All About Wheelhouse Consulting & Engineering—
Why Wheelhouse?
Wheelhouse was conceptualized in 2022 and launched officially in Summer 2023. The venture was created when its partners recognized a common and core need in the Forgotten Coast building sector- Client Advocacy and Personalized Project Management anchored by consistent and transparent communication. With our area being among the top 1 and 3 most booked vacation rental markets, and especially since 2018 Hurricane Michael wiped off 75% of our rental and housing inventory- to say that our builders, architects, engineers, and planning officials were all tremendously overworked and over-extended is a massive understatement. The local labor force and construction industry could barely keep up to market demands.
Our Founding Partners are Forgotten Coast locals that have a heart for the area, its community, and future. They also all have roughly 20 years in their prospective fields ranging from engineering, design, county permit officials, construction and project management, and inspection services. They only work with the best of the best builders and have an in-road or referral program in place for EVERY possible need that an out-of-town, busy client will need from concept through completion of a design-build project.
Meet The Team
Lee Collinsworth | President
Lee is a native of Gulf County and has served Gulf County in the pre-planning/building/permitting and planning departments for nearly three decades. He served as the head county building inspector for two decades, retiring in Fall of 2022. During his tenure, he earned quite the reputation for genuinely and compassionately caring about the homeowners and dwellings within the communities he served. He is notable for going the extra mile to gather all the facts, due-diligence, and data that is needed in order to help a homeowner determine the validity of their proposed real estate venture. He has become synonymous with going the extra mile for friends and strangers alike and adheres by the adage ‘to under promise and over deliver’. In fact, it was this reputation and knowledge that the Wheelhouse market and client base was curated from. Lee holds over 25 various inspection licenses in a multitude of disciplines and is well equipped to provide top notch inspection services, as well as quality control inspections for homeowners and builders. In addition, his finite skills in navigating the zoning, planning, and permitting corridors in the counties we serve has vastly proven to be an invaluable consulting tool along with a money and time saving resource for our clients.
Lee is happily married and the father of one college-aged daughter. He enjoys fishing and cooking for his family and while he loves his Forgotten Coast roots, he is excitedly planning his retirement in the Turks & Caicos Islands. But until then, he is busily leading the Wheelhouse Team and clients.
Jonathan Brown | CEO of Sublime Design, Managing Partner of Wheelhouse - Drafting & LIVE Design Expert
Jonathan Brown began his design career in 1996 as an architecture student for over three years at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida. He began an internship at Morse Cad in Panama City, Florida as a CAD Support Tech in 1997. Within 3 months he was offered a full time position that eventually led to Project Manager. He left four years later after owners decided to retire and scale the business down by over 75%.
From 2002 until 2005 he was a Project Manager for Residential and Commercial Design Projects at SM Marley & Associates in Port St. Joe, Florida. Upon her retirement Jonathan went to work at BBL as a Project Manager of the building plans division where he helped develop hundreds of residential and commercial structures. Expanding his portfolio and skillset drastically while here, to include being the lead draftsman for many large Civil and Municipal projects. These projects include an airport, library, several schools, government buildings etc. Jonathan became trained in Civil Design and went on to create templates and pre-set design techniques that are still in use today by the other staff members he worked with at the time.
From 2009 until 2011, he would go on to work with JRA Architect Blountstown High School, NWFL Airport, Leon County Elementary, Gilchrist, Moore, & Charles School Remodel. Multifamily residential structures. He also fulfilled contracts with Yulista Management Service doing work for the United States Navy. Notable projects include weapons testing design and development support for unmanned underwater vehicles for mine detection and miscellaneous design work on base. After the contract concluded he obtained a contract with Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, under the direction of Terry Anderson. This exciting contract had Jonathan serving as Chief Design Consult and Project Manager for dozens of buildings on site and base housing for Florida subsets of the United States Air Force. This contract concluded in mid-2014.
Michelle Nicholson | Vice President
Michelle serves as a Junior Associate/Partner of our Parent Company, Sublime Design Service, Inc. and a Founding/Managing Partner of Wheelhouse. She is responsible for building relationships, trust, advocacy-style project management, and operational management for all VIP Clients in the Pre-Construction Phase. She oversees a team of two project managers, two admin/interns, two drafting assistants, one design manager, and two PhD structural design Engineers. She thrives at and most enjoys supporting the Developer Client (and their end-user clients) with overseeing the LIVE collaborative design sessions between the Client and Jonathan, our Design Manager. Design change requests & review submissions and ultimately narrowing down the perfect vision for the Client is her primal focus. She is transparently passionate about providing a seamless, stress-free, and expedient pre-planning process.
