Anderson Engineering celebrates golden anniversary in business

by Maria Hoover

Inside Business Editor

mhoover@sbj.net

Springfield-based Anderson Engineering opened for business 50 years ago and is still going strong. With additional offices in Joplin and construction materials lab offices in St. Robert and Bentonville, Ark., the firm provides services in four main areas: civil engineering, drilling services, materials testing and surveying.

In civil engineering, the firm provides municipal engineering, serving as city engineer for Webb City and Battlefield.

"We design infrastructure with the cities stormwater, streets, wastewater sewer lines, those kinds of things," said Steven Brady, president and chairman of the board of directors.

Also under the civil engineering umbrella, the firm provides site development design for a client base that includes Cox hospitals and O'Reilly Auto Parts stores.

"We do all the site design, all the stormwater, parking lots, for schools, like the new Waynesville School," Brady said. "It's a huge facility. Sam Winn, an architect here in town, designed it."

For land surveying, Brady said, the firm does boundary surveys and utility surveys.

"We have a contract with City Utilities. We do a lot of work for them," Brady said. The company also does all of the surveying for work at the Springfield-Branson Regional Airport.

Geotechnical explorations are part of the firm's drilling services.

"On new structures we drill borings in the ground, sample the soil, to determine what type of foundation it's going to take to support the building. We give those recommendations then to the architect to use so that they can have the foundations designed," Brady said. The company also does environmental drilling for other consultants for investigation of underground storage tanks or other issues.

Materials testing in the company's laboratory is a big segment of business, Brady said.

"We do testing in regard to the construction of projects. We'll test the concrete and the soil. We have technicians who go out on the site during construction and monitor construction. We'll test the soil as it's being placed and we'll test the concrete to ensure that it's what the architect wanted to meet specifications," Brady said.

Service areas

Anderson Engineering is licensed in 17 states Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Virginia. Brady noted that the states in which the firm is licensed match the states where one of Anderson Engineering's key clients O'Reilly Automotive does business.

Steve Peterie, construction design manager for O'Reilly Automotive, said the relationship between the automotive company and the engineering firm dates back "five-plus years" with Anderson Engineering providing civil engineering for several store building projects.

Because of Anderson Engineering's reliability, Peterie said he expects the relationship to continue.

"They meet our schedule, which is very critical with the amount of stores that we do," Peterie said. "They're definitely a consultant that works for us that cares about making their client happy."

Another client, Wal-Mart, also is keeping Anderson Engineering busy with the building of multiple supercenters.

The firm is now involved with supercenter projects in Ozark, Lamar, Warrenton and DeSoto.

Growth

Anderson Engineering employs 55 people, with the majority of those being in the Springfield office. That number is up from 31 employees in 1991-1992.

As far as revenues, Brady said the company had gross revenues of $1.5 million in 1991-92. In 2003, the company had about $3.5 million in revenues.

"We've had steady growth during that time," Brady said.

The Joplin office, which opened about 24 years ago, was the first satellite office. The St. Robert office opened in 1996, Brady said, in conjunction with work at Ft. Leonard Wood.

The Bentonville office was opened in 2002. While the company doesn't have plans right now to open additional offices, Brady said officials are looking forward to growth in the Bentonville office.

"We're excited about Bentonville. There are lots of things going on, partially tied to Wal-Mart, because that's its headquarters. But it's a growing area. We've been involved with an Embassy Suites Hotel complex that John Q. (Hammons) built there at Rogers, Arkansas. There's just a lot of things going on. We just finished a Wal-Mart data center that's right there at the state line and they're planning another big supercenter in that area that we will be involved with," Brady said.

As far as the company's 50th anniversary, Brady said a celebration will likely be held in the fall, once the busy summer months are over.

The company is also changing its letterhead and its brochures to note the anniversary.