Ryan Horne, Principal, The Beck Group
Ryan Horne, Principal at The Beck Group, spoke with Invest: about the firm’s integrated design-build presence in one of the country’s fastest-growing regions. Working across both design and construction, Horne focused on using Beck’s unified model to drive early value, reduce risk, and raise the bar on quality. “Innovation for us is less about chasing whatever looks flashiest and more about asking where we can gain real efficiency, reduce risk, and take labor hours and exposure out of the danger zones,” Horne added.
How does The Beck Group’s integrated design-build model shape the way you lead projects?
Our integrated approach begins with how we view every opportunity, regardless of whether it’s formally procured as a design-build project or not. Some markets and jurisdictions fully embrace design-build, others prefer more traditional delivery, and some simply aren’t there yet from a regulatory or cultural standpoint. Even so, we treat every project as an opportunity for integration. If it’s a design-only commission, we’re almost always engaging our preconstruction group for cost estimating, and we’re pulling in our construction team and superintendents to review complex details and make sure what we’re designing is actually buildable.
On the construction-only side, we flip that dynamic. Our design team can act as a peer reviewer or an architectural liaison when needed, helping us problem-solve details and coordinate with the design firm. The goal is to leverage all of Beck’s specialties across disciplines, not to run design and construction as separate silos. That’s why, on design-build projects, we use an integrated project leader sitting above the design and construction leads, carrying a consistent vision and decision-making framework from day one through turnover. It keeps the focus on early value, constructability, and eliminating downstream change orders, rather than just handing a project off from one group to the next.
When you evaluate a new project, what are the most important metrics and trade-offs you look at?
Because we’re both a design and construction firm, there are multiple lenses we use when we look at new work. One of the first is alignment between the client and Beck’s mission, vision, and values. We pay attention to how an owner shows up in the community, how the project itself will impact that community, and whether they truly value quality in design and construction. That alignment matters a lot to us, and there have absolutely been times when we’ve chosen not to pursue work because the client or the product type didn’t fit our wheelhouse.
We also look closely at the market fundamentals behind a project. Is this a sector where demand is trending upward, or is it a space with thin margins that doesn’t typically support the level of quality and integration we bring? We consider the schedule, the level of complexity, and how realistic the overall constraints are. You can’t reduce it to a single metric — cost, schedule, sustainability, design quality, and client fit all sit on the table together. The decision is about finding opportunities where those elements align in a way that allows us to do our best work and deliver something we’re proud to have our name on.
Beck has a reputation for innovation. How do you balance tried-and-true construction techniques with new technologies and delivery methods?
There are certain fundamentals in construction that we’re not going to deviate from: the basics of how we stage a site, manage laydown areas, or sequence work safely and efficiently. Those “tried and true” practices exist for a reason. Innovation for us is less about chasing whatever looks flashiest and more about asking where we can gain real efficiency, reduce risk, and take labor hours and exposure out of the danger zones.
Sometimes that does involve new digital tools or more advanced technology, but it can also be a low-tech solution that solves a recurring problem in a smarter way. We look for approaches that reduce opportunities for injury, streamline coordination, and bring more predictability to the build. The filter is always: does this help us build better, more safely, and more efficiently? If it does, we’ll work it into our processes and scale it across projects. If it doesn’t pass that test, it doesn’t matter how cool it looks — it’s not innovation in our context.
Beck has completed many LEED-certified projects. How do you guide clients toward deeper sustainability goals and higher levels of certification?
The sustainability landscape has evolved dramatically since I started out as a young architect getting my LEED accreditation. Early on, owners didn’t always know what LEED was or how it tied to long-term performance, and there wasn’t much precedent for higher levels of certification. Achieving something like LEED Platinum required a lot of creativity and a willingness to be the first to try certain strategies.
Today, there are multiple rating systems and policies — LEED, WELL, Green Globes, and state-specific programs — and sustainability has become more of a baseline expectation than a niche add-on. Our starting point is to understand the owner’s objectives and what they plan to do with the building. A long-term owner-occupier will think differently about lifecycle performance and operating costs than someone developing a speculative building to sell or flip in a few years. Jurisdictions also matter; for example, some state-funded projects can’t pursue LEED by law and must follow a state-run sustainability program instead.
At Beck, we generally design to a minimum standard that’s equivalent to LEED Silver, even if the project isn’t pursuing formal certification. From there, moving into Gold or even higher levels is increasingly feasible through smart, integrated strategies rather than simply throwing money at gadgets. Because there’s now a track record and a more mature supply chain, the cost of many sustainable solutions has come down. We also have a dedicated sustainability leader who is deeply involved at the industry level, which helps us stay at the forefront of what’s next and bring that thinking into our projects in a practical way.
What does a strong safety culture look like on Beck job sites, and how do you make a zero-accident mindset real in practice?
Safety is an area where, even as an architect, I’m deeply aware of how critical culture is. We have robust safety programs and a zero-accident policy that apply to every project, but the real difference comes from how those expectations are lived day to day. It starts with education for our superintendent group and continues through project engineers and field staff, with regular safety meetings that bring everyone — including subcontractors — into the conversation.
We simply can’t afford to have “rogue” elements on our sites. There has to be a zero-tolerance mindset for ignoring safety standards, because at the end of the day, everyone wants to go home in one piece. Having superintendents who genuinely care about every person on the job — Beck employees, hourly craftworkers, trade partners — is essential. When they are personally invested in that outcome, they’re much more rigorous about daily reporting, enforcing policies, and making sure plans are implemented the way they were intended. That human factor is what turns a written safety plan into a living safety culture.
