Frequently asked questions

What does AEC Services do?

AEC Services Inc. is a design-build engineering and construction firm based in Tampa, Florida. It carries a project from first concept through a finished, operating site using in-house engineering and permitting, general construction, a fuel department, a plumbing company and a small electrical group. The firm was founded in 1996 and employs 53 people.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

AEC stands for architectural, engineering and construction. We were founded in 1996, but it was in my head long before that, back when I got into the trades as a fifteen year old. There were A and E firms and there were EC firms, but there was nobody who took the whole thing from a concept to a sketch to a plan to a build.

We have an engineering and permitting department, which is where it all starts. We have a general construction department, a fuel department, a plumbing company, and a small electrical group that services our fuel work in house.

Where does AEC Services work?

AEC Services is headquartered in Tampa and does most of its work across Florida, with thirty years of project history in the state. Founder Ron Fair holds professional engineering licences in eighteen states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona and Nevada.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

We install work all over the country. The same small job changes completely depending on where it is. In some jurisdictions you do not even need a permit. In others you are going through architectural review and zoning and they want landscaping. Two days in one place, ninety days in another.

Which states is AEC Services licensed in?

AEC Services holds professional engineer licences in eighteen states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona and Nevada, and is contractor licensed in Florida and Georgia. The firm coordinates multi-state projects regularly, identifying the applicable state and local requirements for each site and dealing with those regulators directly rather than handing the client a list of agencies to chase.

What licences and credentials does AEC Services hold?

AEC Services holds Certified Building Contractor licence CBC058032, Certified Pollutant Storage System Contractor licence PCC056811, and Engineering Business Registry licence 9277. Founder Ron Fair is a licensed professional engineer and an ASCE Fellow with 38 years in engineering, contracting and construction management.

What makes AEC Services different from other contractors?

AEC Services is close to fully integrated, which is unusual for a firm of its size. Engineering, general contracting, self-performed subcontract work and an in-house plumbing company mean the firm is not only bidding on projects drawn by someone else. Controlling the work from end to end is what removes the handoffs that cost clients time and money.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

We are almost a fully integrated company. A one-stop shop for customers. We have an engineering department, we do the general contracting, we do subcontracting work, and we have our own plumbing company. That separates us from many, many others.

It is also a company with strong foundations. The owner, Ron, is still in place, people have been working here for many years, and everyone is working in one direction. When you control everything from A to Z, it is more efficient, and at the end of the day the customer saves time and money.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

We are engineers and we are also contractors, so our role changes with the job. On some projects we are just the engineers. On some we are just pulling the permits. On some we are only the contractor. And on some we are all three.

What markets does AEC Services serve?

AEC Services works across petroleum retail, quick-service restaurants, commercial retail, municipal and government projects, transportation infrastructure, marinas, universities and commercial real estate. The common thread is fuel systems, engineering and construction rather than any one sector, and project scale has ranged from a single dispenser replacement to six simultaneous plaza builds.

Is my project too small for AEC Services?

No. AEC Services takes work of every size, from a single dispenser replacement or a bollard installation through to a vacant piece of land that needs civil, fuel, structural and building design. The firm runs several hundred projects at a time. Small jobs are often the most technically complicated ones.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

There are no small jobs. Some jobs are easy, some are more complicated, some are small, and sometimes the smallest job is the most complicated one.

When I was on the retail side in Canada, one general contractor called me many times saying he had nothing. One day I had something small, not even a thousand dollar job, and I asked him to help me. People in his office were laughing at him. But that contractor ended up building our headquarters and so many stores in many provinces after that. Everything started with a small job.

What is design-build, and why does AEC Services recommend it?

Design-build means the people designing a project and the people building it are on the same team from day one, under one contract. AEC Services builds this way because it shortens the schedule, produces a budget grounded in what the work actually costs, and removes the gap between what is drawn on paper and what can be built in the field.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

Design-build means the people designing your project and the people building it are on the same team from day one. You save time, and you save money. The customer saves, and we save too, because it is more efficient when you control everything A to Z. Nobody is waiting on another company, and nobody is building from plans that were drawn without the field in mind.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

I grew up a union kid around incredible craftsmen, and I saw a lot of things go wrong. A job sequenced wrong. A job designed in a way that could not actually be built. But the one question none of the guys in the field could answer was this: how could that have been caught in the planning stage?

