• Mr. Henry Adams started his consulting practice in 1898, 18 years after emigrating to Baltimore from Germany at the age of 22. Educated in Germany as a building engineer, his first job in the U.S. was with Benjamin F. Bennett, a prominent Baltimore builder. Adams then spent four years as an assistant engineer with Bartlett, Hayward & Company, before taking a job in Washington, D.C. in 1886 that would help launch his career and his reputation as an engineer.

• As chief engineer for the Treasury Department, Supervising Architect’s Office, Adams was responsible for the heating and ventilating systems in all federal buildings, and eventually established the government’s mechanical engineering department. During his 12-year tenure with the government, he was also active in establishing the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers (ASHVE), and became a charter member in 1894. Adams wrote many technical articles for the society, and served as its sixth president in 1899.
  
  
• After leaving the government in 1898 to start his own consulting practice, Adams was responsible for the building systems engineering for several prominent buildings in Baltimore and other major U.S. cities. Baltimore’s Calvert, Equitable, USF&G, and Court Square office buildings, as well as the city’s Belvedere, Southern, and Emerson hotels were all designed by Adams. He also designed several Baltimore landmarks - still standing today - including the Bromo Seltzer Tower, Maryland Institute and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

1950 - Designed the first fully air conditioned hospital in Baltimore

• During the building boom that followed World War II, the firm combined innovation with new technology to design economical, energy efficient and reliable building systems that were much easier to maintain. Most of the hospitals in the Baltimore area were designed by Henry Adams in the 1950’s, including the Blalock Building at John’s Hopkins Hospital – the first fully air conditioned hospital in the city.

1965 - Designed the first low-temperature reheat induction system

• In 1965, for patient rooms at Harbor Hospital Center, the firm designed the first low-temperature reheat induction system ever developed. Henry Adams was nationally recognized for the development, which was implemented extensively throughout the world in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

1970 - Designed the first application of chilled water storage - controlled by heating

• The real estate boom of the 1970’s brought several notable building commissions and industry firsts. In 1978, the firm designed the first application of chilled water storage – controlled by heating – for the Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Prominent buildings engineered by the firm include the World Trade Center and the Convention Center in Baltimore; the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.; and the University of Riyadh in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

1980 - Developed concepts for the industry's first appliction of a two-fan, double-duct ...

• The firm’s prosperity continued throughout the 1980s and in 1986, Henry Adams, developed concepts for the industry’s first application of a two-fan, double-duct, low-temperature air conditioning system for the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland. Other major clients of that decade included the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Gallaudet University, National Institutes of Health, University of Maryland Medical System, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, McCormick Company, T. Rowe Price, and Northrop Grumman.

2000 - ACEC Awards for Engineering Excellence

• Two significant projects received notable attention: First, the clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Maryland opened as a world class teaching and performance venue. Second, the intricate renovation of Baltimore's historic Hippodrome theater highlighted by its opening night on local television and more recently the Miss America Pageant in 2005.