Look Who's Turning 20

CINCINATTI – Architectural design/build firm DEI Incorporated is celebrating its 20th this year. Founded in 1985 as Design, Equipment and Interiors by owners Richard and Cynthia Grow, in 1997 the firm changed its name to Design, Ethics and Innovation to reflect the way it does business. Changing the name was only the beginning. After years of leasing space, the company moved to its permanent home in Forest Park, Ohio-a 15,000 square-foot award-winning building custom-designed by DEI staff. Within the past two years DEI has received amazing recognition from being selected as Terry Bradshaw’s Pick of the Week, which aired nationally on cable station MSNBC, to being named one of the 50 Fastest Growing privately-held companies in the region, which encompasses 30,00 companies. Most recently, DEI has been selected to be part of a new book that traces the evolution of financial institution design from 1781 to the present DEI was selected over its competitors in the industry to be part of a new book that traces the evolution of bank design from 1781 to present. DEI’s projects will be featured in the “present” section and as an example of how financial facilities are no longer the basic “brick and mortar.” The book’s author Charles Balfoure, an architect and writer of architecture histories, is a former freelance writer for The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times. McFarland and Co. will publish the book in 2005. According to Grow, the firm looks forward to another 20 years focused on creating state-of-the-art financial facilities with value added features that are designed to help clients improve their return on investment. To date DEI has designed, built or remodeled over 1,700 financial facilities.