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For decades, the unwritten rule in structural engineering was to stay invisible. Brad Thurman built a career proving that wrong.

In this episode of The Intangible Brand, Jerry Gennaria and Julie Hammond sit down with Brad Thurman, Principal and Chief Marketing Officer at Wallace Design Collective, to talk about what happens when an engineer decides the firm's brand matters as much as its work.

Brad joined the firm in 1987 as a project engineer and spent a decade in pure technical work before moving into marketing — a path that made him one of AEC's most recognized "seller-doers." He walks us through the firm's boldest move yet: dropping "engineering" from its name entirely and rebranding as Wallace Design Collective for its 40th anniversary, and why he believes human relationships will matter more, not less, as AI takes over the busywork.

In this episode

• Why being a "seller-doer" and an engineer who can also sell, became Brad's career advantage
• The story behind dropping "engineering" from the firm's name to become Wallace Design Collective
• How "dedicated to the art of engineering" quietly became "dedicated to the art of possibility"
• Wallace's retention playbook: the Glee Club, a paid volunteer day, and twice-yearly "echo meetings"
• Why AI will make relationships more valuable in professional services, not less
• What technical teams and marketing teams get wrong about each other and how to fix it

Key Takeaways

• Clients want to know who they're actually hiring before they sign on.

• Being upfront about who you are, even knowing it won't be everyone's cup of tea, builds more trust than a polished, generic pitch.

• Some of Brad's closest professional relationships are with his direct competitors. SMPS taught him that peer networks, even across rival firms, are a real business asset, not just networking small talk.

• Marketing and technical work are a symbiotic relationship. Treat them as separate silos and you lose both talent and business.

• Brad's book pick, Team of Rivals, reflects a leadership belief he still lives by: build a team with people willing to tell you no.

Resource and References

• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2199.Team_of_Rivals

Learn more about Wallace Design Collective: https://wallace.design
Learn more about The Intangible Brand: TheIntangibleBrand.com

About Brad Thurman

Brad Thurman is a principal and Chief Marketing Officer of Wallace Design Collective, a professional consulting firm offering structural and civil engineering, landscape architecture, surveying and assessments. He joined Wallace in 1987 and is a licensed Professional Engineer. Since 1998, Brad has helped lead Wallace’s marketing and business development efforts across four disciplines and eight offices. He is a past president of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), served as the 2013-14 President on the SMPS National Board, and served as a trustee and as president of the SMPS Foundation Board of Trustees. Brad is a Certified Professional Services Marketer, was named a Fellow of SMPS in 2009, was elected to the National Academy of Construction in 2018, and was the 2025 recipient of SMPS's Weld Coxe Marketing Achievement Award.

#WallaceDesignCollective #AECMarketing #aecindustry #EmployeeExperience #ClientExperience #SMPS #BrandStrategy

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