Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | |
Founded | 1898 |
Number of locations | 75+ offices |
Area served | Worldwide |
Revenue | US$6.9 billion (2023) |
Number of employees | 13,500+ (2023) |
Website | www |
Burns & McDonnell is an American multinational architecture and engineering firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, and has 100% employee stock ownership. It was established in 1898 by engineers Clinton Sumner Burns and Robert Emmett McDonnell. The company is one of the largest design firms in the world, [1] its global revenues reached US$$6.9 billion and employed over 13,500 professionals worldwide. [2] [3]
In April 2023, it was announced that CEO Ray Kowalik would retire at the end of 2023 and be succeeded by Leslie Duke. [4] [5]
Burns & McDonnell was founded by two Stanford University graduates that had experienced successful teamwork while working in Palo Alto. They chose Kansas as it was deemed to provide work for the two engineers. Robert E. McDonnell became the firm's promoter towards the region's municipalities, while Clinton S. Burns focused on the technical aspect. [6] They offered solutions for sewer systems and waterworks. [6]
In 1971, the firm was bought by Armco Steel, based in Ohio. [7] As Armco prepared to sell Burns & McDonnell in the early 1980s, its employees opted to buy the company themselves and took on a loan to finance a buyout in 1985. [7] The loan was provided by the United Missouri Bank. [8]
Its employee ownership status is considered a factor in producing higher workforce efficiency. [8] [6] The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) owns 98% of Burns & McDonnell and management has 2%. [8] All employees have the right to join the ESOP and are provided shares according to their contribution to the company with a cap of up to $265,000. [8] Its workforce grew from 600 in 1985, to 5,600 in 2016 while its annual revenue rose from $41 million to $2.5 billion in the same timespan. [8] By 2021, it had 7,600 employee-owners [9] and the revenue rose to $5.7 billion in 2022. [10] In 2016, the Houston office introduced a flexibility plan, which allowed the employees to shape their workplans in a way that they could take off every second Friday. [7]
Originally an engineering company, it has expanded its focus into several areas throughout its history. In 1983, it acquired the C.W. Nofsinger Company, part of the chemical industry, and rebranded it as the Process & Industrial Group (P&I). [11] In 2010, it purchased the specialist in bridge construction Harrington & Cortelyou [12] and in 2012 it purchased AZCO from Wisconsin. [13] AZCO has collaborated with Burns & McDonnell for decades in construction projects and was also 100% owned by its employees. [13] In 2018, Ref-Chem from Baton Rouge, Louisiana was also acquired by Burns & McDonnell. [14]
Burns & McDonnell is among the largest Engineering/Architecture companies in the US [15] and a prominent contributor to US market for electrical designs. [16] It is active in the construction of military facilities, wind and solar energy installations, [16] aviation, health care, [17] and is active in the oil and chemical industry. [15] In 2020, [18] it was involved in raising the levels of twenty-one bridges over the highways I-35 and I-335 in Sumner and Sedgwick counties in Kansas. [19]
The company is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri and mainly active in the US, but also internationally. [20] It is represented in over 50 cities across the US, and has branches in Dubai, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India. [20]
Burns & McDonnell has received numerous accolades from the American Councils of the Engineering industry [21] [22] and is considered good to work for in the US by Fortune . [23] In 2012, it received the ESOP of the year Award. [17]
Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the world, with $4.9 trillion in assets under management, and, as of December 2023, $12.6 trillion in assets under administration. Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
AK Steel Holdings Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in West Chester Township, Ohio. The company, whose name was derived from the initials of Armco, its predecessor company, and Kawasaki Steel Corporation, was acquired by Cleveland-Cliffs in 2020.
The economy of the Kansas City metropolitan area is anchored by Kansas City, Missouri, which is the largest city in the state and the 37th largest in the United States. The Kansas City metropolitan area is the 27th largest in the United States, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 population estimates. The metro's economy is large and influential to its region.
