Cristian Vimer

Cristian Vimer is looking forward to celebrating soon. His company, Madsen Consulting Engineering, is currently working on its 997^th project, and number 1,000 should not be too far behind. “We will definitely want to mark that occasion in some way,” he says.

Vimer has already hit numerous milestones and benchmarks. A graduate of Technical University of Civil Engineering, in his native Bucharest, Romania, he arrived at NYU Tandon to earn a doctoral degree in 2000, shortly after Associate Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Masoud Ghandehari joined the faculty. “I had the honor of being his very first Ph.D. student,” Vimer says, “and we forged a strong bond.” Other mentors included Professor Bud Griffis and Department Chair Magued Iskander, who in 2014 offered Vimer a teaching post.

Although he would love to someday return to the classroom as an instructor, soon after earning his doctoral degree, Vimer began focusing on more entrepreneurial pursuits. He was offered a job at a Structural Engineering firm owned by Neil Wexler, also an alum, and he became a firm Principal in a few short years.

In 2011 he took the leap of starting his own firm, VM Consulting which provided comprehensive consulting services to private developers, homeowners, builders, manufacturers, artists, and government agencies and institutions. Adept in such specialized areas as low-income housing, restoration of historical or landmarked buildings, healthcare facilities, and cultural institutions, he found himself in great demand, despite the country being in the midst of an economic downturn. “Some people might find it daunting to launch a business during a post-recession period,” he says, “but it was a time when many small construction projects were getting off the ground, and opportunities presented themselves.”

Within a year, he had more work than he could reasonably handle, so in early 2012 he joined forces with fellow engineer Erik Madsen as a Principal at Madsen’s eponymous Structural Engineering firm. The company quickly grew from just the two partners to having fourteen members in their Manhattan office or remotely. The company provides a wide variety of services, including forensic investigations, peer reviews and expert witness (litigation assistance) services. The firm designed several projects, including affordable housing, funded by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or projects requiring approval from the NYC Transit Authority, the Department of Transportation, and other government agencies.

Those projects — all 997 of them — have kept him busy, but Vimer still makes time to do research and touch base with those from his alma mater. In 2018 he collaborated with Ghandehari on several chapters of the book Optical Phenomenology and Applications: Health Monitoring for Infrastructure Materials and the Environment, published by Springer.

“I came from Romania in 2000 and over the last two decades have built a family, gotten a solid graduate education, and forged a thriving business,” he says. “I owe much of that success to NYU Tandon.”