The Elevator Careers Podcast
The Elevator Careers Podcast, hosted by Matt Allred, contains discussions with professionals across the elevator industry about the challenges, innovations, opportunities, and experiences shaping the trade today.
Our goal is to share lessons and insights from all areas of the trade, from apprentices in the field to industry leaders and business owners. By sharing these experiences, we hope to educate others on similar journeys, preserve valuable industry knowledge, and connect the elevator community one conversation at a time.
The Elevator Careers Podcast
Negotiating Functional Elevator Design for NYC Skyscrapers | Rick Sayah
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In this episode, I interviewed Rick Sayah, the senior vice president of VDA, a New York elevator consulting company. We discussed the process of making an elevator design functional for high-rise buildings, how building standards can vary internationally, and some interesting observations on how human behavior affects transportation. I also asked Rick to share his advice for the next generation of elevator professionals.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
03:28 Surprising Complexity of Elevator Systems
05:07 Deciding on a Career in Elevators
06:10 Memorable Elevator Projects and Challenges
07:58 Global Building Codes and Regulations
09:00 Designing Elevators for Tall Buildings
10:34 Impact of Amenities on Elevator Traffic
12:45 Mixed-Use Developments and Elevator Planning
14:29 Economics of Elevator Design in Skyscrapers
16:21 Technological Changes Over 20 Years
18:04 Training the Next Generation of Elevator Engineers
19:46 Industry Talent Gap and Knowledge Transfer
21:50 What Rick Looks for in Buildings
22:10 Human Behavior and Elevator Interaction
22:54 Final Advice for Aspiring Professionals
Resources:
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Resources:
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@elevatorcareers/
Submit a Topic Idea for the Podcast: https://elevatorcareers.net/
Connect With Us: linktr.ee/AllredGroup
A Message From Our Sponsor:
Looking for top-tier talent to join your team? Call The Allred Group for your elevator recruiting needs! With a deep network and unmatched industry expertise, we quickly connect you with skilled professionals who are ready to elevate your team. Let us handle the hiring process, so you can focus on growing your business with the best in the industry. Reach out today, and let us help you take your business to new heights!
To contact us go to: https://allredgroup.com
Of course, the technical complexity of a hundred story tower is going to be light years beyond, but you also have a team of probably hundred, two hundred engineers and constructors coming together to make that elevator happen. A private residence elevator, you're talking to a penthouse owner, they kind of just know that they want an elevator, but they don't want it to make any noise, they don't want it to take up any space, they don't want it to cost anything. Right. The challenges vary a lot, but ultimately at the end of the day, no one wants to spend any money, no one wants this thing to inconvenience them, but you need to negotiate and let them understand if we'll get you the best elevator we can to fit your needs.
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to the Elevated Careers Podcast brought to you by the Allred Group. I'm your host, Matt Allred. Does your workforce need a lift? At the Allred Group, we are committed to connecting your company with top talent that matches your needs. Give us a call at 404-890-0445. In this episode, I interviewed Rick Saya, Senior Vice President of VDA, an international elevator consulting company, based in New York City. We discussed the process of making an elevator design functional for high-rise buildings, how building standards can vary internationally, and some interesting observations on how human behavior affects vertical transportation. I also asked Rick to share his advice for the next generation of elevator professionals. Rick, welcome to the show. Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me. I'm pleased to have you. I I appreciate it. It was great meeting you last fall at the NAEC Expo and to be able to keep having these conversations is a lot of fun. So I uh obviously have lots of questions for you. And you know, you mentioned that elevators weren't really part of your original career plan. And so just, you know, can you tell the story about how you first discovered the elevator industry and how that internship at VDA changed your trajectory?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So at the time I was a student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, and I was going through the co-op program there. I had done a couple different job assignments previously. One was like doing quality control for pharmaceutical supplies. Next was working for a small MEP firm doing general drafting and light uh project work like that. And then finally, as my you know third round was coming up, was interviewing with like a pharmaceutical company at the time, and then the opportunity for VDA showed up in the co-op office and just you know looked very different, elevators and you know, working with architecture and stuff like that. Met the people there and could just sense the vibe and the energy of the company at the time, just a great little um small group of people, all very intelligent and um excited about the industry. And I guess that infectious excitement just rubbed off, and I really wanted to work for VDA. I even you know I had a lock on the open job interview, but just something told me VDA is where you want to be, and had to fight a little bit, and my advisor was like, well, you should take the sure thing, you know, don't wait too long for VDA to get back to you. And but luckily I held out and the rest is kind of history.