We are thrilled to celebrate aeSolutions' remarkable 25th anniversary, marking a quarter-century of providing exceptional consulting, engineering, and systems integration solutions. Since its founding, aeSolutions has remained true to its original vision of doing great things in a very different way with a very different approach. Founded by Brian Merriman, Mike Scott, and Ken O'Malley, the company opened its first office location in Greenville SC in 1998. With a focus on value-driven engineering, the company set out to solve the complex challenges faced by industrial clients.
What follows are just a few key moments in our quarter century of continually guiding our clients to increasingly resilient operations and safer communities.
Expansion and Growth
aeSolutions' commitment to serving clients nationwide drove the expansion into new locations and ventures. Beginning in 2001 with the opening of a 14,000 square foot fabrication shop, which allowed the company to provide cost-effective and safe solutions for integrated Burner Management Systems (BMS) and Combustion Control Systems (CCS). Two further office locations followed too, first in Anchorage, Alaska (2007), and then Houston, Texas (2010).
The company’s service offerings began to expand rapidly as well with the addition of a Process Safety Management division. That team grew to include other new areas of expertise and knowledge in areas such as Alarm Management and Machinery Safety.
aeSolutions started designing process safety software after realizing the one thing that would ultimately improve the safety of the process industry was a database-driven safety lifecycle platform created for engineers by engineers. That software would ultimately become the product known as aeShield. aeSolutions co-founder Mike Scott, now heads aeShield and has grown into its own organization.
The aeCyberSolutions Industrial Cybersecurity (IC) division was created in 2014. Beginning with a single employee, the IC team experienced significant growth that included attracting a team of top talent and gaining a high profile in the digital security field. In 2021, the sale was announced of the aeCyberSolutons division to Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory.
Recognition and Certifications
Many members of our team are industry leaders, serving in leadership positions such as on key industry committees. Our principals and employees have actively participated in the development of industry codes and standard practices for engineering and implementation of control and safety-related system solutions.
The family of Fire and Gas products– aeSolutions’ FGS 1400 panels, were FM Approved in 2006 signifying compliance with FM Approval’s Combustible Gas Standard 6320, Toxic Gas Detection standard 6340, and ANSI/ISA 12.13.01 Performance Requirements for Combustible Gas Detectors standard. The FGS 1400 MK II was designed to the same levels of safety availability and reliability as the systems that aeSolutions designs for Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS).
aeSolutions’ became the first company in the Americas to earn Siemens SIMATIC PCS 7 Safety Specialist Certification in 2018. aeSolutions is also the first to renew the certification and remains the only company in the Americas to hold this certification, a testament to its continuous pursuit of excellence.
Brian Merriman
Many changes came to the company when co-founder and then company president, Brian Merriman, passed away in 2014. Under his passionate leadership, Brian grew aeSolutions from a startup with six employees to a national engineering company with 170 employees and offices covering the country. Brian's passion was always to make the process manufacturing industry safer through education and automated process safety lifecycle management.
The Client Success Model: Enabling Client Goals
Today, company co-founder Ken O’Malley serves as aeSolutions’ President. Recently the company restructured its organization to operate under a Client Success Model. aeSolutions’ Project Development team guides clients to drive project development throughout the entire project lifecycle, from concept to go-live. As the Project Development team’s understanding of each client’s objectives and obstacles grows, the value of aeSolutions’ guidance will grow.
“At aeSolutions, we are humbled by our role as a trusted guide for our clients’ success,” said Ken O’Malley. “With our Project Development team, senior leadership is completely committed to the Client Success Model. We are excited to begin formally offering this unique service to our new and existing clients.”
