STAFF AND CONSULTANTS (Click on name to eMail that person)

• Jim Poirier, B.Sc.-B.Arch- Industrial Designer- Architect and Director of the Institute-(English-French)
• Robert Bianchi, B.A., B.Arch. (English-French-Italian)
• Marcello DelRio, Arch. - Architect (English- Spanish-Portuguese)
• Nicole Beaudry, M.B.A. -Public Relations- (English-French-Spanish)
• Jimmy Gauthier, P.Ing. - Structural Engineer - (English-French)
• Luc Piché, M.B.A. - Scs.Pol, Financial Analyst (Paris FR)-(English-French-Japanese)
• Jacques Caouette, B.Sc. Industrial Designer -Technologist - (French-English)
• Ruben Mendez Paz, Construction Technologist - (Spanish-English)
• Eric Triesman, Attorney - (Recently passed away)
• Allen Huston,Construction Technologist - (English-Spanish)
• Javier Guerrero, Construction Technologist - (English-Spanish)

We are actively recruiting associate construction professionals. Please drop us a line here mentioning your related experience. Other skills in sociology, logistics, international Affairs, refugee affairs highly wished for. Weather scientists and experts to join soon.

MATHEMATICS

Out of fear or malice, mathematicians have been banned from construction sites ever since one was decapitated by a Pharaoh to avoid the future duplication of a most successful pyramid. Masons and carpenters loathe mathematics, and it certainly shows: almost every building material measures either 2x4x8(studs), 8x8x16(cinder blocks), 4x8 feet(sheatings of all kinds).
One could conclude that the multiplication x2 is the only intellectuality tolerated on a building site. As a result, everything built ends up rectangular. The average house has 16,000 ninety degree angles collecting dust.
Now if any of these otherwise fine tradesmen knew by heart the square root of three , they could actually build hexagonal floor plans and stop creating wasteful corners ! More to the point, they could actually graduate to rhombic maths where super strong space saving shapes could replace fragile orthogonal structures. When not perfectly built, these can skew, warp, twist and also get buffeted by strong winds. There are no large cubic structures in nature. Having a third horizontal axis as with hexagonal grid does wonders for earthquake and wind resistance. And to think! the bees have had that figured out hundreds of millions years ago*.


Note: Sure, you can approximate an hexagon by first scribing a circle and cutting down its perimeter at six intervals. But nothing accurate can occur unless you use a little trigonometry, the Tangent of 60 degrees, or...at the very least remember 1.732051, the square root of 3, a number that represents the ratio of the side of the hexagon to its narrowest width. If you visited the rest of this site, it will become obvious to you that from now on every child should remember 1.732051, the same number of digits as your average phone number. We can do it!

CONSTRUCTION

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DESIGNING

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TECHNOLOGISTS

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PLACIDE POULIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ARCHIMEDE SYSTEMS

Placide was a fiberglass part supplier for the housing industry and the snowmobile manufacturers where Poirier was active in the early seventies. This is how they met and learned to trust each other. In 1980, they formed Archimede Systems to develop a patent that Poirier had concocted after a stint in the RV and modular housing industry. A brilliant strategist and marketer, Placide was responsible for the explosive growth of the Archimede sales. After five year and the need to develop the American market, Poirier and Poulin went their separate ways with the former creating the MAAX group of companies integrating Archimede with Acrylica and Modern Fiberglass and Metal, the original company that made bathtubs and snowmobile parts (These are the first three letters of the MAAX acronym) . He headed MAAX for fifteen years, growing it from a revenue of $10M to a $1B company recently sold at his retirement. Now a prosperous and solid golfer, Placide nevertheless sits on the board of directors of CAMADA, one of our corporate sponsors, a Venture Capital group company handled with flair by his eldest daughter Marie-France. The latter was also a very effective Archimede employee during her university holidays.

SOME OF THE ARCHIMEDE PIONNEERS

Shown in this 1985 Quebec sugarhouse party, are seen in the photo from left to right:

• Eric Triesman, Stanford Graduate from Santa Fe NM, assisted in getting the US operations off the ground. Now a consultant member of the Institute.
  
• Placide Poulin, original partner from Beauce, Québec, now the retired and very successful industrialist that headed of the MAAX group of companies. a member of the board of Camada Group.
• Jacques Bernard Poirier, architect and founding president of Archimede Systems in 1981. Poirier is the actual director of the Institute.
• Don Arrowsmith, of South Florida, is the ex-Navy pilot who built a marketing program for Archimede International. He is now retired and a member of our advisory board.