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William F. Lynch, P.E., L.S. founded William Lynch and Associates in 1959 after serving as a structural and
civil engineer with Allen & Kelly, and Vonnegut & Wright, two of the largest architectural firms in Indianapolis.
Bill left with George Wright's question "are you sure you want all the headaches of owning your own firm?", a
gift of an extra large bottle of aspirin, and a promise to use Bill on all of Vonnegut & Wright's future work.
What the two of them could not foretell was the sudden and prolonged downturn in the Indianapolis construction
market. After several lean months of survey "curb cuts" and residential mortgage surveys, Bill landed his first
commercial structural engineering project, a branch bank at the southeast corner of 86th Street and College
Avenue. The project featured a unique, exposed cast-in-place concrete roof structure - the first of many
innovative designs Bill was to produce.
With the improving economy and his extensive contacts in the Indianapolis architectural community, Bill quickly
established himself as a competent, imaginative and trustworthy structural consultant on educational, religious,
commercial, industrial, and public buildings. In the 1960's, Bill's work had grown to the point where he felt he
needed a partner to handle the increased work load and service his growing list of clients. Bill approached
Walter "Doug" Cheek, at the time a professor of structural engineering at the University of Illinois. As
Lynch & Cheek, Inc., Bill and Doug were able to increase their business and work on larger, higher-profile
projects. Building on their steady and repeat work at Eli Lilly, RCA-Victor plants, and the Archdiocese of
Indianapolis, Bill and Doug served as the structural engineers on a number of Indianapolis landmarks including:
the Childrens Museum of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Market Tower Building.
In 1978, Bill and Doug parted ways and John Campbell joined with Bill to form Lynch & Campbell, Inc. Over the
next six years, Bill and John continued expanding the firm's already impressive portfolio, working on many
important Indianapolis buildings including major additions to the Childrens Museum and Indianapolis Life
Insurance, the 11-story Two Market Square Building, the 8-story St. Vincent's Professional Office Building, and
numerous schools, churches, and historic renovations. During this period, Wesley Harrison and Paul Brumleve
joined the firm as project engineers in 1979 and 1980 respectively.
In 1984 John Campbell left to pursue other opportunities. Wes and Paul assumed greater roles in the operation
of the business, eventually being named principals in January of 1987. Over the last twenty years as Lynch,
Harrison & Brumleve, Inc., we have continued the tradition of quality, competence, and service that Bill Lynch
established over 45 years ago. The number of high-profile, monumental buildings we have completed has
continued to grow, including such notable projects as the NCAA Headquarters and Hall of Champions, the new
Witham Memorial Hospital, Plainfield High School, as well as hundreds of educational, university, public,
industrial and correctional facitilies throughout Indiana and the Midwest.
Over the last fifty years there have been vast changes in the way buildings are designed, documented and constructed:
from slide rule and graph paper, to hand-held calculators, to main frames at remote sites, to three-dimensional
finite element analysis on laptops, from ink on linen, to lead on mylar, to the "pin-bar" overlay system, to
computer-aided design, to three-dimensional building-information mapping (BIM), and from three year construction
schedules to multi-phased, fast-track delivery systems. As the way we produce our projects changes almost daily,
our commitment to provide high quality and efficient structural design continues. The values of honesty,
cooperation, hard work and commitment that Bill Lynch embodied are "touch stones" for all of us here at Lynch,
Harrison & Brumleve, Inc.
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