The largest environmental consultants with offices in Orange County billed $602 million in 2014, an 8% jump over last year’s $556 million.
Local employment at the 33 largest firms on the Business Journal list, which is ranked by OC billings, bumped up nearly 6%.
The top 10 consultants shifted quite a bit in the past 12 months:
• Just three stayed in the positions they held the year before;
• Five companies moved up, including two that cracked the top 10;
• Two top-10 companies on this year’s list moved down from last year while maintaining membership in the club, and a third dropped to No. 11;
• One 2013 top-10 company dropped off the list entirely.
That company was the former San Francisco-based URS Corp., which was No. 3 on last year’s list before last year’s No. 6—AECOM—bought it in October.
The acquisition kicked AECOM, which is based in Los Angeles and has a local office in Orange, into URS Corp.’s No. 3 slot, with an $18 million boost in local billings—nearly double its 2013 take—and a local employee base that rocketed up 60% from 360 to 574.
• The No. 1 and 2 companies last year held their ground: Englewood, Colo.-based CH2M Hill Cos., at No. 1 with its local office in Santa Ana, and Pasadena-based Tetra Tech Inc., with its local representatives in Irvine.
The two companies combined for $220 million in local billings, essentially unchanged from a year ago and more than a third of the total billings represented on the list.
Nice and Steady
Some firms with local offices are part of larger companies based elsewhere, but several are based here as they grow their business and billings in other areas.
• Santa Ana-based Chambers Group was No. 31 on the list, with steady billings that can be attributed to its office here, and a 28% companywide increase to $11 million.
“We’ve been pretty steady locally,” said Craig Neslage, executive vice president of operations. “But most of our work is not in Orange County.”
Neslage said the companywide boost was based on “more business from a couple clients,” primarily Los Angeles County public agencies and utility company San Diego Gas & Electric.
He said Chambers’ bread-and-butter work is writing environmental impact reports and that the company has developed a reputation for quickly assembling its team and problem solving on short notice.
“We’ve bailed out all kinds of agencies where nobody was expecting the problem,” he said. “You find a bird species that’s protected, and there’s a nest, and the project has to stop.”
He said Chambers’ relationships with wildlife agencies expedite solutions.
“We sometimes get people back to work over a weekend.”
• Local billings at No. 22, Tait Environmental Services Inc. in Santa Ana, declined by 11% from $8.1 million to $7.2 million, and it has 33 employees, down from 47.
Chief Operating Officer James Streitz attributed the cuts to the company slowing down in one type of consulting as it added more comprehensive professional services for clients.
“We’ve done a lot of work on underground storage tanks,” such as at gas stations, he said. That business is slowing.
Streitz said Tait is increasing its “professional services,” such as writing the policies and procedures for clients to say how such companies will handle hazardous materials, storm water runoff, and response to new regulations.
The company developed the Tait Environmental Compliance System, a proprietary product.
He said it integrates a client’s regulatory requirements based on how often sites need to be visited, how frequently reports are filed, and which documents are needed on specific projects in order to obey the law.
“It’s a document management and workflow system that keeps our clients in compliance.”
• One newcomer to the list is actually a returning entry on the strength of a 30% jump in billings to $5 million.
Glenn Lukos Associates Inc. was previously on the list in 2010 based on its 2009 results. This year, it made the No. 24 spot.
“The recession knocked us off,” said Glenn Lukos, founder and chief executive of the Lake Forest firm.
Lukos said he had worked mainly for private land developers—one of the groups hit hardest by the downturn. They still constitute most of his work, so with recent economic upswings, his billings have revived, and he’s added three employees in the past year to 25 total.
Some clients are gone—land developers and homebuilders, for instance, that were purchased by companies that focus more on the building side and less on development—meaning they don’t need Lukos as much.
But Lukos said he does permitting work for developers that include Rancho Mission Viejo and the Irvine Company.
The company has also added more public agency work in Southern California.
“We do a lot of monitoring for the Laguna Beach Fire Department,” Lukos said.
The department uses goats to eat brush and thereby prevent fires, he said.
“We find the plants that need to be left alone and fence off those areas so the goats don’t get them.”
