Highly Regarded Industry Publication’s Top 500 Firms List Features SSOE’s Toyota Center of Excellence Project and CEO Vince DiPofi
TOLEDO, Ohio, May 8, 2025 — SSOE Group (www.ssoe.com), an internationally ranked architecture and engineering firm, reaffirms its strong position in Engineering News-Record’s (ENR) annual Top 500 Design Firms list. SSOE has again secured the #2 position in Manufacturing Design for the third consecutive year, marking nine years in the Top 5 and reinforcing its long-standing leadership in the industrial and advanced technology sectors.
In addition to its #2 Manufacturing Design ranking, SSOE jumped into the Top 90, ranked #87 overall in the Top 500 Design Firms list, reflecting strong performance across its diverse project portfolio. The firm also rose among ENR’s Top 100 Pure Designers at #73, maintaining a Top 100 position for the third year in a row. The markets featured in this issue represent ENR’s preliminary sector rankings, with additional subsector results anticipated in July.
Ranked for Readiness
SSOE’s continued recognition in ENR’s Top 500 reflects not only its rankings, but the impact of its work—like the Toyota Center of Excellence in Liberty, North Carolina. Featured in this year’s ENR coverage, the project exemplifies the firm’s ability to deliver high-performance, future-ready facilities for global innovators.
Designed as a state-of-the-art training hub for Toyota’s first U.S. battery manufacturing campus, the facility required deep collaboration, Lean design, and numerous programmatic iterations to meet complex utility and safety needs—drawing on nearly three decades of partnership with the automaker.
Engineering What’s Next
SSOE’s CEO, Vince DiPofi, PE, was quoted in ENR’s Top 500 Dialogue, highlighting the firm’s natural and intentional shift toward specializing in large, complex programs over the years. DiPofi is featured on pages 6 and 12 of the digital issue and on pages 54 and 60 of the print edition (ENR subscribers can view it from the website). In a separate statement, DiPofi emphasized SSOE’s forward-looking approach:
“Our continued success in manufacturing design is rooted in our ability to adapt and lead. We’re not just using technology—our teams are determining the best ways to leverage it to solve real client challenges. From AI-driven design optimization to integrated delivery models, we’re focused on outcomes that matter: speed, quality, and value.”
SSOE’s investment in artificial intelligence (AI) has positioned the firm as a digital transformation leader in the AEC industry. These investments include the firm’s multi-year collaboration with YegaTech, a decade-long enterprise-level partnership with Autodesk, partnering with a generative AI / machine learning firm to create a custom module and provide training and development to its employees, and the creation of an in-house development team who most recently piloted a tool to enhance resource forecasting, staff assignment capabilities, as well as analyze work assignments,
Just last month, SSOE welcomed Outside Director Susan Shultz, CEO and Founder of TeamStack.ai, as an Outside Board Director, further poising it for continued growth and innovation.
SSOE’s rankings reflect a strong and balanced portfolio across manufacturing and advanced technology sectors. The firm’s transferable expertise in large-scale, high-tech facilities is now being applied to high-growth sectors such as data center, battery, solar, and energy subsectors. These are areas where SSOE’s agile approach, program management capabilities, and unique background navigating incentives and onshoring technology are known to offer a competitive edge.