Design-build is the way to build. It is the way to fast track, and it is the way to set a realistic budget. You are not shoving a set of plans out the door for people to low ball and then bid their way back to a profitable job through change orders. It is value based, and it is based in truth from day one all the way through.

If you cannot build it in your head, you have no business out there trying it in the field.

What is the difference between design-build and design-bid-build?

In design-bid-build, an owner hires a designer, receives a set of plans and then bids the construction separately, so the people who drew it and the people who build it never meet. In design-build, one firm does both under a single contract. Design-build is typically faster, produces fewer change orders and lands at a lower total project cost.

What goes wrong when you hire the designer and the builder separately?

The common failure is a disconnect between what goes on the drawings and what it costs to build. Designers working without field input specify details that are more expensive than they need to be, and nobody in the process has a reason to flag it. When design and construction sit in separate firms, those savings are never found, because the two sides never talk before the plans are issued.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

Nothing against engineers or architects. I am an engineer myself, and they have a job to do. But there is often a big disconnection between what goes on the plans and what it really costs to build.

How many times do you walk on a job site and say, my gosh, they spent so much money on this? There are other ways to do things, good ways. But if nobody talks to each other and everything is based on the plans, you do not get the chance to save that money.

How much money can you save by involving the builder during design?

Enough to change the economics of a project. On one job that AEC Services' Chief Operating Officer ran earlier in his career, putting the designers, the general contractor, the site superintendent and every subcontractor in one room before the drawings were finished cut roughly 15 to 20 percent out of the cost, through dozens of small changes that no single party would have caught alone.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

One day in Montreal, I put everyone in the same room: engineers, architects, general contractors, the superintendent, and the subcontractors. Plumbers, electricians, everyone. The superintendent is the most important one, because they see everything, day to day.

We started with HVAC. The subcontractor asked why we put in a rooftop unit with parts we do not even use. Really? Okay. We changed it. Fifteen hundred dollars saved. Then someone asked why a piece was eight foot two inches. Can we just go eight feet? Now you do not buy a ten foot piece and waste time cutting it.

We did that again and again, and at the end of the day we saved probably between 15 and 20 percent. Why? Because we all talked together.

What changes when the engineering, the permitting and the builder are all under one roof?

Accountability and coordination. With separate firms, the engineer and the contractor can each point at the other when something is wrong on site, and somebody has to be hired to coordinate between them. Inside one firm there is nobody to blame and nothing to coordinate across time zones, so issues get solved in the building rather than escalated between companies.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

You cannot point the finger at the other guy. Normally the engineer and the contractor point at each other. You did not show that on the drawing. Well, I did not need to, that is means and methods, you should know that. Back and forth it goes. When it is all in house, who are we going to blame? Ron wears both hats, so he would be blaming himself. That argument is gone from the equation.

The other piece is the coordination. If you have an architect for your building, an engineer for the site, a fuel specialist and an electrical engineer all doing their own thing, you also have to hire somebody to manage and coordinate all of it. There is a better chance things fall through the cracks.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

Because we are under the same roof, we find solutions easier, quicker, faster. There is no delay. It is all about communication. And things going sideways is rare, because we know what creates issues. If something on the plans can cause a problem, we know it at the beginning and we avoid it. It is starting the project management way before the project itself.

Do I have to hire AEC Services for the whole project?

No. AEC Services can be engaged for a single scope or for everything. On some projects the firm is only the engineer, on some only the permitting team, on some only the contractor, and on some all three. Clients can hire the piece that serves them and keep the rest of their team in place.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

We are a one-stop shop, but we are not particular about it. Hire us for the little piece or for the whole thing, whatever serves you better.

I already have an architect and an engineer. Can AEC Services still help?

Yes. Many AEC Services clients have preferred designers they want to keep. A common arrangement is that the architect or civil engineer carves out the scope they do not specialise in, most often the fuel system, and hands that package to AEC Services to design as part of their set. The only request is to be engaged early.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

We have clients who have their preferred people, and that is fine. Use them. Our question is how we can help you make your project better.

