Architecture firm co-owner discusses his SBA management training

SYRACUSE — Christopher Resig, one of two co-owners of N.K. Bhandari Architecture & Engineering, P.C., participated in this year’s U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Emerging Leaders Initiative.

Resig was among 15 small-business owners and leaders who graduated from the program in a ceremony the SBA held Nov. 5 at the SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry.

The SBA Syracuse District office collaborates with several organizations, including CenterState CEO, on the program that provides more than 40 hours of advanced-management training.

Business leaders participating in the program are often told, “You want to work on your business and not in your business,” Resig recalls.

The program encourages participants to look at the overall goals of their respective organizations, its financial health, its marketing and human-resources functions, and how they all “[fit] together” in leading the company into the future.

“One of the biggest elements for me was refocusing or retooling my efforts to be able to work on the business and not in the business,” says Resig.

He also felt the program taught him how to “scale” himself as an entrepreneur. The scaling of an entrepreneur, Resig says, is to be able to “empower others” to do what they need to do so that the firm can then achieve its goals.

“It’s allowing others to do what the firm needs to have done,” he adds. 

In addition, Resig called it a “source of comfort” to see other small-business owners who are facing the same types of issues, concerns, and questions.

“We’re all in this together as small-business owners,” he says.

When asked if his involvement in the Emerging Leaders Initiative was related to a succession plan at his firm, Resig didn’t want to get specific.

“I would just simply say that … Jim and I are both owners of the firm and we are working through a transition plan at this point in time.” 

He was referring to his brother, James Resig, who is the firm’s majority owner. Christopher Resig, the firm’s minority owner, rejoined the business in early 2010 after having initially worked there between 1983 and 1995, he says.

About the firm
N.K. Bhandari Architecture & Engineering (NKB) has operated in a roughly 7,000-square-foot space at the Rockwest Center in Syracuse since 1997. The firm previously operated in locations in the town of Salina and on James Street in Syracuse.

The company handles projects for companies and organizations in the health-care, defense, education, federal government, commercial retail, and corporate and industrial sectors.

For example, the firm is handling design work for projects at border crossings located in Ogdensburg in St. Lawrence County and at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain in Clinton County, says Resig.

NKB currently employs 10 full-time workers, a figure that includes the owners.

He calls the employee count “right sized,” noting technology allows small design firms to handle the larger projects that only bigger firms previously could handle.

“Technology allows us to implement larger projects and more complex projects very effectively with a small staff,” he says. 

The firm currently works with 24 clients. 

He declined to disclose the firm’s revenue information. 

Company history
Narindar K. Bhandari launched the business as a sole proprietorship in 1980, providing structural engineering and construction-management services to a variety of federal, state, and institutional clients throughout upstate New York, according to the firm’s website.

In the mid-1980s, NKB expanded to include architecture and civil-engineering services. In 1988, NKB was restructured as a professional corporation under the new name N.K. Bhandari, Consulting Engineers, P.C.

The name would eventually return to N.K. Bhandari Architecture & Engineering, P.C.

Bhandari retired in 2008, and Jim Resig, who had worked for the firm since 1982, assumed ownership.                

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com