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious what what surprised you the most? You know, you're working on traffic studies and and calculations and and learning how complex elevator systems really are. What stands out to you as kind of the surprise?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I I guess the real surprise is just you don't realize how interdisciplinary and you gotta have that like polymath capability because you know, one moment you're doing structural calculations, then you're figuring out horsepowers and heat loads and the KW of the motors and trying to coordinate with the feeder sizes, all the while talking to the architect who's got these grand visions about how the building's gotta look and how to move people through the lobbies, and then you run into the building code stuff and you find out that you're spending a lot of your time being a lawyer. So, you know, it it it it really calls upon you to hone all your skills. Engineering is a discipline where you have to integrate multiple different things in order to build something, so I think it really keyed in on that ability. You know, I was always kind of doing all sorts of random things, and you know, I think this really was a great way to bring it all together because it's always a new little challenge, a new little nook or cranny that you're going down to figure something out, you know, always comes back together. Someone's always throwing something new at you here.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Well, and and it sounds like you you kind of saw the vision, caught the vision pretty early on. It uh but uh but at what point or or was there a point where you realize, hey, this is this is where I want to stay, right? This isn't just a job, but this is a career, and I'm I'm gonna be here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I guess it happened fairly early on. Uh because my wife was working kind of in South Jersey and trying to figure out where we were gonna end up, and she had some opportunities down there, but we decided that coming back up to around VDA and looking at her opportunities up here and you know, location of VDA is great because we're right outside New York City, you know, got the whole world at your fingertips there, and just really settled in and made our life around here. I I mean I grew up in Jersey, uh Jersey born and bred, and so was she, and our whole families are here, so it just makes sense. You know, we're sitting in the center of the elevator world, we've got the greatest projects, and nowhere else I'd rather be.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Awesome. Well, you you described yourself as a like a chief firefighter, you know, when problems arise. And I was just curious if you could share a story about a time when someone called you because of an elevator situation, maybe gone sideways, or something was totally unusual that you were called in to face.
SPEAKER_01Is at least you can wait till Monday morning to, you know, check on the phone. Of course, you know, everyone's got their water damage issues and stuff where they're asking for us to check their proposals. But you know, you get into these crazy design issues, and you know, sometimes you get projects that they might paint themselves into a corner and you have to help them figure it out. There's a lot of zoning issues or design issues, scoping issues around what's the right elevator to use and how to make that work. Probably one of the coolest projects I did was the Spyscape Museum here in New York City on 55th Street and 8th Avenue. It's actually a moving room. And before we got involved, the design team at Elray kind of fixated on this idea of a big like 70,000 pound, I forget how big it was, but it was at least you know 400 square feet or something of a room. Wow. They wanted the stageless elevator system to operate it, and stuff like that's done in Broadway theaters and stuff, but never for public elevators. Okay. Trying to figure it out, coordinate with the manufacturer, figure out how we could pull it off. Eventually, yeah, you put all the pieces together and turned out to be a successful project.
SPEAKER_00So that sounds like a lot of fun. I I'll have to go visit that next time I'm in town.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Very cool, very cool. I'm I'm imagining at this point, I'm and you I mean you talked about you know different codes and different projects, and you you've worked on things all around the world, right? So you've you've probably seen some some very different laws, rules, codes, oh, we can't do this here because of that, and it's like Yeah, what well yeah, I mean the the codes themselves, you know, are a mishmash.