What we do ask is that you engage us early. We are going to ask you the hard questions, and it is going to feel uncomfortable, because hard questions force decisions. The front end gets a little rough. But we would rather be standing next to you at the end of the project with you saying you got what you wanted.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

They tell us what they need, we tell them the power and the space it takes, and they give us a base plan. Your normal electrician can design your building and your site. We design from the fuel panel out, so you get the grounding, the isolated receptacles, the isolation relays for safety, and the separation of high and low voltage handled properly.

Why does the construction schedule matter as much as the budget?

Because for an operating business, every day of construction is a day of lost revenue. A retailer who builds each location three weeks faster gains three weeks of trading per store, multiplied across every store opened that year. Time saved in the build is money earned in operation, and it does not show up anywhere on a bid sheet.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

The money you save is not only when you buy equipment or materials. The time you save is money too. If you are a retailer and you build each store three weeks faster because the process is more efficient, at the end of the year that is three weeks times the number of stores you open. That is more income from operations.

I always told my team: every day we save in this process is a day of operation.

Can clients work with AEC Services remotely or use virtual project reviews?

Yes. AEC can begin an early project conversation by phone or virtual meeting, which is useful when an owner, operator or consultant is outside the Tampa area. The team can review the scope, location, desired timeline, early design information and known permitting concerns before recommending the right next step. Some work still requires site-specific information, field review or coordination with local authorities, so AEC confirms the appropriate process for each project rather than treating every project as identical.

What insurance, bonding or contract requirements should I expect for a project?

Requirements depend on the project type, owner, jurisdiction and contract structure. AEC discusses insurance documentation, contractual risk allocation and any bonding requirements during preconstruction so those items are understood before work is committed. Owners with specific compliance requirements should raise them early, especially for public, institutional, fuel-system or multi-party projects, so AEC can confirm what documentation is needed for that scope.

How does AEC Services price a project?

AEC Services works three ways: time and material, cost plus, and fixed fee. Before a number is produced on a new site, the firm runs a paid pre-application process, floor plans, elevations, a design site plan and a pre-application meeting with the city or county, which resolves 95 to 98 percent of the unknowns. Allowances for what cannot yet be quantified are set deliberately high rather than optimistically low.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Pricing is about quantifying and qualifying something, and until we know what the expectation is we cannot do either. There are three ways we work: time and material, cost plus, and fixed fee.

On a new site we will usually sit down first and take you through the pre-application process. You come, you sit down, and we flush out 95 to 98 percent of the problem. That fee is worth paying, and we do the same thing on the projects we develop ourselves.

I have done this my whole life and I still do not know exactly what the final cost will be on day one. What I will not do is be the home builder who sells you a house where the carpet allowance does not work, the lighting allowance does not work and the paint allowance does not work, and on a scale of one to ten everything came in at a two and a half. We quantify what we can, and for what we cannot, we talk about the allowances and set them at a seven and a half or an eight. In house terms, you are getting a great ceramic tile floor. You are not getting marble. But we will have talked about it, so the budget is real.

The old thinking was that a fifteen percent overage still made a great project. That was survivable when a building was $150,000. On a five million dollar project, fifteen percent means somebody is choking on three quarters of a million dollars.

How much does it cost to build a new site in Florida?

On a green site in Florida, a new build currently starts around a couple of million dollars. Stormwater typically consumes 15 to 18 percent of the site and landscaping another 10 percent, so roughly a quarter of the land a buyer pays for is given back to those two requirements. Impact fees are charged on top and return nothing to the owner.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

On a green site in Florida right now, you are looking at a couple of million. It is no small process and it all adds up.

Here, stormwater can take 15 to 18 percent of your site and landscaping another 10. So you pay a couple of million for the dirt and then a quarter of what you just bought goes to landscaping and stormwater. Then there are impact fees, and you get nothing for those. The cities and counties think you do. You do not.

That is exactly why we want these discussions early. We want you to get a real return so you stay in business and build the next one.

Why will AEC Services not quote a price over the phone?

Because a number given before anyone has seen the site or asked what the owner is trying to achieve is a guess, and guesses turn into change orders. Material pricing has also become volatile enough that AEC Services has carried material pricing clauses in its contracts since 2002. On a two million dollar project where roughly sixty percent is materials, a ten percent material move is a very large number.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Because we have to see the site and we have to ask you what you are trying to do and what you expect. Everybody has sticker shock right now. Everything has gone crazy, whether that is tariff driven or commodity driven.

