Golder Associates
Specialty: Environmental services, geotechnical engineering
Management: Joe Hachey, vice president, western region; Doug Dunster, managing principal
Founded: 1973
Headquarters: Redmond (established Seattle and Spokane offices last year)
2006 revenues: $17.6 million
Projected 2007 revenues: $21.4 million
Current projects: Reclaimed water site characterization in Kitsap County; water and acid rock drainage management for mining companies; geotechnical and geophysics work for wind farms in Eastern Washington; risk assessment and geotechnical work for WSDOT for widening I-405 corridor; critical areas regulation and aquifer recharge issues in Snohomish County; retaining wall inventories at various national parks for the FHWA
Photo courtesy of Golder Associates
Golder measured subsurface electrical and acoustical properties to help engineers design foundations for new wind farms in eastern Washington and Oregon. |
New regulations are causing some wariness among clients, according to Bob Anderson, environmental services group manager and a principal at Golder Associates’ Redmond office.
It plays out in different fields such as water-related activities, carbon requirements and changes in critical area regulations, but in all of them, clients are worried that what they do now won’t keep up with changing regulations, Anderson said.
In water-related work, Anderson said, “It’s starting to reach the regulatory point where a permit is required to do some things that the average citizen didn’t think was necessary in the past.”
Golder Associates is working to combat the problem by taking a collaborative approach. To get to that point, Anderson said Golder contacts water districts, local citizens, counties and permitting offices to “talk about where the problems are and where the commitment needs to happen so people understand the problem first of all, and are willing to look at the technical solutions.”
But collaboration only fixes the problem to a point, as the approach doesn’t always come up with a number or final answer.
Clients are looking for specific numeric limits in areas such as carbon requirements, Anderson said, and get worried when they consider how things could fluctuate over time. “Clients would be happy to make a carbon management program if they knew what their carbon limit would be,” he said.
Energy, mining prospects
Golder has also been doing a lot of work recently in energy, oil and mining. It was hired to help develop worldwide guidelines for acid rock drainage and it is looking to create a cradle-to-grave approach in the development, operations and closing of mine sites in a cost effective, environmentally responsible manner.
Golder has also been doing international work in Vietnam and Kuwait, among other areas, in the development of software programs to help retrieve oil more efficiently.