A Culture of Growing

A Culture of Growing
Our independent ownership provides us the freedom and oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow the way we want to; not driven by revenue or public share­hold­ers, but rather defined by those geographies, capa­bil­i­ties and innovations that best serve us and our clients. Our long history of proudly joining forces with other industry leaders represents smart and deliberate decisions to strengthen our offerings, accelerate our growth and advanced us in priority markets. We’re proud of how each careful blending of comple­men­tary business cultures have shaped CDM Smith into who we are today and will be long into the future.

1972

Camp Dresser & McKee and Scott & Furphy (Melbourne, Australia) announced the orga­ni­za­tion of Camp Scott Furphy Pty. Ltd. The new consulting engineering firm engaged exclusively in envi­ron­men­tal engineering in Australia.

Alexander Potter Associates (New York, New York) became a wholly owned subsidiary of Camp Dresser & McKee. This merger greatly increased the firms' resources; strength­ened personnel, specialists and computer facilities; and allowed the firm to more ably provide envi­ron­men­tal engineering. 

Alexander Potter and Associates was the first firm that we acquired. Tom Camp taught at MIT and Max Kligman, who owned all of Alexander Potter's stock, was one of Camp’s students. They were in New York, and from them, we picked up work on the east coast.
Bob Marini

1973

Camp Dresser & McKee merged with Neysadurai & Associates (Singapore), an envi­ron­men­tal engineering firm serving municipal and industrial clients in water supply, water pollution control, drainage and solid waste in Singapore.

1974

Ross, Saarinen, Bolton & Wilder (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA) merges with CDM as a wholly owned subsidiary, which specialized in envi­ron­men­tal engineering with work in the U.S. Southeast and Bahamas.

Lawler had a vision – he said “we’re not going to be a New England only sanitary firm. We’re going to grow,” So he looked at the South and he selected by far the strongest from firm in Ross, Saaranin, Bolton and Wilder and we went from this sanitary New England firm to a strong East Coast firm.
Steve Hickox

1975

CDM acquired Water Resources Engineers Inc. greatly expanding our offerings in Austin, Texas, Springfield, Virginia, and Walnut Creek, California.

CDM acquired YTO & Associates (California, United States) expanding the firm to California.

 

When we acquired Water Resources Inc., it brought us into a whole variety of new locations. They were in Walnut Creek, CA, Austin TX and Springfield VA and primarily in water resource studies and water resource type of work, which was something we didn’t have much of at the time.
Bob Marini

1976

CDM acquired Limnetics, Inc. (Denver, Colorado, USA), special­iz­ing in envi­ron­men­tal sciences and envi­ron­men­tal impact assessments, expanding our office to Denver, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Accu-Labs Research, Inc. (Denver, Colorado, USA), a sophis­ti­cated laboratory, was purchased by CDM, continuing as a branch office of CDM/Limnetics.

CDM merges with Harvey O. Banks, Consulting Engineers, Inc., adding to CDM's Water Resources Division along with Water Resources Engineers Inc.

1977

The business and personnel of Genge Envi­ron­men­tal Consultants (Denver, Colorado, USA) were acquired and consol­i­dated with CDM's Denver operations, extending the firm's capa­bil­i­ties in biological sciences and provided additional access to the recre­ational development and energy markets in the Rocky Mountain region.

1978

CDM merged with Resource Analysis, Inc. (Waltham, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA) a firm founded in 1972 by four professors at the MIT Civil Engineering Department that specialized in numerical modeling of all facets of the hydrologic cycle. The firm was an incubator for many of the computer simulation capa­bil­i­ties being applied for the first time to real world problems. CDM recognized that the unique capa­bil­i­ties of RAI's staff would signif­i­cantly augment its offering to clients worldwide.

Joe Lawler offered a vision of RAI being an integral part of the best global envi­ron­men­tal engineering consulting firm. Having worked with CDM on the Manila MWSS project and learning about the impressive work they were conducting in Bangkok, Singapore, Sydney, Ankara and Alexandria, we decided to join Joe on his quest. It was a decision I never regretted - and the RAI team went on to play major roles in emerging oppor­tu­ni­ties with CDM over the past 45 years.
Brendan Harley

1991

CDM acquired John S. Murk Engineers Inc. (Carlsbad, California, USA), a respected midsize civil/envi­ron­men­tal engineering firm.

One of Bob Marini’s goals (building on Lawler and Heney's dreams) was to be a national firm. To do that took estab­lish­ing a presence on the East Coast, West Coast and everywhere in between. You can’t win the work if you don’t know people - if you’re not local.  CDM wanted to find a firm that matched the culture and core values CDM holds dearly, and John S. Murk Engineers was that firm.
Kelli Burn-Roy

1993

Jointly owned firm Scott Wilson CDM is established with Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick, Ltd (Basingstoke, United Kingdom). This new firm provided compre­hen­sive envi­ron­men­tal management services and integrated the latest U.S and European tech­nolo­gies for United Kingdom business, commerce and industry.

1996

CDM Inter­na­tional acquired majority equity ownerships in the German firm Jessberger + Partner (Bochum) and Jessberger +Partner - Leipzig (Leipzig).

Jessberger + Partners was a true geot­ech­ni­cal firm and we fell in love with the individuals. The senior people were very talented. Ground freezing was their capability. They were very good and very high-end. 
Dick Fox

1996

CDM E&C acquired Petroleum Contractors Inc. (Long Beach, California, and Tempe, Arizona) and Mobile Equipment Fabricators Inc. (Long Beach), expanding CDM's ability to provide design/build, general contracting and equipment fabrication services. 

