"The Fremont was the firm's first large project and we've been working in Las Vegas ever since," said Steve Schiller, principal with John A. Martin, which opened a local, independent office in the valley in 1975. "(In the 1950s) most major projects were designed in Los Angeles or Miami and most of the work in Las Vegas up until the mid-1970s continued to be done in Los Angeles, because Las Vegas was basically a small town and the talent wasn't necessarily here at that time.

"The Mirage was the turning point where major projects were designed locally because the town was growing and we were able to do the work here, which is better for the contractors and the owners and everybody else. Things just flow easier, and if we need to run out to the job site, we can do that in five or 10 minute as opposed to jumping on an airplane."

John A. Martin, which provided structural engineering services for The Mirage, which opened in 1989, has since taken advantage of the local construction surge, working on many other casino properties, including Treasure Island, MGM Grand, Bellagio, The Venetian, Paris Las Vegas, and many of the Station Casinos resorts.

The company, which now has a workforce of 45 — just eight employees in 1982 — was also involved in the Turnberry Project and Park Tower as well as the World Market Center.

Schiller, who was educated at Cal Poly and joined John A. Martin in 1995 after successfully operating his own firm in Northern California for eight years, credits Las Vegas' booming economy for the company's 31 successful years here.

"The amount of work here for the field that I'm in is unmatched in the country and the type of work is exciting," he said. "Everything seems to be hitting on all cylinders, and things are really moving forward at a fast pace."

So what exactly does structural engineering entail?

"The architect initially decides what the building will look like and how it will function, then we come in and do the foundation and the structural frame to support that design. We do what is basically the skeleton," said Schiller, adding that many local projects are erected on a fast-track basis, whereby construction begins before the design work is even completed.

"It has its challenges, but it does work, and we're able to build the projects much faster. (Fast-track) is not exclusive to Las Vegas, but it is more common in Las Vegas because of the amount of money that can be generated and the amount of time we can cut off the schedule, which is probably anywhere from a year to 18 months.

"We really have to understand how to be part of a team and how to listen and anticipate the owner's and the architect's needs so we can complete a set of structural documents without complete information."

He said the company typically works on major projects for about 30 months, with fees on the order of seventh-10ths of 1 percent of the construction costs, which can bring in $3 million to $4 million per job.

He went on to say that the company is usually hired directly by the architect, including Fried Mutter Group, with which it has a long-standing relationship.

"Over the years we have used John A. Martin over and over as our structural consultants in developing projects in Las Vegas," said Jeff Rinker, general manager, adding that Fried Mutter endeavors to work regularly with the same team of consultants to avoid having to re-educate people.

"We just finished a brand new elementary school where they were the structural engineer of record, and public projects versus private is very demanding, and some people will bug out eventually, but they stuck with us for the whole.

"They are a large firm so we know our projects will get done on time, and we haven't had any buildings fall down, so that's a good thing."

Schiller said John A. Martin's primary challenge is one faced by many small businesses: hiring and retaining quality employees.

"There's pretty much a nationwide shortage of engineers, and with the amount of work we have going on in Las Vegas, it's even more critical here," he said. "We use traditional recruiters, some Internet-based recruiting, and direct mailing, and we've also developed a strategy to recruit people right out of college and train them rather than relying on them to be trained by someone else."

He said it can also be difficult to retain employees.

"Several firms from other parts of the country have opened offices in Las Vegas to take advantage of the construction boom, and every time one of them comes to town they are looking for people who understand how we do things here and they try and recruit our employees," he said.

"But we're trying to implement an employee ownership program and hope to be majority owned by the local employees within five years."

Schiller said other small-business owners can benefit from the policy of recruiting employees early and training them in-house.

"The advice I would offer is to develop the talent rather than relying on other people to do it for you," he said. "If you to bring people to Las Vegas early in their career, once they get here they don't want to leave, but it's more difficult to bring them here after they've been in the profession for a number of years."

He said John A. Martin has committed to projects that will keep the current staff busy for the next two or three years, including the casino meeting room portion of the Wynn Encore project, the Fountain Bleu hotel property on the old El Rancho site and the Durango Station for Station Casinos.

"We see a really bright future and we want to grow by 50 percent within three to five years," he said. "There's enough work to do if faster, but we don't want to bring in the wrong people and grow beyond our capacity to train them."