Peratrovich, Nottingham & Drage

Practice: Civil, structural and geotechnical engineering

Founded: 1979

Leadership: Dennis Nottingham, president, David Pierce, vice president

Peratrovich, Nottingham & Drage: Weyerhaeuser Trestle

"Business is very good," said David Pierce, vice president of Peratrovich, Nottingham & Drage. "We are running a firm-wide backlog, which is unexpectedly large considering the bad news we read in the newspaper. Our backlog has actually never been better for the Seattle office," he said. "We do not turn away work."

Primary areas of practice include marine and coastal engineering, surveying, permitting and contract administration and inspection. The Seattle office's primary area of practice is bridge, highway and waterfront engineering. The Seattle office of PN&D hired three full-time staff members in the last year to bring the total to 21. Company-wide, the firm employs 70, with gross fees of $11.3 million. The firm has pushed ahead with a unique pile-supported wave barrier, which has some advantages over conventional breakwaters in environmental friendliness. Such structures have been built locally in Seattle, Bellingham and Astoria, Ore. PN&D also has an increasing backlog in out-of-state waterfront work.

"One of our challenges is the tortuously slow permitting process for in-water projects," said Pierce. "We do not foresee any quick fixes to the permitting problem, though many people are working hard to come up with ways to speed the process and otherwise make it more effective.

"While we often do our own permitting," he said, "we also work with specialists, particularly when large projects are involved. Based on our own observations and through our interactions with others in the field, no one has a magic bullet which allows them to get permits any faster than anyone else."

A sample of recent and ongoing projects at PN&D includes Coffman Cove Road, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, a 3-mile design-build road project to realign and widen a portion of the existing highway; Chief Joseph Dam Bridge, Bridgeport, Douglas County, a major rehabilitation of an existing historic bridge; Port of Long Beach cruise ship passenger boarding gangway, now being fabricated in Tacoma; marina float replacements and other systems for the Port of Anacortes; new docks for the St. Herman Harbor and St. Paul Harbor in Kodiak, Alaska; the city of Oak Harbor municipal pier; and Tongass National Forest fish passage designs.