Veteran Cincinnati landscape architect John Bentley has joined Bayer Becker in Mason as the design consulting firm seeks to expand its focus beyond new-site developments.
Bentley becomes director of Bayer Becker’s landscape architecture and planning department. Principal Tim Bayer referred to it as a “game-changing” move by the firm intended to expand its market share and open up new areas for growth, particularly in the public sector in Hamilton County and Cincinnati.
“We believe it will have a big impact not only on revenue but on our reputation in the marketplace,” said Bayer, the firm’s vice president of finance and administration.
Bayer Becker has annual gross revenues of about $4 million, mostly derived from its core civil engineering work on so-called “greenfield” sites and from other services in support of those projects, Bayer said.
Bob Garlock, a Bayer Becker principal and vice president of its landscape architecture and planning department, said Bentley’s hiring will allow it to expand the department into a stand-alone source of new business.
Bentley said being part of a larger, “perfectly compatible” firm will allow him to move forward. His 40-year-old firm, Bentley Koepke Inc., in Linwood had downsized in recent years, and it’s been hard to both handle the marketing and do the professional work, he said. Also, he got a “very attractive offer” from Bayer Becker, he said.
“I really like this group. They’re progressive and energetic,” he said.
Bentley Koepke’s projects over the years included work on Great American Ball Park, the revamping of downtown’s Piatt Park, Indian Hill’s Grand Valley nature preserve and Procter & Gamble Co.’s headquarters garden.
Bentley will shut down the firm by the end of the year. He was elected a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2008. The honor was given in recognition of the work he’s done over the course of his career, said ASLA spokesman Jim Lapides.
Bayer Becker operates three local offices in Mason, Fort Mitchell and Oxford. It has 40 employees.