Tune Design Creates “Tune Design Interiors” Division and Increases Staff

Press Release, May 10, 2003

The Chattanooga architecture firm of Tune Design has created a new contract interior design practice and will now call itself Tune Design Architecture & Interiors, PC. The firm has also hired six new staff members, bringing the total to twelve and making it one of the largest architecture firms in Chattanooga.

Tune Design has multiple architectural specialties, including mission critical facilities, such as data centers, call centers and command facilities; medical facilities, such as surgical centers, medical office buildings, doctors’ offices and health departments; corporate offices; and restaurants. Some of its recent local projects have included the Hamilton County 911 Center, the Boathouse Grille restaurant on Amnicola Highway and an addition to Ooltewah High School. The firm was recently chosen to design a new three-story, 60,000-square-foot medical office building that will be built next to the Erlanger East campus on Gunbarrel Road.

Although not as well known locally as some of Chattanooga’s larger architectural firms, the six-year-old firm has expanded slowly while building a reputation in Chattanooga for doing high quality work and serving national and international clients outside the city. Much of the firm’s work outside Chattanooga has been designing computer data centers for national clients such as Williams Sonoma, Stanford University Medical Center and WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest publicly traded health care companies.

Now that slow growth curve has accelerated dramatically. In March, Tune Design hired Jane Wilson Grant, one of Chattanooga’s top licensed interior design professionals, to become an Associate in the firm and to create an interior design division. Her staff includes Jennifer Soder, an interior design graduate of UT Chattanooga who formerly worked with Paul Steelman Architects in Las Vegas; and Che Fortaleza, skilled in both architecture and interior design, who received her degree from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines and formerly worked for Lor Calma Design in Makati City, Philippines.

The firm has also promoted three staff members and hired a new technician. Tom Bartoo, AIA, has been made a Vice President in the firm and has taken on the primary responsibility for the firm’s day-to-day operations. Tony Griffy, CSI, has become an Associate and is responsible for project scheduling. Nancy Collins has been promoted to Practice Manager. Donald Kirk and Bart Lunsford have been hired as computer assisted design (CAD) technicians, and Kimberly Vance has been hired as receptionist.

Contract Interior Design, A New Direction

“By creating an interior design division, we can either provide a more complete menu of services to clients that need both architecture and interiors, or our interior designers can work directly with clients,” said Brian Tune, AIA, President of the firm.

“Most people think of interior design as ‘decorating,’ but contract interiors are entirely different,” said Jane Wilson Grant. “Contract design clients require appropriate selections and applications of finishes, furnishings, fixtures and equipment. There are a lot of pieces to consider in the total design package: durability, ease of maintenance, code compliance and, of course, aesthetics. It all has to work together and create a positive image. I help clients use their money effectively to create the image they want to portray to employees and to their customers.”

Before coming to Tune Design, Jane Wilson Grant was employed by Frank McDonald Architects, where she designed interiors for Studio 59, Big River Grille, 212 Market, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and many other clients. She was selected recently to handle interior design for the Electric Power Board’s new headquarters.

Starting Small, Planning for Growth

In 1996, Brian Tune found himself working in Washington, DC for Heery International, a large design and construction firm based in Atlanta. Because his mother was dying in Lexington, KY, he requested a transfer to whatever office was closest to Lexington, which turned out to be Chattanooga. After his mother died, he chose to stay in Chattanooga and opened his own practice in 1996.

“I started with a small office, just two people. And I started by working on smaller projects, because I was new in town and I didn’t really know many people.” Despite starting small, Tune was always aiming for growth. From the beginning, he used management and planning tools he knew from working in larger companies.

“I was amazed at the amount of planning and structure I found here,” said Jane Wilson. “There are procedures for everything, checks and balances, long-range marketing plans, utilization rates for each employee to be profitable to the company. Everything has a method.”

Growing the Company by Helping Employees Grow

As his company has grown, Brian Tune has worked to combine the flexibility of a small firm with the organizational discipline and structured growth planning of a larger firm. After the company had been operating a few years, he said, “It seemed like I was too essential. I had capable people, but they were coming to me for things they could do themselves. I finally realized that it was because of the way I was managing things.”

According to Tom Bartoo, large architectural firms are typically so specialized that staff members tend to get pigeonholed into doing the same type of work over and over. Small firms offer designers more variety but less opportunity to advance.

After joining the firm in 2000, Bartoo helped Tune create and implement a new management structure, in which each employee works in his or her project specialty but also trains other staff members to do the same work. Project assignments are strongly influenced by professional goals which are set by each employee and which the firm is committed to helping them achieve. Since no one bears the burden of any specialty alone, everyone is free to learn new things as well. “Now we have people who are always learning new things and always growing,” said Bartoo. “Our customers receive better work and better service, because our employees are excited about what they’re doing.”

Tony Griffy’s changing role in the company is a good example of how the firm uses the expertise of staff members. With over 20 years of experience in construction management, Griffy applies his expertise to scheduling every one of the firm’s projects and training other staff members to do what he does.

“We’re applying structured scheduling techniques that are common in construction management but not in architecture projects,” said Griffy. “I don’t think many architecture firms build as much structure into their projects as we do. A lot of our business comes to us because we can give clients a development schedule and then stick to it.”

“A lot of architecture firms have someone with construction experience who serves as a liaison with contractors,” said Tune. “Tony has helped us go beyond that to integrate structured scheduling techniques into all our projects.”

“Employees go beyond project-based cross training to take on critical management roles in the company as well. That’s very rare in architecture firms,” added Tune. “Our clients benefit when our people become adept at business functions as well as professional disciplines, because they have more of a stake in the growth and success of the firm.”