joining his company with DCI, he met the DCI team for the first time in San Francisco. Everyone hit it off from the get-go. He could tell that both teams had the same mindset about engineering and running a company. Bob noted it was like meeting a long-lost side of his work family.
LEAVING A LEGACY
Part of Bob’s legacy is Saint Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia. This was his “coming of age” project, he says. The project was massive, and Bob started it as the Project Engineer on the job and finished it as the Project Manager. Although the hospital is something he’ll remember because of its positive impact on his career; most importantly, it’s where Bob’s youngest son, Justin, received life-saving heart surgery soon after his birth in 1993.
Bob remembers his wife staying in a part of the hospital he helped design, as well as calling the president of the hospital and telling him the news of his son’s heart condition and the president assuring him of the skills of the surgeon that would operate on young Justin—who is now 31.
“Delaware’s AEC industry is a close-knit group,” Bob said. “You can go to lunch and see five people you know. If you keep the quality of your work up, that’s where you develop trust.”
Around the time of the merger with DCI, Bob’s son asked him if he would be sad that his name would no longer live on with his company, and Bob told him, “No, not at all. The company and all the parts of my work family are still in place, so I feel really good about all of it.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
DCI's Mid-Atlantic offices are in the hands of engineers Bob has watched grow for years, including Steve, Blake Werley, Connor McGrath and Chelsea Collins, along with a team of other engineers who have been part of Bob’s work family for decades.
As he prepares to leave DCI, the question naturally comes up, “what’s next for Bob?”
“I have friends that retired and they’ve said you’re not as needed. Your phone doesn’t ring as much, you don’t get many emails, and that all sounds awesome to me right now,” he laughs, a bittersweet sentiment about retirement. “But I think what I’ll miss is the relationships.”
Luckily, the Wilmington office has lunches every Tuesday and Bob has “threatened” he’ll still come in and hang out.
Bob will spend retirement alongside his wife, Michele, his sons, Chris and Justin, and their families, along with his granddaughter, Cailyn.
We’ll miss you, Bob! We can’t wait to see what you’re up to in your golden years. All the people who you mentored, and who you so warmly welcomed into your work family, will continue along the path – the one you started way back in 1998.
Sincerely,
The DCI Family
Upon graduating from Hofstra University, Leo worked for The Olympian newspaper in Olympia, Washington. He covered two state legislative sessions for PubliCola before joining DCI in 2022 as a Communications Assistant. In addition to copy editing, Leo assists the Marketing & Communications team with creating internal and external content.
