Patrick Fuscoe has his hands in some of Orange County’s most high-profile projects.
The founder and president of Irvine-based Fuscoe Engineering Inc. is working on redevelopment of the former El Toro Marine base, restoration at Laguna Beach’s Bluebird Canyon landslide and residential work for The Irvine Company.
Fuscoe was honored last week with a Business Journal Excellence in Entrepreneur-ship Award. The awards luncheon was held at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine.
His company posted billings of $23.5 million for the 12 months ended June 30, up 15% from a year earlier, according to the Business Journal’s list of engineering companies last fall.
At El Toro’s 3,700-acre makeover, Fuscoe’s civil engineering company has been tapped to do early development cost estimates, design a wildlife corridor, streets, graphics and a framework for development, map the area and evaluate water quality, among other environmental work.
Its prospects at El Toro got a boost four years ago when Measure W was passed, allowing the former military base to be used for non-aviation purposes.
Miami-based Lennar Corp. won bidding to redevelop the base. It’s planning to build about 3,600 homes as well as commercial space, museums, wilderness areas and other uses.
A big part of the redevelopment is park land, which is being overseen by the Great Park Corp.
“It’s a monumental assignment that combines all of the intricacies of civil engineering and creating a place that is timeless for people to enjoy,” Fuscoe said. “It has been a once in a lifetime assignment to be part of a team blending those things together.”
Fuscoe is working with the park’s recently selected master designer, New York landscape architect Ken Smith. Fuscoe occasionally takes Smith around on weekends in OC to give him a taste of local life. On a recent weekend, they went to the Pacific Amphitheatre at the OC Fair & Exposition Center in Costa Mesa.
Fuscoe, 55, was born in Pennsylvania. He earned an engineering degree and later moved to Newport Beach to experience coastal living.
Fuscoe, who is the son of an airplane mechanic, is a 1972 graduate of the University of Southern California. His Delta Tau Delta fraternity brothers included Bob McKnight, chief executive of Huntington Beach-based surfwear maker Quiksilver Inc., and Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“In those days we were 42 guys living in a made-for-movie place called Animal House,” Fuscoe said. “We got the grades but you can imagine what we were like at 17 to 21 (years of age). Chris and I are still best friends.”
Fuscoe’s first operation was a two-person startup in Palos Verdes. His career got a huge kickstart when the Irvine Co. hired him to work on its massive Woodbridge Village Association project.
The Irvine Co. aimed to lure folks to live east of the San Diego (I-405) Freeway. At the time, the area was covered with orange groves and bean fields.
The 2,000-acre, “people-friendly planned community,” which had at its heart a lake to lure homebuyers, was a hit. The Woodbridge project is filled with parks, trails and lakes.
Fuscoe’s approach to civil engineering is described as “eco-adaptive,” an approach where he blends a development into “raw, mountainous land that is balanced with the ecosystems.”
He claims to have gotten the idea while working on a development involving wetlands in Santa Barbara.
“We are not the bulldozer guys,” he said.
Founded in 1981, Fuscoe Engineering grew during the next decade into a 150-person team with $15 million per year in billings.
In 1992, the retirement and departure of previous owners caused Fuscoe to dissolve the company and begin all over again. He had $60,000 in his bank account.
By 2005, Fuscoe Engineering had grown into a 180-person operation, including 125 workers in OC, with offices in Irvine, San Diego, Rancho Cucamonga and Palm Springs.
Fuscoe is forecasting billings growth of 15% this year. The company was named the Best Midsize Civil Engineering Firm to Work For in the U.S. by CE News magazine.
Fuscoe’s client list includes Costco Wholesale Corp., Lennar, SunCal Cos., Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School & Jewish Community Center and The Market Place in Tustin.
The company has provided a guiding hand in Hidden Creek, a 3,000-acre planned community in Anaheim Hills; the coastal Newport Banning Ranch with its 125-acre marsh restoration; and the $140 million Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana.
Fuscoe, who is married and has two children, volunteers for a number of groups.
A favorite is the Miocean Foundation, where Fuscoe is chairman. The group takes a “business-to-business” approach to eliminating run-off pollution at beaches.