Parsons Corporation is an American technology-focused defense, intelligence, security, and infrastructure engineering firm headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia. The company was founded in 1944.
HNTB Corporation is an American infrastructure design firm. Founded in 1914 in Kansas City, Missouri, HNTB began with the partnership made by Ernest Emmanuel Howard with the firm Waddell & Harrington, founded in 1907.
AECOM is a multinational infrastructure consulting firm.
The Engineering News-Record is an American weekly magazine that provides news, analysis, data and opinion for the construction industry worldwide. It is widely regarded as one of the construction industry's most authoritative publications and is considered by many to be the "bible" of the industry. It is owned by BNP Media.
WSP Global Inc. is a Canadian consulting firm working mostly in the built environment. It was created in 2012, following Montreal-based Genivar's takeover of British firm WSP Group plc. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. After the purchase of New York-headquartered professional services firm Parsons Brinckerhoff in October 2014, WSP effectively became one of the largest professional services firms in the world, with approximately 66,500 employees in 500 offices serving in 40 countries.
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is the largest architecture firm in the world by revenue and number of architects.
Black & Veatch (BV) is a global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Founded in 1915 in Kansas City, Missouri it is now headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas. It specializes in infrastructure development in power, oil and gas, water, telecommunications, government, mining, data centers, smart cities and banking and finance markets.
The Davey Tree Expert Company, also known as Davey Tree, is a North American employee-owned corporation. The company's main services are research driven tree services, grounds maintenance and environmental consulting services for residential, utility, commercial and environmental partners in the United States and Canada. Davey has employees throughout the United States and Canada.
MWH Global Inc. was a global water and natural resources firm providing technical engineering, construction services and consulting services. In 2016, MWH was acquired by Stantec Consulting Inc. The firm provided planning, design and construction management for water and natural resources projects around the world. The firm was headquartered in Broomfield, a suburb of the Denver metropolitan area in the state of Colorado of the United States, with operations in 35 countries. As of May 2015, MWH Global had a global staff of approximately 7,000 employees including builders, engineers, architects, geologists, operators, project managers, business consultants, scientists, technologists, and regulatory experts. MWH was listed as the 15th-largest employee-owned company in the United States.
An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in the United States is a defined contribution plan, a form of retirement plan as defined by 4975(e)(7)of IRS codes, which became a qualified retirement plan in 1974. It is one of the methods of employee participation in corporate ownership.
The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) is a nonprofit research organization that gathers and disseminates data on employee ownership of the business by which they are employed. The organization was established in 1980 by Corey Rosen, then a staff member in the United States Senate who had become involved in drafting legislation on employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).
Symphony Technology Group (STG) is an American private equity firm based in Menlo Park, California. Its Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer is William Chisholm who co-founded the firm with Bryan Taylor and Dr. Romesh Wadhwani in 2002.
Torch Technologies is an employee-owned system engineering, applied science, modeling & simulation and information technology business. Its primary customers are the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) and the Missile Defense Agency, although it has contracts with other DoD agencies including the Navy and the Air Force. Torch has over 1100 employee-owners and is headquartered in Huntsville, AL, with technical offices located in Aberdeen, MD, Albuquerque, NM, Boston, MA, Colorado Springs, CO, Detroit, MI, Honolulu, HI, Patuxent River, MD, and Shalimar, FL.
In the United States, there is a widespread practice of employee stock ownership. It began with industrial companies and today is particularly common in the technology sector but also companies in other industries, such as Whole Foods and Starbucks.
An employee ownership trust (EOT) holds a permanent or long-term shareholding in a company on trust for the benefit of all the company's employees. An EOT provides indirect (trust) employee ownership of a company.
WithersRavenel, formerly Withers & Ravenel, is a multidisciplinary civil engineering firm headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. Founded in 1983, WithersRavenel has eight office locations across North Carolina in Asheville, Cary, Charlotte, Greensboro, Pittsboro, Raleigh, Southern Pines, and Wilmington.