Founded in 1973 in London, Ontario, co-elevate is a civil and structural engineering firm with a longstanding reputation for excellence. Yet tradition alone no longer defines this company. Since Adam Palmer joined as a partner in 2019 and became principal a year later, co-elevate has undergone a profound transformation – reshaping their internal culture, project management processes, and external identity to better serve their people, their clients, and a modernizing construction industry. Originally, the firm was founded under the banner of Fred Gray & Associates. Later, Bill Fick joined Fred and became a partner, and the company was known for many years as Gray & Fick. That was the case when Adam Palmer joined in 2019, initially as a technical structural engineer, before moving into business development and client relations. Adam quickly formed a strong relationship with Bill, purchased a portion of the firm, and brought in Travis Parker as a third partner. Together, Adam, Bill, and Travis shepherded the firm through a significant evolution, including a rebrand in 2023 to the name ‘co-elevate’. Adam explains how the new name was chosen to reflect collaboration and collective progress. “We didn’t want to put a couple old men’s names on the door,” he says. “We wanted a name people could truly own. co-elevate means collaborating, coming to the table, and together producing something better.” As part of the rebrand, co-elevate has also adopted a new visual identity. They now use purples and pinks in place of the industry’s usual blues, reds and grays, which signals that this isn’t business as usual. But this change isn’t just skin deep. Internally, the firm has scrapped the classic topAUGUST 2025
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