Business Spotlight: Olsson Associates

Owners: Employee-owned

Founded: 2005, Springfield office; 1956, corporate office

Address: 1525 E. Republic Road, Bldg. B, Ste. 100, Springfield, MO 65804

Phone: (417) 890-8802

Fax: (417) 890-8805

Web: www.oaconsulting.com

E-mail: klowe@oaconsulting.com

Services: Civil engineering, surveying, land planning and landscape architecture

Employees: 32 in Springfield, 710 nationally

Revenues: $3.5 million locally; $75 million nationally

Imagine a workplace without any office doors – not even for the CEO.

According to Chip Corcoran, chief operating officer of Olsson Associates, a multidisciplinary engineering firm with a branch office in Springfield, the absence of doors fosters a key to the company’s success: collaboration.

“I’m in a cubicle like everyone else,” says Kevin Lowe, client manager and leader of the Springfield office.

Lowe alone opened the Olsson Associates’ Springfield office in November 2005. After spending 10 years with the Missouri Department of Transportation and five years with Greene County, he was attracted to the company because of its collaborative culture and employee ownership.

“We don’t have one owner that’s driving the Ferrari outside, coming in saying, ‘You guys get to work harder and do more work,’” Lowe explains. “You have buy-in at this place.”

Olsson Associates, with headquarters in Lincoln, Neb., was founded with one employee in 1956 and has grown to $75 million in revenues, 17 offices and 710 employees. The Springfield office employs 32 after recently adding Electrical Engineer Kevin Conway and Transportation Technician Adam Bauer, and the Springfield office continues in hiring mode.

Services offered include civil engineering for transportation and traffic projects, land planning and surveying, landscape architecture, water resources and mechanical and electrical engineering. Lowe says that 50 percent of local jobs are in private development, 25 percent are public projects, and 25 percent cover mechanical and electrical engineering services, which weren’t offered until clients continually asked for them.

Revenue growth from zero to $3.5 million in slightly more than two years necessitated an office relocation. Lowe started in a 600-square-foot rented office on Kimbrough Avenue, and after six months moved operations to 1525 E. Republic Road. Olsson Associates occupies two spaces in Kensington Place office park for a total of 5,300 square feet.

The group is designing its next home, 18,000 square feet of space in Terra Green Office Park off Blackman Road in Springfield. Lowe says construction should start this month.

Other clients of Springfield’s Olsson Associates office include Greene County, the cities of Springfield, Joplin and Willow Springs, Ozarks Transportation Organization, Ozarks Technical Community College, Ozark Greenways and Carleton & Co.

Jason Haynes, a professional engineer with the city of Springfield, is working with Olsson Associates staff to design the addition of 60 traffic-monitoring cameras, in-road traffic detectors and more than 20 traffic-alert signs for the city’s freeways and main arteries such as National and Glenstone avenues.

“We may know about where we want (a traffic detector), but we don’t know exactly. So, they go out and say here is exactly where it should go and here’s how to get power to it and how to get communications to it,” Haynes says.

Under a $430,000 contract with the city, Olsson also will design the traffic systems bid package that gets into the hands of prospective contractors.

Other representative projects include Green Circle Shopping Center and Fremont Woods subdivision in Springfield and Defoor Townhomes in Branson. Olsson Associates was recently selected by Rogersville to work on U.S. Highway 60 improvements, a park-planning project in Battlefield and a flood-proofing plan for Branson Landing.

Lowe says Olsson Associates’ literal open-door policy helps employees work as a team and treat clients as team members, too. The philosophy he espouses: “Be yourself, never ever bash who the client is using now, and once you do work for them, treat those that are paying $5,000 like they’re paying $500,000.”

According to Corcoran, Olsson Associates chose Springfield for expansion because the city fits its business model, the area is growing and the company found good people with local contacts as well as employees willing to transfer here, including Marketing Coordinator Rachel Wiester from the Overland Park, Kan. office.

“The Springfield office has set the bar for our company in terms of putting together a business plan and executing it in this type of market,” Corcoran adds.[[In-content Ad]]