Serendipity: the phenomenon of making fortunate discoveries by accident. That is how you might describe AMG’s humble beginning.
AMG founder, Alberto Mendez, graduated from the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at the National Polytechnical Institute (Instituto Politecnico Nacional) in Mexico. Soon after graduation, Alberto began work for as a mechanical design engineer for a company based in Mexico. Shortly thereafter, Alberto was assigned to assist in the US for the design and installation of a starch flash dryer. An immediate success with the client, they asked him to stay another 2 years to help with the design and expansion of a corn wet milling plant in Dayton, Ohio.
In 1972, upon completion of the Dayton facility, Alberto joined some of his colleagues to form a small design engineering company in the U.S., known as Modern Process Design (MPD). For the next seven years, Alberto worked as the Vice President of Engineering for the company, until he found himself opposed to questionable business decisions being made by one of his associates. Knowing those decisions would lead to the eventual dissolution of the company, it was clear to Alberto that he would have to resign for his family’s well-being.
Believing that he had hit rock-bottom after several years of success, Alberto went home to share the news with his wife, Maria, unsure of how she would handle it. Maria, however, was not upset. She suggested they take a two-week vacation to Mexico to visit family, believing that Alberto could find a job when they returned. Nervous and uncertain about his future, he reluctantly agreed.
While in Mexico, his father-in-law offered him a loan to help with family expenses while he worked on finding a job. Alberto was confident and resolved to use his contacts in the industry to find consulting work. He made three phone calls and secured his first three jobs.
Alberto spent the first four months working out of his garage that had been converted to a home office. Early on, he recognized that if he performed well on his clients’ projects, new work would find him. He did just that, and in May of 1980, he hired his first employee. In the first three years of operation, AMG sales grew more than 300%, and seven years after beginning work as a consultant, AMG was a $1M company.
Our humble roots haven't left us. AMG has spent the last 30 years developing our design methods and infrastructure. We know why our clients return for help on their projects. We stand by our belief that quality work and business integrity bring value to our clients' projects, and we work daily to ensure the success of their investments. AMG is committed to fostering sustained growth of our client base, so keeping our clients happy is our top priority. We separate ourselves from our competitors by designing with our clients' long-term needs in mind. We design our models and process & instrumentation diagrams (P&ID's) to minimize the time a project stakeholder needs to get from request to answer. We are innovative not just in our design, but also in planning our infrastructure and project design workflow to enable us to design better, smarter, and in less time.
Alberto and AMG have come a long way since his days as an independent consultant, but both remain just as committed to our clients and to building a quality team they trust and value.
Learn more about the history of AMG Engineering.