(June 20, 2007 update)
RBF Consulting began a year-long celebration to mark its 10th year of service in Las Vegas. RBF’s Las Vegas office, established in 1997 to better serve its public works and private sector clients, now has more than 30 employees, providing subdivision and public works engineering, land surveying, mapping, land planning, environmental analysis, GIS, traffic engineering, transportation planning, transportation engineering, and water resources engineering services.

HDR completed an asset purchase of The Hoyt Company, a transportation planning, community relations, and public outreach firm based in Sacramento, Calif. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Going forward, The Hoyt Company will conduct business as HDR/The Hoyt Company.

SCS Engineers relocated its West Palm Beach, Fla., office to a new larger facility to accommodate SCS’s growing practice in environmental services and solid waste engineering. The West Palm Beach office serves a wide range of municipalities, private industry, and governmental agencies in South Florida. The firm also relocated its Tampa, Fla., office to a new, 15,000-square-foot office space. SCS Field Services also relocated to the Tampa facility. The Tampa office offers services in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

URS Corporation signed a definitive agreement to acquire Washington Group in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $2.6 billion. According to the companies, the transaction will "combine two world-class engineering and construction companies, expand the capabilities of both firms, and capitalize on their positions in important high growth sectors, including power, infrastructure, and environmental management." The combined company, called URS Corporation, will have projects in more than 50 countries; more than 54,000 employees; and offer a full range of engineering, construction, and operations and maintenance services for both fossil fuel and nuclear power plants globally. In the infrastructure market, the combined entity will be positioned to meet growing demand for comprehensive services on large, complex transportation and water/wastewater projects around the world. In addition, the combined company expects to be a major contractor to the federal government, including a top-five provider of technical services to the U.S. Department of Defense and a top provider of engineering, management, and environmental services to the U.S. Department of Energy.

National land development consulting firm Atwell-Hicks expanded into the Southwest region by merging with HEC Engineering, LLC, a Mesa, Ariz.-based firm serving greater Phoenix. HEC Engineering, with 100 employees, will now operate under the name Atwell-Hicks, with seven employees named partners. The merger coincides with HEC’s completion of a new main office campus in Mesa. HEC has historically provided civil engineering, surveying, planning, and niche construction services on large-scale developments in the East Valley. Two existing project offices in Florence and Phoenix will remain open and continue to grow. The merger is part of Atwell-Hicks’ 2007 expansion efforts, expected to add several new offices in the Southeastern and Southwestern United States.

Hatch Mott MacDonald acquired Paragon Engineering, a 39-year-old civil engineering firm located in Birmingham, Ala. Paragon’s practice is focused on land surveying, construction management, mapping, municipal engineering, water and wastewater engineering, and planning. Paragon’s experience includes a wide range of projects, from the very small up to its signature project, the design, construction supervision, and inspection of the Talladega International Raceway. Acquisition of Paragon extends Hatch Mott MacDonald’s network of 45 North American offices into northern Alabama, allowing the firm to provide services to clients in Birmingham and surrounding areas.

Founded in 1957, the U.S. operations of ARCADIS, based in Denver, Colo., are celebrating its 50th anniversary. During the past five years, ARCADIS added more than 2,500 employees and 80 national offices to its U.S. operations, now comprising the largest division of its parent global company in the Netherlands. As a result, the company now boasts nearly 4,000 employees in 120 offices throughout the country. In 2007, ARCADIS expects to hire an additional 1,000 employees. While much of the growth is organic, through recent acquisitions of engineering firms such as BBL, Construction Dynamic Group and more recently, Phoenix-based Pinnacle One, ARCADIS has increased capabilities and services being offered to its clients nationwide.

(May 11, 2007 update)
HDR, an architecture, engineering, planning, and consulting firm, expanded its transportation services portfolio with the purchase of movable bridge and aviation lighting programs from Bergmann Associates, an architecture and engineering firm based in Rochester, N.Y., with offices throughout the East Coast and Midwest. Employees in those disciplines will be based in HDR’s metro New York offices. HDR also acquired Hawaii Pacific Engineers, Inc., a full-service engineering firm based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Also known as HPE, the 20-person firm specializes in civil engineering, water and wastewater treatment, and design and site and infrastructure development. HPE will conduct business as HDR/Hawaii Pacific Engineers.

CH2M HILL, a global full-service engineering, construction, and operations firm, opened a second Chicago office on South Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago. The new office serves as a core operations center for the firm’s in-city services to its water, transportation, and environmental businesses. The new office will be staffed initially by more than 30 CH2M HILL employees with a high level of Chicago market expertise and primary responsibility for serving existing downtown clients, including the Chicago Departments of Water Management, Environment, and Transportation and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. The downtown team also is tasked with pursuing additional opportunities in the greater Chicago civil infrastructure market. Combined with its O’Hare office, more than 100 CH2M HILL experts serve the greater Chicago area.

Dewberry, a nationally recognized design and consulting firm, established a new office in Frederick, Md. The new office, the firm’s eighth in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area and its fourth in Maryland, will support land development projects in the region for both public- and private-sector clients. Services include surveying, planning, land design, civil engineering, and landscape architecture. Michael R. Snyder, P.E., was named manager of the office.

Geller DeVellis, Inc., and Geller Sport, Inc., signed a letter of intent to transfer its business operations to Stantec. As part of Stantec, the firms say they will offer an expanded roster of professional services and technical specialties, as well as an improved ability to serve clients throughout North America and abroad. Following due diligence and closing of the transaction, which is expected to occur in May, future projects will be conducted under the Stantec name.

Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, a multi-disciplined consulting engineering firm headquartered in Maryland, and The Spectra Group, which has provided civil engineering, survey, and subsurface utility engineering services in Mid-Atlantic region, merged effective April 1. The merged company has a staff of more than 550 professionals with offices in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and Florida.

(April 30, 2007 update)
R. Kenneth Weeks Engineers (RKW), which has served clients in Southeastern Virginia and overseas for more than 50 years, merged with Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson (JMT). JMT, founded in 1971, provides multi-disciplined engineering services throughout the Eastern United States. Together, the two firms have a staff of more than 500 professionals with offices in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and Florida.

SEPI Engineering Group, Raleigh, N.C., is partnering with the YWCA of the Greater Triangle in support of its Science, Engineering and Technology (SETech) Program, an expanding summer camp for girls in grades six through eight, to provide a hands-on interactive experience in a high-tech computer lab. As a partner for the program, SEPI will assist the engineering component of the program and serve as a resource for identifying engineering-related individuals, organizations, and businesses in the community to support development of the SETech summer camp, hands-on workshops during the school year, and job shadowing opportunities for students.

Collins Engineers, Inc., opened its twelfth office in Rochester, N.Y., extending the firm’s ability to provide the region with transportation, construction, and waterfront engineering services. The new office is headed by Elizabeth Burkhart, P.E., who has 15 years of experience in waterfront structural design and inspection and construction project engineering both in the United States and internationally.

CH2M HILL hired about 900 professionals in the first quarter of 2007 to staff a growing number of water, transportation, environmental, and industrial projects worldwide. In 2007, CH2M HILL plans to hire 7,000 people and currently has more than 1,200 open positions. Current openings include civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, and process engineers; designers; procurement staff; construction managers; and technical publication staff. The largest numbers of openings are in the southwest and southeast. More than 70 percent of the first-quarter hires occurred in the United States; 86 percent were full-time positions and 88 percent were external hires.