1997

CDM E&C acquired Interface Services, Inc. (Syracuse, New York), a mechanical and general construc­tion services firm, expanding our design/build, general contracting and equipment fabrication services in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.

CDM formed a joint company with Philip Utilities Management Corporation (Seattle, Washington, USA). CDM Philip collab­o­rated on a 25-year contract to design, build and operate a new 120-mgd Toll River water infil­tra­tion plant.

1999

CDM acquired Missimer Inter­na­tional Inc (Fort Myers, Florida, USA). Operating as CDM Missimer, this group specialized in groundwater and envi­ron­men­tal sciences, with emphasis on aquifer storage and recovery, deep well injection, water supply development, membrane water treatment supply, and dynamic computer modeling of inter­re­lated groundwater and surface water. 

AGI Tech­nolo­gies, a 100-person firm out of Washington and Oregon, USA, and Japan, strength­en­ing our operations in those regions.

For the first 10 years we grew CDM Construc­tors at a controlled pace. But, during that period we did four acqui­si­tions which helped us expand our mechanical and electrical capa­bil­i­ties. We needed these services as the number of oppor­tu­ni­ties kept growing.
Pete Tunnicliffe

2000

CDM expanded its facilities-related services for industrial clients when it acquired the Consulting Group Inc. (Lexington, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA), an industrial engineering and management consulting firm special­iz­ing in the operational design of distri­b­u­tion, warehouse, and manu­fac­tur­ing facilities.

Germany Jessberger + Partner (Germany), equity partner of CDM, acquired Amann Infutec Consult AG (Mühltal, Germany), forming CDM Consult AG. This expansion strength­ened CDM's position in the promising German and eastern European envi­ron­men­tal services and infra­struc­ture market.

2001

CDM Consult AG acquired the assets of BRP Consult GmbH (Nuremberg, Germany), a 15-person geot­ech­ni­cal, planning, envi­ron­men­tal technology and project management firm.

CDM Consult AG acquired the assets of Dr. Jungbauer + Partner Umwelt Consult GmbH (Braun­schweig, Germany), a 25-person site remediation and envi­ron­men­tal technology firm. 

CDM acquired Blasland, Bouck & Lee (Syracuse, New York, USA) a surface trans­porta­tion division, augmenting CDM's highway and bridge engineering capa­bil­i­ties.

2003

The leading-edge water resource firm Planning and Management Consultants, Limited (PMCL) (Carbondale, Illinois) was acquired by CDM, bringing PMCL's experience in water resources planning, decision support analysis, economics and information management.

2008 

CDM acquired both the Polish envi­ron­men­tal project design company CTBK Ekotechnika and Proeko (Warsaw, Poland), further enhancing CDM's operations in Europe.

2011

CDM acquired the business services company E3 Consulting Australia Pty Ltd. (Brisbane, Australia), providing the firm additional consulting services in the envi­ron­men­tal space.

CDM acquired Wilbur Smith, a leading 1,000-employee trans­porta­tion engineering firm (Columbia, South Carolina, USA), forming what is now known as CDM Smith. This acquisition led to immense growth in trans­porta­tion-related design and funding services, including adding employees around the world that broadened our thinking and perspective.

Wilbur Smith was the Dr. Camp of the trans­porta­tion world.  He had that same heritage behind him, and they looked like they would be a good partner for us.
Dick Fox

2012

INGESAM (Cali, Bogotá, Colombia), an established civil and envi­ron­men­tal engineering firm, was acquired by CDM Smith. The acqui­sition expanded our water, wastewater, water resources, air quality and solid waste services throughout Columbia and South America.

2013

Cambridge Envi­ron­men­tal, Inc. (Cambridge, MA, USA) is acquired by CDM Smith, expanding the firm's capa­bil­i­ties in a number of sectors including health and ecological risk assessment, envi­ron­men­tal and air quality modeling and toxicology.

CDM Smith acquired NTEC Envi­ron­men­tal Technology (Subiaco, Australia), a boutique consulting firm expanding capa­bil­i­ties in the design and development of simulation models, field studies, data collection/inter­pre­ta­tion, application and modelling software, calibration, and uncertainty analysis.

2014

CDM Smith acquired Louis Perry Group (Wadsworth, Ohio, USA) as an independent subsidiary to enhance its industrial capa­bil­i­ties and bolster key markets, including oil and gas, chemicals, food and beverage, mining and power.

When we came together with the Louis Perry Group, it brought enhanced industrial design capability, but equally important, an industrial construc­tion capability with it. Those two things have really enabled us to serve clients better than we could have ever done without them. What they do is really world class.
Tim Wall

2019

CDM Smith acquired Bioscope Envi­ron­men­tal (Perth, Western Australia), bringing leadership and experience in mine life management and project life-cycle services, adding services for new and existing resource-sector clients across the globe, and increasing our already strong growth in Australia. 

Bioscope’s strong team brought us Western Australia and the very explosive growth market of mining and minerals - mining expansion, closure, maintenance and operations. 
Tim Wall

2021 

CDM Smith acquired Milestone Solutions (Austin, Texas, USA), a provider of trans­porta­tion funding strategies and road usage charging services, reinforcing CDM Smith's standing as the premier orga­ni­za­tion for revenue policy development.

Milestone Solutions was the absolute thought leader in the next wave of trans­porta­tion revenue - road usage charging. We had partnered with them on many projects. When we talked about them joining us, they were happy to bring their strengths to CDM Smith. We feel very fortunate they chose us!