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Sunday night kicked off the 5^th annual EcoSys User Conference at the Four Seasons Orlando. The early arrivals competed in an afternoon golf scramble. Congratulations to Sandra DeLaGarza (Columbia Pipeline Group), Darren Metherell (EcoSys), Jeff Wells (Atkins), and David Padgett (EcoSys). Then, guests gathered for a welcome cocktail & networking reception out on the King Meadow Lawn. The author of this blog post was particularly fond of the mini-grilled cheese bites.

Monday morning, after a breakfast hosted by Turner & Townsend, the EcoSys Leadership team brought the users up to speed on the state of things at EcoSys: 81% revenue growth in 2014, 100% revenue growth in the first half of 2015, and Inc. magazine’s acknowledgment of our position as one of the fastest growing companies in the USA. Since the last User Conference, EcoSys has expanded global presence and introduced new cloud and SaaS offerings, not to mention the addition of new enterprises adopting EcoSys EPC for project controls.

Of course, one of the most pressing topics everyone was hoping to hear more about was the announcement earlier this month of Intergraph’s intention to acquire EcoSys. CEO Javier Sloninsky, accompanied by Intergraph’s Executive Vice President of Business Development, Patrick Holcomb, ensured everyone present that EcoSys would remain as an autonomous, stand-alone operation, maintaining the same team, the same roadmap and long-term plans. At the same time, they said, the acquisition would allow EcoSys to leverage Intergraph’s substantial global operations and infrastructure.

Christen Bergerud, EcoSys COO, talked about cutting-edge engineering technology and how EcoSys keeps ahead of technology trends to support customer innovation. Neely Hemassi, Executive VP of Product Strategy, shared the newest features and improvements, including plans to develop integrations with Intergraph PPM’s 3D modeling solutions to support 5D BIM, while Noah Parker, CTO, along with Levi Browde, VP of Software Development, revealed a few hot items on the upcoming roadmap. Levi then offered a live demo of an upcoming mobile app on his phone.

“Finally, my son thinks I do something cool at work.” EcoSys VP Levi Browde demos new mobile apps

Following the introduction, EcoSys presented four guests from Bechtel, the largest engineering firm in the US, to share the details of their highly successful implementation of EcoSys EPC. They spoke highly of both the software and the EcoSys team members who worked with them throughout the process. Their overarching theme: staff and run an EPC implementation like a project, drawing on the experience and best practices that are fundamental for our customer’s core businesses.

In addition to delicious food and incredible hospitality from the Four Seasons staff, the rest of Day 1 offered multiple session tracks for attendees to follow. Track 1 included sessions from EcoSys clients discussing their various challenges, successes and lessons learned: Quanta Services, Air Products, American Electric Power, and Gulf Interstate Engineeringall shared case studies. Alternately, users could attend sessions on getting the most out of EcoSys EPC, with perennial favorites like EVM and Forecasting, along with sessions on Contracts and Payments, Workforce Planning, and finally a discussion about EcoSys EPC’s current “out of the box” capabilities.

The evening concluded with a cocktail reception, sponsored by Accenture.

What else happened?  Read our recap of the second and final day of the conference.