By Benjamin Jeffers | Contributor
Architect Joe Pazdan built a career from a childhood passion
Joe Pazdan would be the first to point out that the success of McMillan Pazdan Smith architectural firm is more than just a story about his accomplishments.
However, he has certainly played an integral role in building a firm focused on revitalizing the Upstate. As with many success stories, the journey came with bumps along the way. But what resulted was a company strengthened through the trials.
A dream begins
As a child, Pazdan watched with fascination as builders constructed his parents’ house. He was only in grade school, yet from that point on he knew he wanted to be an architect.
He never took his focus off of achieving that dream. In high school he worked for a construction company, and the summer before attending Clemson University, attended the Career Discovery Program at Harvard to study architecture in the Northeast. While at Clemson, Pazdan also had the opportunity to travel overseas and study architecture abroad.
With degrees in both architectural design and construction science and management, Pazdan went on to work for several architecture firms after graduation, finally landing at one that employed his friend and former college roommate, Brad Smith.
Pazdan said he and Smith “traveled up and down the East Coast” doing different design jobs. As they worked together, they began talking seriously about starting their own firm. They were both thinking about settling down and starting families, he said, and “Through our experience we felt we could do as good a job [as the companies we worked for].”
In 1993, they started Pazdan-Smith Group, choosing Greenville as home base because they had professional and personal ties in the area and also “felt there was great potential.”
“We had the opportunity to be a vital role in the downtown revitalization,” Pazdan said. “We’ve been very fortunate that Greenville has had steady growth.”
For 15 years Pazdan said the firm flourished. Then 2008 came crashing in.
The struggle
When the Great Recession hit in 2008, Pazdan-Smith Group felt the effects like many other companies around the nation. The once-booming architecture industry slowed to a sluggish pace. They were competing with other firms for an ever-smaller pool of clients. Design opportunities decreased. The firm went through a period of downsizing.
The hardest part of the recession was laying off skilled designers and other workers. Pazdan-Smith lost some “intellectual capital,” he said.
But companies have to face roadblocks with a positive attitude in order to be successful, he said. For Pazdan-Smith, help came in the form of a friendly competitor, McMillan Smith and Partners.
The success
For several years prior to the recession, owners of Pazdan-Smith and the Spartanburg-based McMillan Smith joked about joining forces. They would see each other at different functions, competing for some of the same projects.
Both firms started struggling from the recession, and in 2009 they agreed the best strategy was to merge.
The result was McMillan Pazdan Smith, an “entrepreneurial success story in the Upstate,” according to Karen Calhoun, director of business development. Calhoun, a principal of the company, said the merger was a “natural meshing of markets and expertise.”
The merger diversified the firms, she said, and gave them the ability to service clients ranging from primary and secondary schools to commercial industries in the Upstate and nearby regions.
Calhoun began at McMillan Smith in 1999 and said the firm is proud to have offices in both Greenville and Spartanburg. “We feel very invested in each community and are very careful not to overlook any of the communities.”
Said Pazdan, “We like to think of ourselves as a community-based design firm,” finding inspiration in each community’s growth.
McMillan Pazdan Smith also has offices in Ashville, Atlanta and Charleston. At each location, Pazdan said the firm tries to maintain a high level of design in order to recruit more talent and help the communities thrive.
Pazdan said some of his favorite Upstate projects have been working for nonprofit organizations. The firm has completed a commercial kitchen renovation for the Project Host soup kitchen and culinary school. It also has done work for clients like the Humane Society and the Children’s Museum.
He credits the success of the firm not to himself but to the great employees throughout the years and the firm’s ability to keep up with technology. As technology’s role in architectural design has increased, Pazdan said, the workload and clients’ expectations have increased as well.
That hasn’t stopped Pazdan, though.
“Certainly you have to have a burning desire and passion to be successful,” he said. “The fast pace and the quick turnaround, in a sick way, I kind of enjoy.”
