The biggest engineering firms with operations in Orange County combined for a healthy increase in billings to break a two-year losing streak.
The 32 largest companies here saw local billings increase by 8.3% to $2.6 billion through the 12 months ended in June, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The companies on last year’s list combined for an 8% drop in local billings amid a slowdown in housing and commercial real estate, as well as corporate and government projects.
Fifteen companies on this week’s list reported increased billings while seven saw declines. Three said billings remained unchanged, and the rest were flat, based on Business Journal estimates.
Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp., which has offices in Aliso Viejo and Irvine, tops the list with estimated local billings of $1.55 billion. That’s a gain of about 3% from a year-earlier estimate of $1.50 billion.
Fluor’s Effect
Fluor accounts for more than half of the billings on the list.
The rest of the companies combined to outpace Fluor’s gains on a percentage basis. Without Fluor, the 31 others saw a 16.5% increase in total billings here, reaching $1.1 billion.
CH2M Hill Cos. of Santa Ana kept the No. 2 spot with an increase of 33% to $473.9 million. The Englewood, Colo.-based company had the biggest dollar jump of $117.6 million.
CH2M has projects in environmental remediation and works with major transportation agencies.
No. 19 Parsons Brinckerhoff, a New York-based company with an office in Orange, saw the largest percentage increase in local billings at 35%, which brought its total to $13 million.
The firm took on several civic projects, including the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center for the city of Anaheim, and the Metrolink Service Expansion project for the Orange County Transportation Authority.
Irvine-based Fuscoe Engineering Inc. grew billings by 29.1%. The company, No. 23 on the list, is working on residential developments for Newport Beach-based developer Irvine Company and Canada-based Brookfield Residential Properties Inc. It’s also working on the headquarters for Hyundai Motor America Inc. in Fountain Valley.
While the overall gains on billings snapped the two-year streak of weakening business, some companies still felt the headwinds of the uneven economic recovery.
Anaheim-based Willdan Group Inc. reported the largest drops in local billings by revenue and percentage. Billings fell $9 million, or 44.1%, to $11.4 million. It dropped 9 spots on this year’s list to No. 21.
Willdan did better elsewhere. It racked up the biggest companywide gain by percentage on the list, with billings up by 35.9% to $84.2 million.
No. 8 Tetra Tech Inc. saw the second-biggest percentage drop in local billings at 16.2%, falling to $26.5 million. Its companywide billings for the same time period rose 20% to $1.9 billion. The number of employees was cut by four to 171.
Tetra Tech is based in Pasadena and has an office in Irvine.
No. 29 Santa Ana-based Tait & Associates Inc. shrank its work force by 24 jobs, or 35.8%.
Worker Count Drops
Overall, engineering companies here reduced the number of employees by 2.3% through the 12 months ended in June, to 5,489.
The Santa Ana office of No. 4 URS Corp., which has its headquarters in San Francisco, added 40 employees, the most of any company, and now employs 336 here.
No. 3 Aecom Technology Corp., which is based in Los Angeles and has an office in Orange, added 32 employees here, bringing its total to 489.
The number of licensed engineers at the 32 companies increased 3.2% to 1,222.
There are three newcomers on this year’s list.
No. 13 on the list, Burns & McDon-nell, which has a new office in Brea, saw $18.6 million in business its first year of operating in Orange County. The Kansas City, Mo.-based company hired about 65 employees in the past year, and has 15 local licensed engineers.
FBA Engineering in Newport Beach came in at No. 31, with local billings of $3.6 million.
No. 32 Hall & Foreman Inc., based in Tustin, saw 20% growth in OC business, to $3 million, as it took on education, commercial and residential projects.