We did not have material pricing clauses in our contracts until 2002, and in a hundred years of this business nobody had them before that. When a project is a couple of million dollars and sixty percent of it is materials, a ten percent jump in materials is a very big number. That can happen overnight.

What happens when a contractor quotes a job sight unseen?

They overcommit. A contractor carrying idle crews has a strong incentive to take work at a number that does not hold, and the shortfall comes back to the owner as change orders or as a contractor who cannot finish. AEC Services prices conservatively and has carried no debt since it was founded, so it can decline work rather than buy it.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

We have seen people overcommit. I can understand how a contractor gets there, because projects get put on hold and then you have all that labour with nowhere to go.

We err on the side of conservatism. We would rather park the trucks. We have carried no debt since day one, and that is exactly why. If the music stops for a while, we are not reeling backwards.

Is it cheaper to retrofit an existing building than to build new?

Often, yes. A retrofit of an existing building runs at roughly 65 percent of the cost of an equivalent new build, because there is no impact fee and the stormwater and landscaping requirements have already been satisfied by the original construction. The trade-off is that the existing shell will not match everything on the owner's wish list.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

When we had the glut of empty real estate after 2009, customers came to us wanting new buildings. I told them what materials cost, what the impact fees were, and what they would be donating to stormwater and landscaping, and then I told them the truth. As much as I would like to build you a new building, there is a glut of existing ones. Retrofit one. You pay no impact fee, the stormwater and landscaping are already done, and you buy at about 65 percent of what a new building would cost you.

It may not be a hundred percent of what you want. But I want you in business, and maybe you call us in five years for the second building.

What is the most expensive mistake an owner makes on a build?

Two show up repeatedly. The first is buying land before anyone has checked what can be built on it. The second is overspending without ever getting control of overhead, which is what actually ends most of the businesses AEC Services has watched fail. In those cases revenue was never the problem.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Overspending without ever getting a handle on their costs. We have watched people declare bankruptcy on the business and in some cases personally. Revenue was never the problem. Overhead was, and they never got control of it.

Restaurants are the most volatile of all, because so much of the cost is people and nobody can pin it down completely. Very few operators can tell you what the butter on that steak cost them. You see a busy dining room, but you do not see how long the prep took, or how the rent is hedged.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

Not doing the due diligence before they buy the dirt. They find a piece of land cheap, it looks like a great deal, and they figure they will be up and running in six months. Then they find out they need twenty tons of air conditioning and the site only has single-phase power. Three-phase is two blocks down the street, and now it is a couple hundred grand to bring it over. Nobody is happy, and you already own the land.

Where is the biggest opportunity to save money on a build?

The site work. A two-by-four costs the same everywhere, but soil, grade, drainage and utilities vary from parcel to parcel and are where budgets are won or lost. Site work is also where the surprises live if the due diligence was skipped, and by then the land is already bought.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

The site work. The devil in construction is the site work. Everything is the soil. A two-by-four costs the same everywhere. If you want to save money, it is the site work, and that is why it is so important to get it right.

That is also where the surprises are if you skip the homework. If you do not validate early, you get the surprise during the design, or after you already bought the land. Then you are stuck with it, and it is hard to resell at the same price you paid.

How long does a building permit take in Florida?

For a brand new site, plan on six months to over a year. The long ones involve wetland mitigation, stormwater or soil issues, where several regulatory agencies sit on top of the building department. At the other end, AEC Services has turned compliance permits around in a week. The same small job can take two days in one jurisdiction and ninety in another.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

I will give you the honest answer instead of the brochure answer. For a brand new site, plan on something between six months and over a year. The long ones are the sites with wetland mitigation, stormwater issues, or soil issues, where the design is the easy part and you are dealing with several regulatory agencies on top of the building department.

Permitting is the least appreciated part of this job, because you have to perform, and you have to perform now.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

Permitting is a big, big issue now for many people. It can easily take nine months, and it could be way more. If you do not know the right way to provide the documents, you lose a lot of time, because they come back to you and say this document is missing, you did not do this and that.

Why has permitting become so much harder than it used to be?

