R.W. Beck

R.W. Beck is slightly larger than last year, in part because of growth in its staff but primarily because of the acquisition of the southern California firm MacDonald Stephens Engineering. R.W. Beck’s gross fees for 1999 were just over $51 million and are estimated to be just over that for 2000.

In highly volatile markets, the firm continues to mobilize new combinations of existing services, said management consultant John Forman. The firm began its life with public utilities and will likely always have some involvement with those entities — especially all facets of energy, as well as water/wastewater, solid waste and other environmental issues. R.W. Beck also provides consulting engineering expertise to financial institutions, developers and related industries.

According to Forman, a recent report by the Water Infrastructure Network discusses staggering infrastructure funding needs within the United States. More than 54,000 drinking water systems and 16,000 wastewater systems face nearly $1 trillion in funding needs over the next 20 years, and a funding shortfall of almost half a trillion dollars. Currently, America’s drinking water and wastewater systems spend nearly $23 billion annually on infrastructure systems and face an annual shortfall of another $23 billion to replace aging facilities and comply with existing and future federal, state and local regulations.

At the same time, utilities are under intense pressure from ratepayers, elected officials and senior management to reduce costs, become more productive and operate more like a private business, said Forman. The desired outcome is to reduce or at least stabilize rates. Various utilities around the country are responding to this pressure in different ways. Many are evaluating alternative ways of delivering capital projects such as design-build-operate, said Forman.