Sponsored by Crump Wilson Architects
For more than four decades, Crump Wilson Architects has quietly built one of Louisiana’s most far-reaching architecture firms by developing a unique design niche: petrochemical plant facilities.
“It’s not that we don’t enjoy those other sectors,” says the firm’s managing partner, Mike Wilson. “We enjoy fire stations, financial institutions and other commercial projects, but we’ve been most heavily vested in the petrochemical sector.”
Crump Wilson’s first petrochemical project was in 1984, when it was selected to be part of the design team that brought new life to BASF’s Geismar site. Typically, large industrial engineering firms design the manufacturing components of a site and “call us in to do the buildings related to that,” Wilson says. “The control centers, change houses, offices, that sort of thing.”
Top Executive: Mike Wilson, Managing Partner
Phone: 225.387.2307
Address: 9311 Bluebonnet Boulevard, Suite B, Baton Rouge, LA 70810
Website: Crump Wilson Architects
Word of the firm’s work spread through BASF’s regional and corporate ranks, carrying Crump Wilson’s projects into Georgia, the Carolinas, Missouri, Texas and as far aways as New Jersey. Today, the firm is licensed in 18 states, with a recently completed project in Michigan. Among its many clients are ExxonMobil, BASF, and W.R. Grace. One job leads to another, and another, and another.
“We will work with the internal engineering groups of a particular client, and that lead engineer may leave and go to some other company. They call us a few months later bringing us to the new company,” Wilson says. “That’s pretty much how we’ve grown.”
Most current projects run $8 million to $40 million, including a $35 million biosafety level 3 laboratory now under construction and a $25 million facility headed soon to bid. Anything larger than that and Crump Wilson partners with a bigger firm.
But no project is too small. Wilson says his team will help a longtime client pick out lampshades if that’s what’s needed.
Crump Wilson employs 14 people, most working out of its Baton Rouge headquarters, with additional staff based in Atlanta, Birmingham and Mandeville, Louisiana. Even the remote team members come into the office on a regular schedule to maintain camaraderie.
“It’s not about Mike Wilson, it’s about the team here,” Wilson says.
He describes Crump Wilson as a place where young architects, interns, and designers can build a broad base of experience and grow into project managers and senior staff.
“We always ask ourselves what’s in the best interest of the project,” Wilson says. “As soon as you take your focus off the project and start becoming self-serving, that’s when things fall apart.”
