Allpro Consulting Group, Inc. (ACGI) specializes in structural engineering, civil engineering and architectural design services. Areas of specialties include wireless communication infrastructure development services, engineering and design services for the telecom industry.
Allpro was founded by Rajesh Sehgal, P.E. and Joji George, P.E. in 2004. Starting off as a 750-square-foot office in Richardson, TX, the company now has a 7,000-square- foot office in Dallas with about 45 employees licensed in all 50 states. There also are offices in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and a telecommute presence in California.
ACGI has licensed professional engineers who complete all work in the United States. Recent clients like Verizon Wireless, Border Patrol, Parsons, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, Ntelos, MetroPCS, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent and General Dynamics have chosen to make ACGI partners in network and site deployments. ACGI offers effective and viable solutions in cell site design with quick turnaround times. Sehgal and George have been in the industry since the mid-nineties and Sehgal said that since its inception, ACGI had grown “very organically”.
“We don’t have an outside investor; we haven’t taken any loan per se to run our business’ day-to-day operations,” Sehgal said. “We look at the volume and demand, and we like to strategically place ourselves where our deployment expenses are not too high. We do need more of a presence on the West Coast, but as of right now we have no plans of opening a physical location. We’re letting our [California] employees work from home, which they love.” The majority of the engineering is done in the Dallas office, where employees help site owners beef up towers, with additional antennas and radio units. With about 3,000 to 5,000 projects a year, Sehgal said that now is the time to figure out what is the most efficient and safe way to reach tower capacity.
“This is where we want to play hero; we like to think outside of the box. You can beef up a tower in 10 different ways,” he said. “We put safety first; we’re not on the site all the time, and we’re in our offices in front of our computers. But, we take the time to understand the needs” such as adding steel instead of replacing it or treating each modification request as a new challenge.
“There are certain tried and true ways that are proven to be the best, and we will stick with those. But, there are times that we will be stumped with unique situations and we do come across situations where we know there is a better way,” Sehgal said. “It’s about spending the time and playing with the numbers, so to speak. It all comes down to sitting down with the engineers and basically brainstorming the best and safest way to fix and upgrade these towers.”
Sehgal said that the engineers like to see themselves as champions in the modification industry, providing solutions that nobody has ever seen. For example, instead of relying heavily on drones, ACGI prefers using climbers to touch and feel a tower. “I have yet to see a drone company that can replace a tower climber,” he said. “At the end of the day a drone can only give you so much information … for instance if there is a lot of rust on the tower, those types can only be seen in real life.”
Future plans for ACGI include streamlining management, evolving in-house software for efficient managerial use, offering additional construction management services, being more active on the TIA committee, adding to production, engineering, managerial and upper management staff and opening more offices both in the United States, Canada and South America. For more information, visit www.allprocgi.com.
By Alyssa Stahr
Reader Interactions