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By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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Kenric Van Wyk, president of Grand Rapids-based Acoustics By Design, said he helped the local green building movement see the value acoustics bring for buildings and the people working in them. PHOTO: JOE BOOMGAARD

GRAND RAPIDS — As businesses continue focusing on cutting costs, bean counters have corporate travel in the crosshairs.

Thanks to advances in audio and visual technology, putting an executive on the next cross-country flight to meet with a client is no longer the only solution. That has companies investing in their corporate boardrooms and video conferencing systems, but the best system in the world still cannot compensate for poor acoustics.

Enter Acoustics By Design Inc.

The decade-old, Grand Rapids-based acoustical consultants and audio-visual design company established itself by serving niche clients both in corporate tele-presence and conferencing, and in hospital acoustics.

Kenric Van Wyk, president of ABD, credits being in the right niches at the right time, as well as latching onto the sustainable building movement, for the company remaining stable through the latest downturn.

Acoustic By Design has annual revenue of around $1 million and employs 11 people at its headquarters in Grand Rapids and at an office in Detroit.

The company sells no products, but rather serves as professional engineers and consultants to design spaces for proper acoustics. The company, which can trace its roots to 1962 as Innovative Engineering Acoustics — Van Wyk purchased IEA in 2001 — served mostly a local market until the architects it worked with started bringing ABD to other parts of the state and Midwest.

“About 90 percent of our work gets entered through our connections with architects,” he said. “We have great architects here, and we’ve worked with most of them.”

ABD has worked on many landmark projects in West Michigan, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital and Calvin College Fine Arts Center.

Van Wyk said companies lately have been looking to leverage technology to help cut down on travel expenses, and that’s led to a greater focus on the importance of properly designed conference rooms.

“The corporate environment had video conferencing for a long time, but the development of the industry over the last couple of years has made the kind of work we do extremely important. It’s our job to make sure that it’s a premium experience for them,” Van Wyk said.

Not that long ago, the technology was still lacking in providing quality sound and video, but the systems providers have made great strides, he said, comparing the videoconferencing advances to the shift from standard to high-definition television.

“Now, executives can immediately meet with a client halfway around globe in a format almost as good as being there — at a cost of pennies on the dollar,” Van Wyk said. “(Some companies may go into these projects) because they’re strapped for cash, but this is a great way to achieve the same goals in a quick period of time. It’s important to respond to clients’ needs immediately.”

At the same time, tightening privacy regulations and an acknowledgement that the sound environment can affect patients has led hospitals to pay attention to acoustics as they renovate or build new facilities, Van Wyk said.

Those health care organizations building to LEED standards also have certification points incentives in designing spaces for acoustics. Van Wyk, a LEED accredited professional, said he was one of the first in the acoustical design consulting field to attain the certification.

“People initially think of LEED as being an energy-efficiency movement, but when you start to explain acoustics and day-lighting and fresh air, people see that’s a part of how you enjoy a building,” Van Wyk said. “A building will be around for a long period of time, and designing (acoustics) in from the beginning is much easier than retrofitting it in later. (Acoustics) affect how well the building performs in the long haul.”

While ABD followed its architect clients around the country for projects, increasingly, Van Wyk is seeing his investment pay off in web marketing and search engine optimization. About four years ago, the company shifted its online strategy to being more of an expert content provider on the acoustic design and engineering market.

Today, it has more than 500 pages of content and a regular blog, and the market seems to have taken notice, Van Wyk said. Nearly half of the company’s new business stems from someone finding ABD’s online presence, he said.

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