She brings 18 years of unique experience to the table. She worked overseas in the Republic of Georgia, and South America, as a Co-founder in multiple Biotech and BacterioPhage commercialization projects. Including overseeing the development of a Medical Tourism Center for deadly antibiotic resistance superbugs; orchestrating a venture that produced clinical efficacy studies to get bacteriophage therapy legal in the US with Compassionate Care programs. She also has served in top-producing Sales and Marketing executive roles for Oakwood Homes Center and Prestige Homes; and she has Ivy-league certifications and course completions in Building Applications of Contract & HOA Development, Project Management, Construction Management (current class) and is a published technical writer and marketing professional. She especially enjoys supporting Developer clients with end-user Marketing ideas, writing, advertising consulting. She has a large network of the best industry professionals and enjoys helping clients match with other trusted professionals to support different stages of their project.
Dr. Manny Hakhamaneshi | (Associate Partner) Structural Expert & Engineering Manager
Dr. Manny Hakhamaneshi is a graduate of the University of California, Davis and his research focused on the implementation of innovative techniques for retrofit of existing buildings. He has over 12 published journal articles and over 20 published conference papers. Manny has over 8 years of industry/private experience in Geotechnical and Earthquake Engineering and has served on some key projects such as California High-Speed Train, Stanford Medicine Outpatient Center, and the $60M E12-E80 Connector Bridge in Cordelia, CA. Manny is a registered Professional Engineer in California, Florida, and 43 other states. He is also a part-time Adjunct Professor at California State University-East Bay where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses pertaining to geotechnical engineering, surveying, and construction management. Manny is also a registered member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). Manny serves as the Principal Geotechnical Engineer and Director of A&J Engineering Corp.
Dr. Babek Kamranimoghaddam | Structural Expert & Engineer
Geotechnical Engineering; Design of Shallow and Deep Foundations; Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis; and Uncertainty Quantification of Numerical Simulations. He has served as Project Engineer and Senior Earthquake engineer for a variety of projects. He has been an adjunct faculty at Cal Polytechnic State University, SLO, California State University Long Beach, and reviewer for peer reviewed engineering journals. He currently is working as a Transportation Engineer in the California Department of Transportation and also serves as the Principal Structural Engineer at A&J Engineering Corp.
Bewaji Makinde, AIT, | Lead Designer
Makinde (Mack) has been serving as Lead Design & Rendering Expert for Sublime for 16 months and has quickly become a staple to our team. He oversees a handful of CAD and drafting assistants virtually, and together they are able to produce upwards of 7-10 completed floor plan & elevation projects per week, to include revisions within 24 hours, and 3-D interior and exterior renderings at record pace with exceptional artistry.
-
![]()
Whitney Yeager
Junior Associate Partner- Operations Manager
-
![]()
Courtney Kallfelz
Marketing and Branding Manager
-
![]()
Matthew Burke
Construction & Project Manager/Client Support
-
![]()
Chase Nicholson
Sales Manager
More About The Wheelhouse Way
We feel any company can produce floor plans, or even build a house- but we care just as much about what happens to the project and its owner AFTER the project COs and the last draw is paid.
For instance, for the rental properties- we are vested in knowing that it will generate the maxed ROI and be the best it can. We design with these rental attributes in mind, we help cultivate a brand for the house, a business plan and model, can help w marketing plan for bank, ROI financial model from real time rental data, we can help curate the ultimate guest experience and make sure your Air bnb program is top producing. We will go the extra mile in consulting to make sure all the unique financing and partial self-funding programs specific to this area are made available to our client.
We will navigate the process from start to finish. Project concept, budget, rental analysis and ROI, financing liaison, live design and plan development, CONTRACTOR BID negotiation and representation (giving client VIP expedited service from the top builders using us as your advocate), jumping to the front of very busy line, engineering stamp and seal, permitting (saves months off your build time) working with you and your builder’s project manager to help ensure a seamless, organized, expedited, and VIP build process. Independent inspections and walkthroughs, video and pictorial updates of job, bi-weekly status reports and meetings with your builder’s team and subs, third-party county inspections (saves tremendous time and headache for your builder), helping coordinate and pick out colors, materials, organizing your spec process with builder support with data tracking, set up an LLC for your rental business, custom renderings, drone photography, rental websites, social media management for your rental and robust Airbnb setup with ads.
Essentially, anything you may need we either offer in-house or have referral partners that we know are the best of the best. We aim to help you navigate this unique design-build market and have access to the best VIP service possible.
