It all began just like many businesses began: in a spare bedroom.  In June of 1992, after leaving his job as an electrical engineer, Keith Pehl opened Optima Engineering out of his spare bedroom, with nothing more than a computer and a vision.  "Optima" is Latin for "The Best", and that is what he wanted to create: the Best Engineering Firm in the region.

The plan from the beginning was to have a full service mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering design firm.  At first, the mechanical and plumbing design was subcontracted out to other firms.  Once the work was steady enough, Keith brought Ron Almond on as his partner.  By this time, Optima Engineering had 5 employees and was located in the Carillon Building in downtown Charlotte.  Over the next several years, Optima moved to a different floor in the Carillon Building to get more room, and then it relocated to an office on College Street near the Charlotte Convention Center.  Optima continued to grow at that location, and once again needed more room.  Everyone then packed up their belongings once again and moved to larger offices on the fringe of South End, to the historic Textile Supply Building on Mint St., where we have been located for the past 9 years.

Once again growth is causing us to relocate.  By the middle of 2008, we should be in a new location on South Tryon Street in the historic South End section of Charlotte.  The building is presently under construction and will be a LEED® building.  The goal for our own office is to have a gold LEED® Commercial Interiors office space. While the number of employees has grown, the vision and culture have stayed relatively stable.  We are still striving to always produce "the best" engineering design.  We are also still heavily focused on what our clients needs are: whether we are a five man firm (like 14 years ago) or a 40 employee firm, everyone at Optima puts the clients and their needs first.  In that manner, we hope that history repeats itself!