KAI is proud to announce its recognition as a Dallas-Fort Worth Top Workplace by The Dallas Morning News.
The honor recognizes businesses that are making North Texas a better place to work. This year marks the 16th annual search to identify the best work environments in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, and the first year that KAI is receiving the award from The Dallas Morning News.
“Thank you to The Dallas Morning News for this recognition, which truly reflects the dedication of our team and the culture we’ve built to encourage both professional and personal growth,” said KAI President Darren L. James, FAIA, NOMA, NCARB. “I am deeply grateful for our team’s ongoing commitment to KAI and our vision of transforming communities while making a positive impact on the DFW metroplex.”
As one of the largest minority-owned and -led AEC firms in the country, St. Louis-based KAI has operated an office in DFW for 25 years. In 2020, KAI’s Texas staff consolidated into one location at 5010 Riverside Drive in Las Colinas. Today, KAI’s DFW office is growing rapidly with over 70 employees offering diverse design and build services to its partners in healthcare, education, government, retail, aviation, housing and more.
KAI was named AIA Dallas’ Firm of the Year in 2021, a testament to the firm’s strong work and dedication to the area. The firm’s strategic growth is focused squarely on transforming communities, and they do this by seeking the most complex, culturally conscious and politically sensitive projects that will make lasting differences in the lives they touch.
“Our firm places a high priority on cultivating diverse perspectives and we actively foster a work environment where our architects, engineers, interior designers, builders, and support staff feel respected, included and valued,” said KAI CEO Michael B. Kennedy. “We are honored that our team in Dallas-Fort Worth feels the same way about us as we feel about all of them.”
The Dallas Morning News and sister company Medium Giants’ Top Workplaces D-FW is run by research partner Energage and is predicated on an extensive employee survey that celebrates excellence in areas such as company leadership, compensation, training, workplace flexibility, diversity and more.
A record-breaking number of nearly 6,900 deserving companies were nominated to be a Dallas-Fort Worth Top Workplace and more than 127,000 employees were surveyed this year. The winners were honored during a special invite-only awards celebration on Nov. 7 and featured in Top Workplaces D-FW magazine, distributed in The Dallas Morning News on Nov. 10.