The process went digital after COVID and the relationships went with it. Submittals used to be handed in physically, and a missing detail was sorted out with a phone call to somebody known by name. The paperwork requirements did not change, but an applicant is now a number in a queue, so the same small error comes back as a rejection two weeks later.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

It has changed dramatically, and most of that came after COVID. Before, everything was physically submitted to the building department, and you had personal relationships with people there that you built over years. It was more personable.

After COVID it all went digital. Now you are a number in the computer getting processed. The paperwork stayed exactly the same, so the parts that used to get sorted out with a phone call now come back as a rejection two weeks later.

Why do permit applications get rejected, and what does it cost?

Almost always the small stuff: the wrong legal entity on the application, a signature from someone not authorised to sign, a document that does not match the jurisdiction's records. The application sits in the queue for two weeks, comes back rejected, and then the correct signatory has to be tracked down. A two week delay routinely becomes a month.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

People ask how an application can be wrong. Say the property is owned by an entity, and everybody on the job thinks they are working for the brand on the sign. Somebody writes the brand on the application instead of the entity that actually owns the site. That gets submitted, you pay the fee, it sits in the queue for a week or two, and then it comes back rejected because it does not match their records.

Now you have to track down whoever is authorised to sign for the owner. We are in Tampa, the owner might be in another country, and he might be on vacation. That two week delay just became a month.

The other cost is hiring the wrong help. If the consultant you hire is not familiar with that jurisdiction's process, your thirty days can turn into six months.

What does the AEC Services permitting team actually do?

It makes sure the paperwork is correct before anything is submitted, and then drives the submittal through to approval. That covers the application details most people never check, all of the permits a project needs rather than just the building permit, and an internal escalation path, permit manager, then building official, then city manager, when a submittal stops moving.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

Engineering and permitting go hand in hand. You can do a beautiful set of drawings, but you still have to get a permit, and that is the pinch point for most of our clients. A lot of what we do is make sure the small things are right at the very beginning.

If a submittal is not making progress, we have internal rules for escalating it. Permit manager, then building official, then city manager. We will go as far as we need to go to get our client an answer, while remembering that we are going to be dealing with those same people again on the next job.

What does AEC Services need from me to pull permits?

Accurate ownership information and the names of the people authorised to sign. AEC Services completes the applications. On fuel projects in particular a single site can carry ten separate permits, environmental, site plan review, building review and electrical among them, and the firm does not consider a client ready to start until all of them are in hand.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

The right information, and who your authorised people are to sign. Beyond that, we fill out the applications for you. If we are involved on the front end with the engineering, by the time we are ready to submit we have the documents ready to go.

We are not the firm that hands you one approval and calls it done. When we tell you you are ready to start your job, we have all of your permits.

How does AEC Services handle a jurisdiction it has never worked in?

With a standing checklist run on every new jurisdiction and every new site. The firm identifies the process, the regulatory agencies, the building official and the clerk who actually processes the submittal before anything is filed, and asks the site viability questions, water, sewer and how far away they are, early enough that a client can still walk away.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

We have a set of standards we follow, almost a template, and it is a list of bullet point questions we run every time.

Is there water available? Is there sewer available? Yes, but it is six miles down the road and it is going to cost half a million dollars to bring it to the corner. If you do not ask that up front, that site may not even be viable for the client.

How does multi-state permitting work?

AEC Services identifies the applicable state and local authority requirements for each project, coordinates with the regulators directly, and manages the permitting process as part of its own scope. Clients do not need to hire a separate permit expediter, and on fuel projects a single site can carry ten different permits across environmental, site plan, building and electrical review.

Why do so few engineering firms design fuel systems?

Most firms do not carry the engineering liability or pollution coverage the work requires, and fewer still understand how to apply fire protection and environmental codes rather than simply read them. A fuel system is not water running across the ground: done wrong it becomes a contamination event or an explosion, and engineers are bound first to public safety and welfare.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Most of them do not carry the engineering liability or the pollution coverage for it. But the bigger thing is this. As engineers we are bound by public safety and welfare. That is number one, and it is the common thread no matter what state you are in. Rules change state to state. That one does not.