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of other, you know, the i in the states, the legal environment and everything is such that the codes are much more strictly adhered to and followed when you get into other jurisdictions, other countries, you know, they're more of a guideline. So they haven't really been put through their paces and the enforcement structures aren't quite the same or as robust. But at the same time, you know, that's where you bring in the international expertise and you know what you've seen around the world, and you're trying to deliver something that is better than what you know you might be able to get away with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You've talked about um you know working on everything from private residential elevators to hundred-story towers. And I'm curious what changes when you move from designing a small system to designing designing elevat elevators for a super tall building?
SPEAKER_01In some senses, not a lot, because at the end of the day, you're dealing with clients and trying to make sure they understand the elevator systems that they're trying to purchase because at the beginning of any project, you're just trying to get it on paper. You know, of course, the technical complexity of a hundred-story tower is going to be light years beyond, but you also have a team of probably 100, 200 engineers and constructors coming together to make that elevator happen versus you know, a private residence elevator. You're talking to a penthouse owner on Central Park South where they're not experienced in the business, and they kind of just know that they want an elevator, but they don't want it to make any noise, they don't want it to take up any space, they don't want it to cost anything. So the the challenges vary a lot, but ultimately at the end of the day, no one wants to spend any money, no one wants this thing to inconvenience them, but you need to negotiate and let them understand, you know, we'll get you the best elevator we can to fit your needs, and the general conversation tends to be the same. It's just the scale of it and how beautiful it's gonna look on the skyline.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, and and along with those differences, I mean you mentioned that a lot of modern office buildings now have gyms and coffee bars and amenities that send people kind of around or up or down or you know, uh down to the cafeteria. Uh, how does that change the way elevator traffic has to be designed?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I think it it's a complication that hasn't really been fully thought all the way through because I kind of like to remind people that the job of the building developer was to get people through the door, up into their seats, and they'll stay there. They might go out to lunch, come back in, and then they'll go out at the end of the day. Now they're coming in, running up, going down to get a cup of coffee, going back up, going down to a meeting, going back up to their desk, and you know, making many more elevator trips during a day. And that's a chaotic traffic pattern that all your destination dispatching and cool control systems and genetic algorithms and AIs aren't really able to make sense of because it's just people going about their day doing their thing.
SPEAKER_00A lot more haphazard as as you could add in some amenities. Oh, hey, we have a gym on the third floor and a cafeteria down here, then yeah, people are just gonna, you know, it's not like a rush hour kind of situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I kind of like to say we're seeing lunchtime all the time. It's people are just milling about through the building and enjoying the building, which is great, but it tends to mean we have to kind of redefine what the expectations are around the elevators, because yeah, you could add wall-to-wall elevators in the building to give everyone sub-30 second wait times to compensate for that, but that's not practical. So try trying to find that right balance with the developers and the tenants to you know find that right balance in the building so that you can have an efficient floor plate that fits all their employees, but you know, reasonable elevator service.
SPEAKER_00Sure, sure. Well, and as you get yeah, bigger buildings, right, and you got 99 floors and and people trying to get back and forth from the gym and cafeteria.
SPEAKER_01One of the difficulties we run into is with the availability of air rights and rezoning, you might have a footprint for a building that's constrained by you know its geographic lot size, sure. But it can be a hundred stories tall and might look great on paper, but when you think about the 3D aspect of how those elevators move and interact with the building, you can just have a lot of congestion and traffic in that building to contend with, and trying to explain that and understand that and rationalize, you know, maybe you can't have the building as tall, or we have to tailor it to a specific tenant profile, you know, understanding what those possibilities are for that footprint.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, it's fascinating. You said you uh it hasn't fully been thought out, and what it sounds like is there's still there's still a lot of development happening, and and I've even seen in the last you know 10, 20 years a lot more mixed use.
