St. Agnes alum's engineering firm on the rise

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Four years ago, Michael Tobias, a former Rockville Centre resident and Saint Agnes Cathedral School graduate, realized his lifelong dream of starting a mechanical engineering firm. In 2016, that firm, New York Engineers, made Inc. Magazine’s list of the top 5,000 fastest- growing companies in America.

According to Tobias, their success is unusual in a typically slow-growing industry.

“It shows how we’re trying to be the most innovative and look at this old industry in a new way and apply new and innovative design features nobody has heard of before,” he said.

New York Engineers specializes in designing the internal structures of buildings, such as electrical, air conditioning, heating and sprinkler systems. While the architects design the aesthetics, Tobias’ firm works on, “the guts you don’t see.” Some of New York Engineers’ high profile clients include MakerBot, the Port Authority, Montefiore Medical Center, Columbia University, Ample Hills Creamery, Birchbox and more.

Tobias knew he wanted to be an engineer from day one.

“Even before I could remember I was taking stuff apart, undoing all the baby- proof latches,” he said.

Growing up, his favorite building block of choice was Construx, a popular Fisher Price toy from the 1980s. He would build, “rockets, robots, houses, cars,” said his mother, Barbara.

“What I like most about the business is it’s technically challenging,” Tobias said. “It’s like solving a puzzle every day. You’re always trying to optimize the system, always constrained by the dimensions of the building.”

Tobias currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.