It is not fear so much as they do not understand it. This is not water running across the ground. It can be a serious environmental issue, or even an explosion. If a designer wants to take a project outside their expertise, the right move is to carve that scope out and hand it to the people who do it.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

It is highly specialised and the regulations are strict. You have to know the fire protection codes and the environmental codes, and it is not enough to know them, you have to know how to apply them. Codes change and products change, so we stay in constant contact with our suppliers. Educating the team is crucial.

What types of fuel systems does AEC Services design and build?

Retail fuel stations, jobber and distributor facilities, municipal and emergency services fuelling, airport fuelling, marinas, university and institutional fleet fuelling, generator fuel systems, CNG and LNG systems, and government facilities. That covers underground and aboveground storage tanks, dispensers, canopies and the associated environmental compliance.

How many firms in Florida specialise in fuel system design?

Very few. AEC Services' founder puts the number at two or three other firms in the state that specialise in fuel. The work demands constant attention to changing technology, equipment and safety requirements, and Florida adds conditions that do not apply elsewhere, including the highest lightning density in the country.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

There are really only two or three other firms specialising in fuel in the state. I would like to think we are at the top of that list.

It is highly specialised and you have to stay on top of it: the technology, the equipment, the safety factors. We also live in the lightning capital of the world, so there is a lot going on here that does not apply everywhere else.

What goes wrong when an inexperienced firm designs a fuel system?

The drawings leave the contractor guessing, the field makes assumptions, and equipment goes in the ground incorrectly. The consequences range from a system that drops mid-transaction during a lightning strike to a spill, an environmental claim or an injury. AEC Services regularly gets called in to correct installations that should never have been built.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

You end up with a set of drawings that leaves the contractor guessing in the field. They assume things, and things get installed incorrectly. I have seen things out there that should never have gone in the ground. It ends up being repeat business for us, because somebody has to go clean it up, but it should never have happened.

With fuel, the last thing you want is a spill or an environmental issue or an accident. It is dangerous work and people get hurt. So we look at how things can go wrong and design them out. You get a product that meets code, and sometimes exceeds it, because we are not compromising on life safety.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Our equipment is complex. You cannot have customers mid-transaction when lightning hits and the system blinks, because now you are giving away free gas. That is what happens when somebody decides not to hire the experience.

What does AEC Services ask before designing a fuel site?

What is being built and who it is being built for. Fuel volume, customer type, truck stop or auto or marina, ice demand, whether boats and trailers have to manoeuvre on the site, and the traffic pattern. Florida is price conscious, so transaction time governs the layout, and dispenser count is set by the hours the road is actually busy.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

We start with what you are building and who you are building it for. How much fuel. Who is your customer. Are you a truck stop, strictly auto, a bit of both, a marina, or on the way to one. Do you need a lot of ice. Do boats and trailers have to fit on the site.

Florida is a price conscious market, so transaction time is everything. Are you capturing somebody who will be there ten or fifteen minutes charging an electric vehicle, and what do they do in the meantime? Or are you on a road that is only busy for an hour and a half into town in the morning and an hour and a half home, in which case you had better have enough dispensers, because you really only have three hours a day.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

It is not your job as the customer to know what you need. It is our job to walk you through that. You do not design from the outside in. You design from the inside out.

Does AEC Services push particular brands of equipment?

No. The firm does not represent any equipment lines. There are products the design team prefers because they have been in service a long time and perform, but specification is driven by what suits the application rather than by a supplier relationship.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

There are products we prefer because they have been around a long time and they perform, but we do not represent any lines. That way we can put in front of you what is actually best for your application.

What fuel-system engineering and construction services does AEC provide?

AEC supports fuel-system scopes that can include underground storage tanks, aboveground storage tanks, dispensers, canopies, piping, generator fuel systems, CNG and LNG infrastructure, fiberglass tank specification, biofuel compatibility and related permitting coordination. The exact scope is defined around the facility, operating requirements, applicable regulations and the interfaces with the rest of the site. AEC can provide a defined fuel-system package or coordinate that work as part of a larger design-build project.

When should I bring in an engineer on a new site?

Before the land is purchased, which is earlier than most developers do it. The usual sequence is a geotechnical report and then a civil engineer, both after the deal is signed. Engaging a design-build firm with in-house engineering during diligence surfaces the problems while the price is still negotiable, or while walking away is still an option.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

Earlier than most people think. You have a piece of dirt for sale, and maybe the price seems super good. But it is not a good price if the soil, the utilities, or the zoning have problems. When you work design-build with a contractor that has engineering in-house, you learn those things right away.

