Passero’s new leadership team intends to build on values already in place

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Brad Wente, the new president of Passero Associates, is a civil engineer at heart.

He has spent three decades in the profession, primarily working on airports. Over time he has developed a passion for project management and delivery, for building teams and making organizations run smoothly and efficiently.

That won’t change now that Wente is overseeing operations at Passero, the Rochester-based architectural, engineering and planning firm. He’ll just be incorporating his vision across the company’s eight offices.

But as Wente and the new leadership team plot a course for future growth, clients and employees will continue to be the focus. That, after all, has been a hallmark since Gary Passero founded the firm in 1972.

“The values on which the firm was founded 54 years ago definitely won’t change,” Wente said. “We’ve always been a people company. We want to make sure we continue to hire the best people, retain the best people and give them the tools to be successful, so ultimately our clients are successful.

“And our projects are located in the communities in which we live, so basically the general population has the benefit of our projects.”

Wente, who works out of Passero’s office in St. Augustine, Florida, was recently appointed president by the firm’s board of directors. He succeeds Jess Sudol, who served as president from 2020 until his death in January after a battle with brain cancer.

While Andrew Holesko remains CEO, other management changes include:

• 

  Vice President Patrick Williams was named northeast director. He works at the Rochester office.

• Vice President Peter Wehner was named North Carolina regional director and has moved from Rochester to Charlotte, N.C.
• Vice President Justin Vollenweider, who is based in St. Augustine, succeeds Wehner as Architecture Department manager.
• Steven Kushner, based in Rochester, was promoted to Northeast architectural lead.
• Zina Lagonegro, also based in Rochester, was named Planning & Development Department manager, a new division.
• Ed Martin (also Rochester) was named manager of the Civil Engineering Department.

While the firm’s president is no longer working from Rochester’s home office — where the majority of Passero’s 185 full-time employees work — won’t be changing any time soon.

“Rochester will continue to be a focus for us,” Wente said, “but with that said, we started our Charlotte office a couple years ago, we’ve got an office in Atlanta, I’m in Florida. We are always looking to expand and build, but we are not forgetting about New York. That is key element in our relationships and our success, and that will continue to be the case.”

Airports have been a specialty for Passero and comprise about 40 percent of revenue. With nearly 20 airports as clients, Wente would like to expand on those relationships, since the airports are owned by municipalities.

“We’re working for a municipality or county government (on those projects), so what I would like to see is that we’re working with that community on their civil engineering and architectural downtown,” he said. “We want to leverage those relationships.

“What I’m trying to do is eliminate some of the silos that may have existed within Passero and make it more of a one-firm organization where we are cross-pollinating our business practices and to maximize our relationships.”

The idea certainly makes perfect sense. About 80 percent of Passero’s current work comes from repeat clients, so the bond is already strong.

“I think that’s a testament to our relationship with them and our ability to produce good deliverables,” Wente said.

And the work at airports isn’t all that different from the other engineering and architectural work cities and counties require.

“Airports are like little cities,” Wente said. “They need fire stations and buildings and sanitary sewers and water lines and roads and all the other infrastructure.”

Expanding on those relationships would help fit into Wente’s goal of sustained growth, in the range of 5 to 10 percent per year.

One thing Passero’s board is not interested in is selling to private equity, something that has become commonplace in the industry. Passero checks all the boxes for private equity firms.

“We explored that last year to some degree,” Wente said. “Passero is in that sweet spot. We have a deep bench, we have great people and our book of work is very strong, so we are a very attractive firm.

“But, candidly, I’m not interested in that. I really enjoy autonomy. I love Passero the way it is from a cultural basis and our focus on our staff. We’re not trying to squeeze out every dollar. It goes back to what Gary infused in the company; kind of a Christian ethos of giving back and making your staff feel like we’re a family.

“I fear that if we went with private equity, all that would go away, that we would no longer be able to captain the ship.”

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