SPEAKER_01Oh, this used to be just a mall, but now it's a mall and it's and it's apartments and its office building and and yeah, you get three or four different uses on the site, and they they're each trying to get into the building from a different direction, but the elevators are all kind of still clustered in the middle, but everyone wants to have their own identity, and so yeah, it's a difficult jigsaw puzzle trying to fit all those pieces together onto a plan and some interesting challenges out there.
SPEAKER_00Sure, sure. Well, I guess that's why you get called in as the the chief firefighter to kind of think through some of those challenges. And and like you say, a designer may design something that's beautiful, okay. Have but have you thought about this?
SPEAKER_01And and what about yeah, none of that is mathematics or engineering per se. It's sure helping think through all those aspects and thinking a little bit outside the box too, because it's how do these different things interplay? Are there efficiencies like if you stack the lobbies one on top of the other, do you have an ability to optimize that layout and you know give them each their own separate floor for their identity?
SPEAKER_00Right, right. Well, and you said it's not mathematics, a lot of it's just experience, right? You've seen it, you've you've experienced it a lot, and so you have you are able to speak to that.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And um, you know, as we're sort of talking about, you know, whole you could build a whole bank of of elevators, uh, obviously that's gonna affect the the economics of the building. And so um want to see if you can explain how elevator design can determine whether a skyscraper is financially viable.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, uh you know, the biggest concern is you know they need to be able to sell the space within the building. So, like we were talking about, a plot of land is gonna have a certain amount of built area that you can put on it. So every elevator you put into that building is gonna subtract away from that area. So you're trying to strike that balance of what is the right number of elevators to get to the level of service you want, and then each additional elevator is going to become inefficient. And when you think about an elevator is gonna be roughly a hundred square feet if it's a thousand dollars per square foot in the building, times you know, all the stories in the building, even if it's a modest building that's only 20 stories, that that's real money for each elevator, and not to mention the operating costs of that additional elevator because you're gonna have to maintain it and inspect it and all that. So it trying to find that right balance is tough. But of course, from a tenant point of view, they kind of think, oh, I want more elevators because I don't want to wait for an elevator, and the developer's trying to minimize that, and so you're constantly trying to walk that tightrope, especially for sure. We tend to represent both sides, so right now sometimes on the same project.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. I mean, that's why you you do what you do, right? As a consultant, you're having to to kind of counsel both sides about here the pros and the cons, and and you have to decide where to land ultimately. And so I'm curious, uh, you know, over the last 20 years, what are some of the biggest changes you've seen in how buildings are designed and how how that affects elevators?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I I I mean the digital revolution is obviously the biggest change, you know, as the ability to have Zoom meetings like this is a great ability to project your power to a project wherever it is. But I think it's also a double-edged sword where the ease and ability to meet has kind of accelerated the pace of meetings. The fact that we don't have to erase lines and redraw and print unveil them. Now that everything's digital and that you're able to make changes quickly means that building owners and clients feel that they can change their minds a lot more frequently. So it's just a digital line, right? Yeah, uh it doesn't cost you anything to go and design four different versions of this building. Yeah. Wow. So it's kind of like a rapid prototyping of let's throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. You know, it's great to do, but the pace of that just continues to accelerate and it can be tough to keep up with it, and it puts a lot of demands on, especially a especially field like ours, where you know, we don't have great personnel resources. It's a small industry overall. So when you multiply that by the number of potential job sites or customers out there, giving them each that individual attention when they want lots of attention is a great challenge.
SPEAKER_00For sure, for sure. Well, and back to the the comment I made about experience is not everybody can just step into that role and and know exactly what to do and have the experience. You can't just manufacture 20 years of experience and say, boom, here you go.
SPEAKER_01No. We're trying. We're yeah, I think EDA's done a great job of trying to I look at myself. They took a chance on me and brought me along, and it's hopefully worked out well from everything I can tell. And now they're bringing the next generation into the business. We're bringing on some design engineers and training them up, trying to teach them the ropes of the industry and kind of pay it forward and create a nice little ladder for them to climb where you know they can be the next great consultants in the industry.
