Ryan Bird

Ryan can be described as the kind of guy who loves a challenge and thrives on bringing it all together. He’s the son of a mother from a large Italian family and an Englishman whose parents came to the New World in search of the American Dream. He grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts and played high school football at St. John’s in Danvers, which eventually led him to the University of Maine.

At UMaine, where he met Optimum founder Kendrick Ballantyne on the football field, he studied Business Administration and Construction Management. From there, he began his career in the construction industry with a pipefitting company, helping build power plants. This was shortly after the real estate market crashed in 2008. Here, he observed fieldwork and office operations, gaining insight into both.

He spent years on the South Shore working on multi-family and mixed-use property construction. Along the way, he completed coursework in architecture at Boston Architectural College, project and risk management at Northeastern University, and reading plans and estimating at Wentworth Institute of Technology, among other programs. Ryan is now the Project Executive for the Danvers, Massachusetts office.

As Project Executive of the Massachusetts office, Ryan is building a competitive team in the marketplace and leveraging the resources of an established organization. He engages new clients through business development, fosters client relationships by providing value, and continues to build relationships with trade partners. One of Ryan’s biggest challenges is maintaining the company’s culture in a new market, but with the right staff, this is becoming easier.