2020 Engineering

Specialty: Sustainable civil engineering, design and planning
Principals: Mark Buehrer and Chris Webb
Founded: 1995
Revenues: N/A
Location: Bellingham

2020 Engineering is proof that innovation can spur growth even during a recession.

“The phone has been ringing off the hook,” said Mark Buehrer. Activity has been high enough that he and the Bellingham company’s other partner, Chris Webb, are weighing whether to expand the staff of six.

“The dilemma we have in adding staff is Chris and I need to be involved in all of our projects because they’re unique,” Buehrer said. He and Webb could expand the consultancy relationships 2020 has with other companies or they could expand staff as much as two-fold. “We’re debating whether we want to go there,” Buehrer said of staff additions.

2020 Engineering is known as the design-build partner of Bellingham contractor Aqua Care and a Taos, N.M., company that makes Living Machines. They’re built around a revolutionary natural wastewater treatment and reclamation system that accelerates nature’s own water purification process.

Living Machines have been installed at the Bainbridge Island environmental learning center called IslandWood and at Camp Seymour in Gig Harbor.

2020, which does the site design, construction drawings and permitting for the installations, has about a dozen Living Machine projects in the pipeline, according to Buehrer.

The company’s working at Roche Harbor, a resort on San Juan Island that’s receiving improvements. 2020 is working on the infrastructure design, emphasizing low-impact development.

In Seattle, the company’s part of a team helping the city update standards with sustainability techniques for buildings and infrastructure. In the city’s South Lake Union neighborhood, 2020 worked with Vulcan Inc., Arup, the Urban Environmental Institute, Mithun and others to develop a guide to sustainable development for the community.

Elsewhere in the United States, 2020 helped design a new visitors’ center for Ford Motor Co., and is part of the team working in Fort Collins, Colo., to develop the master plan and design for the next phase of improvements at New Belgium Brewery, where Fat Tire Ale is brewed.