SPEAKER_00And for sure. Yeah, and I can only imagine you're you feel a little bit of a pinch as as you know, baby boomers retire and a lot of lot of firms uh like the the consulting firms were built around industry veterans that spent 40, 50 years or more maybe in the consulting arena and as they they retire out. Um, do you feel and see that knowledge gap as as experts retire and you're developing the next generation?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I mean, it's not just on the consulting side, even in the elevator companies. There are those great minds, those little tinkerers who might be hiding in the basement, those little gurus who know elevators inside and out. They're they're getting older and they're not being replaced. And we gotta watch out as an industry that we don't lose that talent that we make sure we're passing the torch on to the next generation and bringing them along because it's a complex industry, and as we talked about, there's lots of little nooks and crannies of info that you need to know in order to be successful and to keep these projects running well. And, you know, if we're not careful, that talent's gonna move on and we're gonna be left holding the bag.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure, for sure. Which leads me to my next question, which, you know, if there's a young engineer or mechanic listening to this podcast, if they're in the industry, maybe they're thinking about getting in the industry or getting into consulting one day, what advice would you give them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I'd say ask lots of questions. I I think the industry is full of lots of generous minds who are willing to share their stories and teach you everything they know, and they're happy to do so. Don't be afraid about stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying something new. Like I said, you know, you might be very mechanically inclined. You can adjust the rollers and do all the stuff in the shaft and run the rails, but you also gotta be able to handle the control technologies that are going on. Yeah, stay abreast of everything happening in computers because it's all coming back to us as to what's happening inside the elevator. And you gotta constantly reinvent yourself and see what's coming down the pipeline. So, you know, don't be afraid and don't get stuck in your rut.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, and I'm sure they feel that, you know, just like we say, with with baby boomers retiring, and you know, you can't just manufacture all those years of experience. So there's there's probably uh a bit of pressure to to ramp up quickly, ask lots of questions, read the code books, you know, try to drink out of that fire host as fast as you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but that's kind of was my ideal at VDA. I had great mentors all around me, John Van Dusen, I'm at Tanieri, John Beckman, Tom Stack, you know, all these great guys who were more than willing to coach me through what any questions I had and just looking over their shoulders, seeing what they were working on and figuring out what they did, and then regurgitating it and making it my own eventually.
SPEAKER_00So sure, sure. Well, and and yeah, at some point it has to become your own, right? You have to use that knowledge and and maybe even trip over your own toes and oh, whoops, I guess that wasn't quite the right thing. Maybe we need to do this instead, right? Yeah. That's how I learned. Very cool. Uh so the last question I have for you. Um, you know, when you walk into a building today, maybe it's a hotel, office, tower, airport, what do you find yourself thinking about in regards to the elevators and what is it you're looking for?
SPEAKER_01Obviously, being an elevator geek, you're always kind of watching, just checking the operation, especially seeing how people interact with the elevators. That's probably the most interesting bit, especially when you walk into a building with destination dispatch, seeing how people interact with that. You'll see someone on their cell phone and they might not realize the elevators arrived, and how that impacts the elevator traffic because now they end up holding the door, or somebody holds the door for them. You understand that that has a whole domino effect on it. General arrangement of the lobbies and flow through the buildings, you start to feel that a little bit. So, you know, being in the people movement business, you kind of take your subway journeys and everything as a little more of an intellectual experience, or at least you keep yourself from getting too bored by starting to you know understand how people are moving and those general patterns of human behavior.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Rick, um anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up today?
SPEAKER_01No, I I mean again, just to all the young, aspiring elevator technicians and engineers out there, you know, be curious and ask lots of questions and you know, respect those mentors out there that are looking to share their knowledge with you.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. Well, it's been a pleasure. I appreciate you being on with me today and wish you the very best. Thank you, Matt. This has been excellent. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please like and subscribe. And until next time, stay safe.