Our History
Paul Joseph Ford founded our structural engineering firm in 1965 in Columbus, Ohio. With 20 years experience behind him, working with other architectural engineering firms, Joe Ford started writing the first chapter of what has become a history of innovations, ingenuity and leadership.
The firm incorporated as Paul J. Ford and Company in 1970. Paul J. Ford and Company has provided structural design services to a diverse list of clients, including architects, contractors, fabricators, private owners, industrial owners, developers, construction managers and federal, state and local governments.
The company grew in its capability and capacity in the 70’s and 80’s serving as structural engineer of record for many landmark buildings in Ohio.
In 1979, the company opened an office in Clearwater, Florida. In 1985 the Orlando office was opened. In 1990 Florida operations were consolidated into Orlando.
Paul J. Ford and Company started designing towers and tower foundations for the communications industry beginning in 1966. As the cable television industry grew we became involved in the design of new guyed and self-supporting towers for the tower manufacturers in the 1970’s. The cellular telephone industry created an explosion of opportunities in the 1980’s and our tower analysis engineering group grew in capability and size to meet the increased demand. This led to the establishment of the tower and monopole segments of our business in 1980. In 1983, we wrote a guyed tower program that earned us national recognition by the communications industry as a leader in the design of guyed and self-support towers and monopoles.
In 1987 and 1988, we developed WEBOPEN, the Beam Web Opening Program, for the American Institute of Steel Construction. This software, used for designing web penetrations in steel beams, is marketed internationally to many of our engineering colleagues.
In 1996, we added the capability to design and modify power transmission and distribution structures.
Today, we are an employee-owned (ESOP) company with offices in Columbus, Orlando, and Atlanta, with professional engineer registrations in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.