EFCG, MSA launch pilot to turn expert knowledge into a firm asset

By AI, Created 4:27 PM UTC, May 18, 2026, /AGP/ – The Environmental Financial Consulting Group and MSA Professional Services have launched an IMERITUS pilot to capture and preserve institutional knowledge inside professional services firms. The effort aims to help organizations retain expertise, strengthen continuity and give future leaders access to hard-won judgment and decision-making history.

Why it matters: - Professional services firms often lose critical expertise when senior leaders retire, change roles or leave the organization. - IMERITUS is meant to turn that knowledge into a durable organizational asset that can support leadership development, technical continuity, mentoring, innovation and decision-making. - The pilot reflects a broader push to modernize knowledge management as firms face leadership transitions, workforce development pressures and demands for operational resilience.

What happened: - The Environmental Financial Consulting Group, LLC and MSA Professional Services, Inc. announced a pilot collaboration for IMERITUS on May 13, 2026. - EFCG is based in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and MSA Professional Services is based in Boston, Massachusetts. - The pilot is designed to help organizations capture, preserve and activate the expertise of their most experienced professionals. - Marcus Quigley, EFCG partner and technology and innovation practice lead, framed the effort as a way to convert wisdom from senior professionals into a durable resource. - Jaime Kurten, MSA’s director of applied technology and innovation, said the pilot is a chance to preserve and scale expertise for the next generation of leaders.

The details: - IMERITUS combines structured knowledge capture, expert interviews, curated source materials and AI-enabled retrieval. - The system is intended to create secure, organization-specific knowledge resources. - Those resources are meant to help employees access relevant expertise, understand historical decisions, learn from prior work and apply experienced judgment more consistently. - The pilot focuses on preserving institutional knowledge in a confidential environment. - EFCG said the initiative is aimed at helping experienced professionals extend their impact beyond a single project, role or point in time. - Quigley said many firms recognize people as their greatest asset, but the value is often informal, undocumented and hard to scale. - Quigley also said knowledge management should be viewed as a capital allocation opportunity, not just a documentation problem.

Between the lines: - The pilot suggests firms are looking for ways to treat internal expertise more like a reusable business asset. - That could matter for firms that rely heavily on senior judgment, client history and institutional memory to maintain quality and continuity. - The emphasis on confidentiality and organization-specific access signals that firms want knowledge sharing without exposing sensitive information broadly.

What’s next: - EFCG and MSA will use the pilot to test practical methods for capturing and organizing expert knowledge. - The companies are expected to evaluate how the IMERITUS approach can support future leaders and teams across professional services organizations. - If the pilot works, the model could be expanded as a way to preserve expertise across more firms and more practice areas.

The bottom line: - EFCG and MSA are betting that institutional knowledge can be captured, protected and scaled like any other strategic asset.