Midsize workplace | No. 2: Hord Coplan Macht

Leah Wettstein doesn’t need to look far to see some of her recent work. She doesn’t even need to leave her building.

That’s because Hord Coplan Macht’s new office in the Inner Harbor features the “Toy Box,” a dedicated room she designed for children featuring computer games, toys and coloring books. The employees themselves are known to have meetings there on occasion, even if it means sitting in shorter chairs.

“It’s incredibly helpful. Working from home is always an option, but as a manager you tend to get more done when you’re on site,” said Wettstein, the architecture firm’s director of interiors. “When your kids are here, you don’t have to worry about them. It lets me get my work done.”

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Cummings & Co. Realtors is a full-service real estate brokerage based on integrity and driven by innovation. With eight locations (Canton, Lutherville, Ruxton, Perry Hall, Federal Hill, Bel Air, Roland Park and Timonium) in the Baltimore metro area, the firm is powered by a diverse team of 375 licensed professionals with experience in all aspects of real estate transactions, including residential sales and rentals, buyer/tenant representation and commercial sales and leasing. An unwavering commitment to personal service and close attention to detail have garnered the company’s reputation for being one of the most respected brokerage firms in Maryland. (Lloyd Fox / Baltimore Sun)

Hord Coplan Macht, a Baltimore-based architecture firm with other offices in Denver and Northern Virginia, focuses on five areas: health care, education, housing and mixed-use buildings, senior living, and landscape architecture. The firm designs projects spread throughout the country.

“What’s appealing, particularly to young folks, is the variety of projects they can work on, both in terms of the type of project and the scale,” said Lee Coplan, the firm’s CEO. “And as they find the building type they like, we allow them to focus on that and begin to specialize as they go forward.”

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One of the younger employees, Melanie Ray, joined the firm straight out of college in 2015 as a project designer and is now a licensed architect. Ray said Hord Coplan Mocht supported her as she worked toward her license and continues to help her grow.

“The projects I’m doing are really exciting, in-depth projects,” Ray said. “I’m getting a lot of knowledge, and I have the ability to ask questions and make this not just a working experience, but a learning experience.”

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Since its founding in 1923, the RK&K team has satisfied public and private sector clients by providing multidiscipline planning, engineering, environmental and construction phase services. It offers innovative and efficient solutions on projects nationwide from its Baltimore headquarters and 21 branch offices in nine states and Washington. RK&K’s technical expertise places it 73rd on the Engineering News Record’s 2018 listing of the Top 500 Design Firms. Its award-winning and diversified staff is experienced in an array of design and construction disciplines, including planning; engineering design; and construction management, inspection and engineering for transportation, environmental, infrastructure, utility, site and surveying and energy/pipeline projects. Every team member understands what it takes to deliver success to clients: Responsive People | Creative Solutions. (Lloyd Fox / Baltimore Sun)

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For the past 10 years, IntelliGenesis, has supported Department of Defense and intelligence community customers by providing next-generation intelligence analysis, language analysis, machine learning/data science, analytic and mission application development, and computer network operations. Its cyber experts and analysts work on the front lines of the cyber battlefield to analyze systems and networks to discover and document vulnerabilities for exploitation or reinforcement. The company's analysts and engineers have extensive experience detecting incoming threats, then performing cyber forensics and reverse engineering to identify and understand various forms of viruses, malware and other cyber attacks that threaten critical systems and data. Its efforts serve to test friendly systems and develop advanced intrusion detection systems, firewalls and other system fortifications; it also discovers and maps adversary systems to support and enable computer network attack and exploitation. It performs continuous monitoring services and develops analytics to automate and enhance threat detection against the latest and most complex attacks, both internal and external to the systems. (Lloyd Fox / Baltimore Sun)