Condo Media - November 2014 - 46

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Engineering Success
For Jack Carr, Life Is About Teaching, Learning, and Helping

ack Carr's degree says he's an
engineer, but he will tell you
that he's primarily a teacher. He
teaches condominium board
members about their buildings, and he
teaches the engineers he supervises at
Criterium Engineers "the things they
didn't learn in school," including
something he picked up working
as an intern for an architect uncle:
"How to listen to clients and
guide them gently to the right
decisions."
That's a lesson he has applied
successfully in his work with condominium clients over the past
decade.
Carr grew up in Chicago,
thinking through high school
that he wanted to be an architect.
But he decided he wasn't "arty
enough" for that ﬁeld. "So I did
the next best thing - I became a
structural engineer," he says.
After graduating from college,
he worked brieﬂy for a large engineering company but was soon
drafted into the Navy Civil Engineering Corps, assigned to head
the Portsmouth (N.H.) Shipyard.
That was a heady assignment
for a 22-year-old ensign, but the
shipyard was slated to be closed,
he explains, and they didn't
want to assign a senior commander to
that post. Six months later, that decision was reversed. Instead of overseeing a dying base, Carr found himself
overseeing a booming operation,
managing a ﬂood of new construction orders that had been on hold for
several years. Then, the Navy decided
to close the Charlestown (Mass.)
Shipyard, and since Portsmouth was
46

CONDO MEDIA * NOVEMBER 2014

the closest base, Carr says, "they put
me in charge of that one, too."

An Eye-opening Experience

It was "an eye-opening" experience,
changing his thinking and his career
focus. "Engineering is like a religion,"

he explains. "If it's not in a manual
or on a computer, you don't want to
know about it." Running two shipyards,
managing resources, manpower, equipment, and material introduced him to
the business end of his profession and
convinced him that he needed an MBA.
After obtaining one in ﬁnance
from Boston University, he made a
"quality-of-life decision" to return

to Maine, where he had lived while
working at the shipyard. That was, he
says, "the best decision I ever made."
After managing a large construction company for a time, he bought
and ran his own company. "When that
was no longer fun," he joined Criterium, where he has worked
now for more than 10 years.
A senior vice president in the
company's Northeast Division,
Carr oversees engineering services throughout New England,
spending about half of his time
working with condominium
clients.
Criterium's now extensive
condominium practice evolved
from its early history as a home
inspection company, experience
the company melded with its
engineering expertise to provide
reserve studies and related services to community associations.
Accountants used to perform
reserve studies, Carr notes, "but
it became clear that you need an
engineering touch," not only to
estimate the life expectancy of
buildings and their components
but also to assess "how buildings
will actually perform in the ﬁeld
and to translate those ﬁndings
into language clients can understand and use for future planning."
In working with condominium
boards, Carr says, "my job is to teach
them about their buildings - to help
them think about their buildings in
ways they've never considered. I teach
boards how to protect the net worth of
what is their biggest asset. I show them
how to care for their facilities so they
get the most out of what they have."

Condo Media - November 2014

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