DiClemente Siegel Design – Company History

In 1967, Mr. Gino DiClemente formed DiClemente Engineering Inc., a consulting mechanical and electrical engineering company.  General Motors and Ford Motor Company were main clients of the firm.  In 1969 DiClemente Siegel was formed as the result of a merger with Ed Siegel’s mechanical and electrical engineering firm.  In 1983 DiClemente Siegel opened a branch office in Flint, Michigan.  The Flint office oversaw design work for the General Motors Buick facility in Flint.  

In 1990, Mr. Louis A. Trama joined DiClemente Siegel as its Executive Vice President.  Gunnar Birkerts Associates merged architectural services with DiClemente Siegel in 1996, allowing the company to offer comprehensive architecture and engineering services to clients.  That same year Ford Motor Company recognized DiClemente Siegel as a preferred supplier with Q1 status.

In 1997, the company changed its name to its current name of DiClemente Siegel Design Inc. (DSD), two years later the company gained ISO 9001 Registration.  In 2000, DSD merged with Steele Engineering Associates; President Ralph Steele became Senior Vice President for DiClemente Siegel Design Inc.

Currently, Mr. Louis A. Trama is President & CEO of DiClemente Siegel Design Inc. which has a staff of over 68 employees.  DSD headquarters are located in Southfield, Michigan. DSD provides full-service architecture, mechanical and electrical engineering design services for clients in K-12 schools, colleges/universities, automotive markets, research and laboratory facilities, industrial facilities, hospitals and medical centers, federal, state and local governments, corporations, religious facilities, recreational facilities and site infrastructure evaluations. DSD offers specialized services of Arc Flash documentation and labeling, GIS programming services, and Building Information Modeling (BIM).  We are a member of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and have numerous LEED Accredited Professionals on our staff.

Big plans and inspired collaboration – mark 100 years of continuous practice for Harley Ellis Devereaux. Only a few firms dedicated to the design of the built environment have endured a century of growth and change. This is the story of one such significant firm.

Throughout the past ten decades, Harley Ellis Devereaux has grown in form and function, most often in parallel to the historic and economic ties sweeping America, and the continual shifting of society’s wants and needs. As such, we have crafted innovative design solutions under the broad headings of planning, architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, interiors and construction consulting. We provide every service necessary to do a project and to do it well. We offer every resource required to meet or exceed our client’ goals.

For example, we have provided space planning and interior design for projects as grand as the world’s largest automotive technology center, yet spaces as intimate as single-family residences and individual tenants in executive offices. While we have developed master plans for community growth, we have also engineered underground parking structures and vast industrial process plants. We have created sensitive site plans for cemeteries, shaped environments for meditation and worship, designed landmark corporate headquarters, and produced award-winning healthcare and university facilities. We have won accolades for state-of-the-art scientific research facilitates, as well as acoustically acclaimed performance centers, among many others.

With such a rich and diverse history embracing the delivery of “superior quality, unequaled service and constant innovation,” it is difficult to detail every milestone, every project, each colleague, and every turn of events that molded the firm into the Harley Ellis Devereaux known today. Over the century, an untold number of talented staff members, including 160 Partners or Principals, have contributed their expertise, inspiration, genius and leadership to our organization’s success. This written history is dedicated to them all.

But to everything there is a beginning, and for Harley Ellis Devereaux that beginning was January 10, 1908, when Alvin Ernest Harley joined with Norman Swain Atcheson to make big plans and establish the architecture practice of Harley and Atcheson.