Changing as little as possible was the goal when an international group of 30 sports architecture executives gathered in Kansas City last week.
The meeting was the first time many key players with the firms HOK Sports Facilities Group, based in Kansas City, and Lobb Sports Architecture, based in London, had met since the companies announced their merger Nov. 6. The companies formally become HOK+Lobb Sport on Jan. 1.
They gathered primarily to decide how they would conduct business.
"We did not want to be all that bureaucratic," said Bob White, HOK Sport vice president in charge of marketing. "The overall intent is to have each office on a day-to-day basis operate like it did before the merger, except that each office will be able to draw on the resources of the other offices."
HOK+Lobb Sport will be run by an 11-member board. The board will not have a chairman, and each member will have equal authority.
The new board is basically HOK Sport's nine-member board of directors with two representatives from Lobb Sports. The board members from HOK are Ben Barnert, Chris Carver, Randy Dvorak, Ron Labinski, Rick Martin, Earl Santee, Joe Spear, Jim Walters and Dennis Wellner. The board members from Lobb are Rod Sheard, chairman of Lobb Sports and head of the London office, and Paul Henry, a senior vice president and head of the Brisbane office.
Labinski and Sheard also will serve on the board of directors for Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Inc., the parent company of HOK Sport.
White said HOK+ Lobb Sport will continue to be a client-driven business, though the offices in Kansas City, London and Brisbane will have general authority over their respective corners of the globe.
"A client can work with any individual in any part of the world," he said.
Absent any client preference, the Kansas City office will generally keep track of North America and South America projects. The London office will oversee projects in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Brisbane office will monitor projects along the Asian side of the Pacific Rim, said White.
"My advice to clients is, if you know someone, then call who you know," he said. "If you don't know someone, call the office closest to you."
HOK Sport, which just celebrated its 15th anniversary, is the larger of the two firms with nearly $49 million in revenue in 1997. Lobb Sports had nearly $5 million in revenue in 1997.
As HOK+Lobb Sport, the firm will have a portfolio of 450 projects, including 50 for major U.S. franchises and 25 for European soccer and rugby clubs. The firm is currently building the 110,000-seat Stadium Australia for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the new National Stadium at Wembley in England.
