Aspect Consulting
Specialty: Earth and water engineering services
Management: Tim Flynn, managing partner; Doug Hillman, operations manager
Founded: 2001
Headquarters: Bainbridge Island (with offices in Seattle, Wenatchee and Mount Vernon)
2009 revenues: $5.2 million (net)
Projected 2010 revenues:
$5.5 million (net)
Projects: A system to supply rain gardens with stormwater at Seattle Center Theater Commons; a water bank for developer Northland Resources in Kittitas County; a remediation system to treat a chlorinated solvent spill that has contaminated groundwater in the Lower Duwamish Industrial Area; a remedial investigation and feasibility study for a mixed-use redevelopment of the Georgia Pacific West industrial site in the Port of Bellingham’s revitalized Waterfront District
Image courtesy of the Port of Bellingham Aspect is conducting environmental studies to support a mixed-use redevelopment of the Georgia Pacific West site in Bellingham.
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Aspect Consulting operations manager Doug Hillman said he’s proud of the strength firm showed in the recent economic downturn.
Bainbridge Island-based Aspect grew by five employees, to 45, during that period, and now is recruiting for remediation and water resource engineers.
The firm, which focuses on earth and water engineering, increased revenues during the recession and didn’t interrupt its bonus program or cut back on workplace perks, Hillman said.
He attributes its success to a diverse base of clients: public, private and tribal.
“We were not heavily exposed in the development sector, which is one thing that I think really shut down quickly in the last couple of years,” he said.
Water issues
The firm has a roster of landfill and long-term environmental remediation projects. It also opened an office in Wenatchee in 2008 to take advantage of water resource work in Central Washington, including water banking and storage issues, Hillman said.
“Water is definitely a scarce commodity and it’s probably one of the key impediments to future development” statewide, he said.
Hillman also said that in the future, the industry should expect to see more passive groundwater contamination treatment for complex sites. Aspect has designed permeable curtains on four sites. Natural gradients drive the contaminated water through the below-ground curtains, a process that treats the water.
“The beauty of it is that there’s no active pumping required for the technology to work,” Hillman said. Another area where he sees potential growth is in cleanup of vapors from chlorinated solvents and other volatile contaminants, which pose a health risk.
“The reason it’s an emerging market is it’s garnering much more scrutiny at the regulatory level,” he said.
lWorking together
Despite Aspect’s success, Hillman said competition is “really tough.”
The firm is being selective in jobs it vies for, learning in detail the ins-and-outs of the potential projects and what Aspect can do for the client, he said. It also is networking to create opportunities to team with other engineering firms.
“Instead of shotgunning we’re picking our rifle shots more carefully and investing more in those pursuits than we did in the past,” he said.
Aspect also continues to be attentive to existing clients “because that’s really where most of our work comes from,” he said.
Among other things, it is providing clients forward-looking technical advice, he said. An example of this is work it did for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in development of its headquarters near Seattle Center.
An old King County Metro bus barn used for maintenance had been on the development site, resulting in contaminated groundwater, he said. Treating it takes years, and the foundation didn’t want to wait that long to build, he said.
So Aspect developed a system that treats the groundwater beneath the footprint of the foundation complex, with the system’s valves and controls outside of that footprint.
Hillman said that is a good example of how firms can work cooperatively. Aspect, Shannon & Wilson and GeoEngineers, usually competitors, worked together in this case, he said.