Many times, I went back to the landowner and said: sorry, I want to make you an offer, but this is the offer, for this, this, and this reason. And we dropped the price a lot, because we were right about the land.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

Before you buy the dirt, hire a firm like us to do the due diligence. Spend a couple thousand dollars and get a detailed report of what you can and cannot do on that site. It can save you a couple hundred thousand on the back end.

What should I check on a site before I buy it?

Soil, power, grade, survey and zoning, plus whether water and sewer are actually reachable. Geotechnical borings are the start, not the finish: digging test holes with a small excavator often reveals more. Single-phase power where three-phase is needed can cost a couple of hundred thousand to correct, and utilities several miles away can make a site unviable outright.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

From my years in site selection, this is what I look at. The soil: do your geotech borings, but also ask a general contractor to bring a small excavator, dig some holes with the landowner's permission and backfill after. Sometimes a small excavator tells you more than the borings.

The electricity: do you have single-phase or three-phase power? Running equipment on single-phase is more expensive. The grade: for retail, you do not want your site sitting in a hole or on top of a hill. Fill costs money, and cut costs money too. And get a good survey, and validate the zoning.

The more pairs of eyes you have during a site visit, the more potential problems you identify first, before they become your problems.

Does AEC Services handle pre-development and feasibility work?

Yes. AEC Services regularly works with clients during pre-development on site feasibility, regulatory review, preliminary engineering and budget development. A few thousand dollars of due diligence at that stage routinely prevents a few hundred thousand in surprises after the land is bought.

My project stalled with another firm. Will AEC Services take it over?

Yes, and it is a large share of the work the firm gets. AEC Services was brought into the Florida Turnpike service plazas late, after the buildings were designed and the sites laid out with no fuel engineer on the team, and without a contract in place at the time. That work began in 2009 and continues today.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

Ron and I have a running joke that we get the job because nobody else wants it or nobody else can do it, so guess who they call. We do not shy away from those. We are the guys that get stuff done.

We got pulled into the Florida Turnpike plazas at the last minute. We walked into a room with about fifty engineers and architects and somebody asked, who is this guy. We did not even have a contract at that point. We took it on. It was a big challenge and it turned out great. That started in 2009 and we are still doing work for them today.

The reason we got the call was that when the client asked around about who could handle it, the answer kept coming back from our peers: call AEC.

What can I do to keep my project moving?

Stay engaged and settle the scope early. The expensive scenario is a change requested at seventy percent drawings, which means redrawing completed work and renegotiating cost. Weekly contact, whatever form it takes, is what prevents it. Clients who do not yet know exactly what they want are normal, and defining it is part of the job.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

I would rather have a client who is in the process from beginning to end, because scope changes happen on every project. The thing you want to avoid is being at seventy percent drawings when the client says he does not want the bathrooms on that side of the building anymore. Now you are redrawing everything, and now we are having the conversation about what that change costs.

The one thing we are always chasing is a clear scope of work. That is a hard one, because a lot of the time clients do not know exactly what they want yet. That is why they come to us. Part of our job is getting inside your head, getting it on paper, and putting a number against it so you can decide.

Why does AEC Services ask so many questions up front?

Because the questions that are uncomfortable at the start are the ones that prevent a missed expectation at the end. AEC Services is a six day a week operation and is not the low-cost option. Buyers whose decision rests entirely on price are better served elsewhere, and the firm will say so early rather than late.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

We are a six day a week operation and we are not the cheap guys. If your three determining factors are price, price and price, I will give you numbers and you can go call a bunch of people. We are not looking for revenue. We are looking for value and for long term relationships.

Sometimes the reputation out there is that we might be difficult to deal with. If that means we are going to ask a ton of questions at the beginning, then fine. Our goal is to be friends at the end of the job, not to sell you, not to get a signature and leave you disappointed when it is over.

Why do AEC Services clients stay for decades?

