While it’s been a nice year of growth for engineering companies in Orange County, the planned move by engineering heavyweight Fluor Corp. was a shock that stands to lessen the sector’s size in the longer term.
Fluor, long the dominant engineering company on the list, said in May that it plans to move its headquarters to the Dallas area.
Overall, the 30 biggest engineering companies saw OC billings climb 8% to $4 billion for the 12 months ended June 30, according to this week’s Business Journal list. Engineering companies posted a 4% decline last year. Five of the companies didn’t report billings and are Business Journal estimates.
Backlog,an indicator of future billings,was 20% higher than a year ago.
Companies said Southern California construction continues to fuel growth in everything from retail development to water treatment projects.
The Business Journal estimated Fluor’s OC revenue at $3.2 billion, easily more than all other companies combined. Without Fluor, engineering companies in OC saw a 12% rise in billings.
Companywide, Fluor posted revenue of $9.4 billion, up 7% from the previous year.
Fluor, OC’s third-largest public company by sales, plans to wrap up its headquarters move by next summer.
The move is designed to cut costs and bring Fluor closer to customers in the central and eastern part of the country, the company said.
Fluor, which has had its roots in OC since 1912, plans to keep some engineering operations in Aliso Viejo and Long Beach, so it won’t disappear completely from the list.
The company employs about 1,380 people in OC. Nearly 500 people work in Fluor’s administration operation in Aliso Viejo, and about 100 of those jobs are set to move to Texas. Another 290 workers are expected to be reassigned elsewhere within Fluor, the company said.
The move could entail up to 100 layoffs.
Nevertheless, the company added 2% to its employment rolls locally in the past year, and continues to work on OC projects such as the $200 million Ren & #233;e and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Fluor is the construction manager on the project, which is expected to open next year.
Fluor’s Katrina Work
As for its company-wide operations, Fluor could benefit from rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast area in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction.
Already, it has won an initial contract valued at up to $100 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build temporary housing and provide communications gear to help those displaced by the hurricane’s devastation.
It’s likely to be the first of a wave of contracts to be awarded to engineering and construction companies to rebuild the Gulf of Mexico region.
No. 4 RBF Consulting of Irvine saw its billings climb 14% to $64 million, versus a year earlier. RBF’s backlog soared 43% to $50 million.
RBF has seen rising demand for engineering services at real estate developments and environmental and water treatment projects, said President Bob Kallenbaugh.
The company has more than 400 OC workers in Southern California and other nearby regions.
Kallenbaugh said he’s given up on finding experienced engineers and is instead hiring college students and doing training in-house.
“I think the pie is getting bigger for everyone,” he said. “We’re trying to answer the demand of a lot of clients.”
He said RBF recently opened a new office in Tucson after its Phoenix operations grew to about 120 people.
At No. 7 was Pasadena-based Tetra Tech Inc. with a 3% billings gain to $32 million in OC.
This year the firm returned to its roots of traditional engineering services in areas such as wastewater treatment, transpiration and site development, said Steve Tedesco, regional manager for the firm in Irvine.
Earlier this year the company dropped engineering and construction services for wireless tower projects. The telecommunications sector has continued to struggle since the technology bubble burst in 2000, with Tetra Tech taking some hits, Tedesco said.
“We were hurting,” he said.
He said Tetra Tech plans to add some 50 people in the next couple of years to its staff of about 150 in OC.
The biggest percentage gainer on the list was No. 20 Development Resource Consultants Inc. in Anaheim Hills.
Development Resource Consultants said its OC billings shot up 52% to $12.3 million in the past year, with backlog up 50% to $10.5 million. Its ranking climbed five spots.
Development Resource Consultants doesn’t tackle public works projects, but focuses on a booming piece of the local construction boom,retail.
The company specializes in getting sites prepared for retail sites with big retailers such as Minneapolis-based Target Corp. and Atlanta-based The Home Depot Inc., said company President Larry Gates.
“The developers and the big-box retailers were looking for someone with that expertise,” Gates said.
He said Development Resource Consultants is familiar with Americans with Disabilities Act rules and knows what kind of power and telecommunications big retailers want.
A decliner in the past year was No. 27 Houston-based ABS Consulting Inc. in Irvine.
ABS Consulting’s billings dropped 27% to $8 million while backlog fell 24% to $3.8 million.
The engineering services provider’s decline stemmed from the sale of a couple of businesses that dragged down its companywide billings by 52%, said spokeswoman Rebecca Rieansnider.
She said the sales helped the company focus on its core engineering services business.
