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Our Economy & the A/E/C industry

2/28/2017

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Last month, NTH added a new feature to its website called “OUR ECONOMY.” This webpage is dedicated to monitoring more than a dozen economic indicators that examine the health of our national, state, and local economies. Not only do these metrics describe the current state of our economy, but some also help to identify future trends. Nobody likes surprises caused by a sudden downturn in the economy, and that goes double for the architecture, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) industry.
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RESIDENTIAL BUILDING
Don’t you wish you had advanced warning that The Great Recession was coming? Although there are no guarantees in the business of predicting the future, there is no reason we should not pay closer attention to reliable and proven economic data that is readily available. For example, over the last three recessions, the number of individuals employed by the residential building industry experienced a sharp downturn 12-25 months prior to the recession hitting (see chart below).
Employees: U.S. Residential Building
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Grey vertical bands denote recessions
​AUTOS AND LIGHT TRUCK SALES
Auto and light truck sales are another good measure of U.S. economic health. As illustrated in the chart below, a consistent downward trend in U.S. auto and light truck sales typically forewarn of a recession by 13-35 months. Clearly, the current upward trend in the automotive and residential construction industries show no current signs of slowing. Some experts predict we have reached the peak in automotive sales for this business cycle, but the numbers do not demonstrate this yet. 
U.S. Autos and Light Truck Sales
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Grey vertical bands denote recessions
​UNEMPLOYMENT
Unemployment is another topic we are hearing a lot about in the news recently. Speculation centers on whether the U.S. economy has yet achieved “full-employment.”  As you can see from the chart below, U.S. unemployment tends to bottom out and then fluctuate a little prior to the next recession. In retrospect the pattern is easy to spot, but without the benefit of hindsight, there is always speculation about whether our current rate of unemployment is at the bottom, or just hesitating before going lower. This is where it’s important to listen to the experts, and hear their reasons and rationale.   
U.S. Unemployment
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Grey vertical bands denote recessions
​INTEREST RATES
The big talk these days, however, is interest rates. Back in the summer of 1954 our country saw low interest rates of less than 1%, but we have never experienced zero and near-zero interest rates as we have for the past eight years. As the chart below illustrates, the U.S. Federal Reserve typically lowers interest rates once a recession begins. This action is intended to encourage consumer spending and spur industrial investment.  This makes sense initially, but after a period of time all those who have been encouraged to buy a house or upgrade their plants have already done so. And where does the Fed go from here? It’s been 7 ½ years since our country’s last recession. The next is presumably on the way. Can interest rates go lower than 0%? The answer is “yes,” which is called negative interest rates. The European Union has done this, as well as Japan, and neither has had any success. Another option is for the Fed to implement an unconventional monetary policy called quantitative easing (QE), where it purchases long-term bonds in order to increase the money supply. QE increases the money supply by flooding financial institutions with capital in an effort to promote increased lending. Since the last recession, the Fed has done this three times: QE1, QE2, and QE3 (see circled numbers below), having increased the money supply by $3.6 trillion. Unfortunately, if the money supply is increased too quickly, it can cause inflation, which is another metric we are carefully watching.
​U.S. Interest Rates
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Grey vertical bands denote recessions
2017 OUTLOOK
So how is 2017 looking? Other than interest rates being far too low and the Fed trying to figure out how to increase them, the rest of the economy’s market fundamentals are very strong; possibly at their peak. Is there a recession around the corner? Probably, but most likely not for another 12-24 months.

Please visit NTH’s new OUR ECONOMY web page and review several other economic metrics, insightful notes, and article links to help you learn more about our national, state, and local economies. Please let us know what you think, and feel free to send relevant articles to NTH’s Marketing Department so we may share them with other members of our community.  
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NTH Engineers are Speaking Up...

2/22/2017

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Two NTH Engineers Asked to Speak at Industry Events
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Energy, Utility, & Environment Conference
Air Policy & Regulations Track
 
Recently, Rhiana Dornbos, P.E., was asked to speak at the EUEC Conference on the topic of "Air Permitting Challenges for Distributed Generation." During her talk, Rhiana discussed how distributed generation has traditionally been used to supplement centralized power during times of peak demand and explained that as clean energy technologies like solar, wind, and battery storage mature, utilities are likely to transition from centralized power sources to smaller scale, distributed energy models where power generation occurs close to the energy user.

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Ohio Stormwater Conference
May 10 - 12, 2017


Heather Audet, P.E. was asked to speak at the Ohio Stormwater Conference on the topic of green infrastructure in Urban Environments. Heather will discuss our West Side Market Parking Improvement Project that reconfigured and expanded the parking lot to create additional parking spaces. In this project, more than 40,000 sf of pervious pavers and a new bio-filtration area were installed to aid in reducing storm water from flowing into the sewer system. Her presentation will describe the planning and process undertaken to complete this project and will explain the environmental, hydrological, and geotechnical testing and analyses that was needed for a parking lot situated near the top of a historically unstable slope.  
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Thank You Engineers!

2/20/2017

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For National Engineers Week - we want to thank all of our dedicated engineering staff. 
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Its National Engineering Week which is when we highlight the good work done by engineers in our country. It is held annually in the same week as President George Washington’s birthday, as Washington is considered by many to be the nation’s first engineer due to his surveying work.

This year’s theme, as announced by DiscoverE (formerly the National Engineers Week Foundation) is “Engineers Dream Big,” which is inspired by the name of the film "Dream Big: Engineering Our World." The film celebrates how engineering and human ingenuity has advanced infrastructure and society.

If you are interested in seeing the film or participating in other Engineers Week activities, you can find more at the Henry Ford here.

You can also find out more about NTH Engineer Career Opportunities here.

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NTH Finds the "Best Engineered City"

2/9/2017

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Sarah Banks Middle School, Team 1 Winners of Best Engineered City
NTH had the honor once again of judging the "Best Engineered City" Category in the 2017 ESD Future City Competition. Future City is a cross-curricular educational program where students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades imagine, design, and build cities of the future.  Over four months, students work as a team with an educator and volunteer mentor to design a virtual city using SimCity software; research and write an essay addressing this year’s theme; build a model of their city using recycled materials; complete a project plan, and present their city before a panel of judges at a the Regional Competition in January. Regional winners go on to represent their region at the national competition in Washington, DC, in February. 

The competition was tough, but after the score cards were in, NTH representatives declared Sarah Banks Middle School Team 1, from Wixom as the winner of the Best Engineered Project category.  Their city was well designed and they had great answers for all of the judges' questions about their infrastructure, buildings and more. In speaking with their teacher we found out that Sarah Banks Middle School decided to support the program by making it part of their STEM curriculum. For this reason, the kids don’t stay after school to work on their projects (like most schools). Also, since they have so many kids participating in the program, there is an internal competition among their students to see who will represent their school and actually present at Future City. For all those kids who do not present at Future City, they continue on with their project and present within their classrooms. It’s a prestigious honor at their school to even be selected to present at Future City. So you can imagine how thrilled they were to receive the Best Engineered Project award!

Other excellent projects from other competitors can be found below!
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    The NTH Narrator

    NTH Consultants, Ltd. (NTH) is a nationally recognized engineering firm specializing in Civil, Geotechnical, Environmental, and Facilities Engineering. 

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