East Providence firm a presence in Egypt 
Kevin Shalvey 
by Kevin Shalvey, PBN Staff Writer

During the mid-1990s, landscape architect Wilfrid L. Gates Jr. was invited by Rhode Island-based hotel designer Robert DiLeonardo to take a trip to Egypt to consider designing the 48-acre grounds for a Ritz-Carlton resort.

“And I said I’d have to think about it,” Gates, chairman and partner of Gates, Leighton & Associates Inc., of East Providence, joked recently about the trip to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. “No, I really said, ‘OK, when do we leave?’”

As it turned out, that first trip was the start of a longstanding business presence in Egypt that was recently expanded with the opening of a Cairo office.

Although he’s since cut back his visits, during the first few years Gates was traveling to and from Egypt about once every six weeks. (An “easy” trip from Kennedy Airport in New York City, he said.)

During those first years Gates formed a crucial business relationship with Mohamed Housein Morsi, an Egyptian landscape architect who had attended the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Md. Morsi was the firm’s on-the-ground representative for much of that Ritz-Carlton project, which Gates accepted.

When Gates wasn’t on the site in Egypt, he and Morsi were sending files through the mail and talking on the phone.

The project wasn’t easy, Gates recalled. The land where the hotel was to be built was about 20 meters higher than sea level and had no natural vegetation, soil or fresh water.

“It was really just rock,” he said.

But during the process of digging for foundations, utilities and grading, much of that coral rock was “pulverized, and, in essence, the site became malleable.”

That softened rock was protected from the elements – the hotel is in a windy area – with plantings and retaining walls. Then for the final touches: concrete basins were poured and water was brought to the site – ocean water was used through a desalination process. Organic material was brought in to mix a planting soil, which covered the site at a depth of about 60 centimeters.

So now, there are plants, sod, palm trees and flowers, lakes and a “lazy river” for guests to float in.

In the years since, Morsi and Gates have worked on projects that include New Mirage Water Park – a desert water park with a design complicated by the need to plan for water not native to the area – and Arabella Park, both in New Cairo City.

Morsi this year was put in charge of Gates, Leighton & Associates’ new Cairo office.

Two weeks ago, Morsi visited the East Providence office for the first time, Gates said. “He was getting to know the people that he deals with every day by sight,” Gates said. Those day-to-day dealings have also changed over the years – shifting from largely mailings to file transfer protocol sites and e-mail.

And Rhode Island employees are being encouraged to make similar trips to visit the Egyptian office and get a feel for the local customs, architecture and designs, Gates said. Just last week – a few days after Morsi headed back east – Vice President of Administration Arthur Eddy left to meet him in Cairo for a project presentation. A day before, the East Providence office had sent over renderings and Morsi’s office was set to add color before Eddy arrived.

Gates’ success in Egypt has him hoping for more international growth, particularly in the development-rich United Arab Emirates, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Gates said his firm has, within the last few months, submitted a bid and landscape architecture plan for sections of “The World” project in Dubai. That project is the creation of a series of 300 islands in the shape of the world’s continents and islands.

Because the international competition for that project is steep – Gates said he doesn’t have his hopes up – that submittal is a sort of “feeling out” of a region that could provide further growth for the company.

In an attempt to create a stable business that’s not affected by a down economy, Gates, Leighton & Associates has signed on to both public and private projects. Gates said that when one is down the other markets pick up. And overseas opportunities usually pick up when private projects in the United States are getting smaller, as they are now.

Along with an expanding overseas employee presence, the firm is also looking to grow locally.

Now, there are six licensed landscape architects – of the 24 total employees in the United States – and others that have earned degrees in the field but haven’t yet been licensed. And those landscape architects are almost all from the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island School of Design, of which Gates and co-founder, President and Partner Don Leighton, are alumni. Gates said his firm will also, with Morsi’s help, try to establish a landscape architecture program at a university in Egypt. Hopefully, he said, it will be based on the coursework at those Rhode Island schools.

Gates has been working as a landscape architect for more than 40 years and intends to retire in the next few years. He’s pushing for others in the company to transition into positions of leadership. But, “as with any entrepreneur, I probably won’t retire fully,” he said. “I’ll probably continue to act as a representative of the company.”

After working for the R.I. Department of Transportation, Gates opened his own office in 1972 and was joined by Leighton in forming Gates, Leighton and Associates in 1985 in East Providence.

Since then, the firm has expanded to three offices. Along with the Egyptian office, the firm runs a Boothbay, Maine site. The latter is on a peninsula that’s northeast of Bath and Portland. That site was chosen because Leighton has vacationed there for years, Gates said.

“But we’re thinking about relocating that one,” Gates said recently. Moving it to nearby Portland – much larger than Boothbay – would cut down the commute time for Rhode Island-based employees who have to make the trip by about a half-hour “and it might also be easier for customers,” he said.
 



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