Given their lead roles in designing bridges throughout British Columbia and Canada, a pair of Vancouver-area engineering firms continue to thrive amidst increasing local, national and global investment in transportation interconnectivity.
As facilities age, bridges require rehabilitation, and capital projects accommodate short- and long-term projected growth. Burnaby-based Associated Engineering and North Vancouver-based Buckland and Taylor Ltd. count among industry leaders in consulting engineering and bridge engineering, respectively.
Associated is involved in designing the Pitt River Bridge, comprises part of the engineering technical team for the Golden Ears Bridge and is participating in the design-build team for Port Mann-Highway 1 improvements.
Martin Jobke, vice-president and general manager of B.C. operations for Associated, envisions an ambitious outlook for his company’s growth prospects.
“Over the last five years, we’ve basically doubled in size,” he said. “We’ve gone from about 300 or 400 people to around 750 employees across Canada. Even though the economy has been difficult, the engineering profession has been good and has helped put a lot of people back to work with some of the construction projects funded by the federal and provincial governments.”
After 63 years in the business, Associated’s footprint remains pervasive as a firm specializing in consulting engineering, planning and feasibility studies, detailed design, construction, training and operational assistance.
Its projects include rehabilitating the Granville Street Bridge, upgrading Metro Vancouver’s Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant and conducting a plant energy study for BC Hydro.
Outside the Lower Mainland, it’s working with the City of Nanaimo on a new water treatment plant, as well as similar water treatment upgrades in Calgary, Saskatoon and Toronto. It also provides infrastructure for Canadian Tire stores across Western Canada, and has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 50 Best Managed Firms by Deloitte and CIBC.
“We have a very strong employee ownership model, and right now we’re definitely benefitting from an infrastructure deficit in Canada,” said Jobke.
Everyday necessities like air travel, safe drinking water and functional road systems hinge upon engineering in some capacity, Jobke says, embedding value-added activities in the work engineers perform.
“From the water you drink, planes you fly and roads you drive on, everything around us involves engineering. In a lot of cases, people take that for granted,” Jobke said. “We wouldn’t have what we have if it didn’t start on a drawing board or in someone’s head in terms of an idea or concept.”
Like its Associated Engineering counterparts, Buckland and Taylor has created an engineering legacy. Specializing in bridge engineering services, its work in designing the Alex Fraser, Lions Gate and Golden Ears bridges rank among its signature B.C. projects.
Its clients include the City of Vancouver, B.C. Ministry of Transportation, TransLink and Parks Canada. It is tasked with designing a new bridge over the Capilano River in West Vancouver and bridges in the Rocky Mountains for the federal government.
“We’re very bullish about this particular niche, which is bridge engineering,” said Steven Hunt, president and CEO of Buckland and Taylor. “In North America, many bridges were built in the years after the Second World War. About 150,000 bridges in the U.S. federal highway system are deficient and need to be rehabilitated and replaced, or are obsolete. We’re projecting very strong demand for our services. By necessity, bridges need to be replaced to maintain connections.”
Buckland and Taylor recently expanded south of the border to open a Seattle office, and has future plans to open regional offices in Alberta and New York City. Hunt anticipates significant growth within his company and the engineering profession.
“We’ve had success with innovative design that has allowed us to attract the best staff who have been educated all over the world and speak many different languages,” Hunt said. “We’ve come up with unique solutions to difficult problems, and we’re known internationally for design. I think demand for our service is sufficient that we’ll be able to double in the next four years by 2015.”