Honesty and the refusal to walk away from a problem. In thirty years AEC Services has lost three clients, two of whom came back. When something goes wrong on a job, and on construction projects it eventually does, the firm's position is that it fights through it rather than assigning blame.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Honesty. And I am not being cute when I say that, because that is exactly what it is. You cannot fake enthusiasm and you cannot fake caring. The rest is sticks and bricks.

What they know is that if push comes to shove, from an engineering standpoint or a building standpoint, we are not going to give up and we are not going to point fingers. When something goes wrong, and it will, we fight our way through it and we make it right.

We have lost a total of three clients in our history. Two of them came back.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

When you hire a general contractor, it is like hiring an employee. Somehow, you are responsible for them. If the contractor is a bad one and you end up with a bunch of extra charges and a lot of issues at the end, that is on you. I know, because that was my role for many years.

What will AEC Services not compromise on?

Quality and performance, including when holding that line costs the firm the job. Cost, quality and schedule is a choose-two proposition, and AEC Services has run thirty and forty crews around the clock to deliver in fourteen days when a retailer's trade was at risk. Fast is available. Fast and cheap together is not.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Quality and performance. Everybody talks about cost, quality and time, and you can pick two. I can give you something fast, but it will not be cheap. We have put thirty and forty men on a job around the clock and done incredible work in fourteen days, because in two weeks a retailer's customers change their buying habits and might not come back. Do we look for that kind of job? No, it is hard on people. Can we do it? Yes.

What should I look for when choosing a general contractor?

Repeat clients first. One completed project for a corporate client proves very little; a contractor who has built the second, third and tenth for the same client has been re-hired on the evidence. Reputation with subcontractors matters as much as reputation with owners, because how a contractor treats the people it owes money to predicts how it treats everyone.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

Repeat customers. When I was on the other side of the fence looking for a new general contractor, that is the first thing I looked at. Maybe you built one fast-food restaurant, but why did you not build two, three, or four?

Then reputation. Before I gave contracts to one contractor in Canada, I asked my dad, who was also in the construction world. He told me it was probably the only one he would not be scared to give his debit card and his PIN. Honest with the customer, honest with the subcontractors, honest with everyone. That was a big part of my decision.

I am a subcontractor. How do I work with AEC Services?

The firm looks for shared standards and mutual trust before it looks at price. Subcontractors on an AEC Services job are expected to work to the same expectation the client was given, and the relationship is meant to be a working one rather than an adversarial one. Trade partners can register through the bid list on this site.

Luc Langevin · Chief Operating Officer

First of all, we need to make sure we are on the same page. We need to share the same DNA, the same thinking. At the end, we all work for the customer, and we want to deliver what is expected to be delivered.

The most important thing is trust. We need to be able to trust you, and you need to be able to trust us. It goes both ways. And we want to have fun doing a project. We are not there to fight. We are there to deliver a project to the customer, as quick as we can.

I own a piece of land and do not know who to call. How do I start?

Call AEC Services at (813) 684-1234 and describe the project. There is no charge for the conversation. If the firm is the right fit it will say so, and if it is not, it will refer the work or propose a shared arrangement with another firm rather than take a job it cannot serve properly.

George Padilla · Engineering and Permitting Manager

Let us have a conversation about what your project is and what you are trying to do. It does not cost anything to have a conversation. If there is common ground and we can help you make the project happen, we will tell you. If there is not, we will tell you that too.

Ron Fair, PE · Founder and President

Let us sit down and see what you have and what you are trying to do. To be quite frank, if we are not the best option for you and we are not adding value, I will hook you up with somebody and get them on the phone. Maybe it is a shared deal where they handle one part and we handle another. We would rather have a hundred percent of something than all or nothing.

We want to be your business partner, on this job and down the road. Not dictating policy. Doing what we do so you can focus on what you do.

Can AEC Services provide references?

Yes. AEC Services holds letters of recommendation from Shell dealers, Motiva Enterprises and Florida Turnpike Services among others, and will connect a prospective client with references relevant to their own project type rather than handing over a generic list. Ask at the first conversation and the firm will match the reference to the work.

How quickly can AEC Services mobilise?

It depends on project scope, permitting status and current workload, and AEC Services gives that answer honestly at the initial consultation rather than quoting a number designed to win the bid. Where speed is the constraint, the firm has run thirty and forty crews around the clock to deliver in fourteen days.