CHA and RW Armstrong expect employee growth

An acquisition by Albany–based CHA has created one of the 60 largest engineering firms in the nation.

CHA, which has a location in Syracuse, announced the deal with RW Armstrong of Indianapolis in June. The companies will continue to operate under their own names.

RW Armstrong is now a wholly owned subsidiary of CHA. Other details of the transaction were not disclosed.

The merged firm has more than 1,200 employees and 46 offices in the U.S., Canada, the Middle East, North Africa, and Azerbaijan. It generates total revenue of more than $210 million annually.

CHA provides architecture, engineering, and construction services, including planning and urban design, power and energy expertise, aviation and rail services, water services, and expertise in roads, bridges and highways, as well as stadiums and higher education.

The firms are planning for growth in the years ahead. They expect to have a work force of 2,000 people by 2016.

CHA has more than 730 employees in 30 offices from Maine to Florida to Texas. All of CHA’s offices are in the U.S. except for one location in Ontario. RW Armstrong has 500 employees and 16 offices, including five overseas in the Middle East, North Africa, and Azerbaijan.

RW Armstrong’s international presence was one reason CHA was interested in the firm, says Raymond L. Rudolph, Jr., CHA’s CEO. CHA has been interested in expanding overseas for some time.

“They’ve certainly spent over a decade learning lessons that would have been a long time in learning for us,” Rudolph says. “It puts us ahead of the curve in that way. So that was very attractive.”

In addition, RW Armstrong is positioned in growing overseas markets, Rudolph says.

The acquisition should lead to growth across CHA’s footprint, he says. That could include the firm’s Syracuse office at 441 S. Salina St., which works on municipal, water and wastewater, power and energy, and aviation projects. CHA employs about 60 people there.

“Anytime you create opportunity, it strengthens the whole company,” Rudolph says.

He notes that the engineering industry as a whole is contracting and that means firms must get larger and more diverse to compete for the kinds of challenging projects a good staff demands.

“We need not only a lot of work, but a lot of interesting work,” Rudolph says.

Jim Wade, RW Armstrong president, says his company was looking for a merger partner because of its rapidly growing business outside the U.S. RW Armstrong began exploring international work about 10 years ago, Wade says.

“We realized we had opened a lot of doors, but we didn’t have enough people to walk through the doors we had opened,” he says.

Much of the firm’s overseas work has been focused on large building projects, he adds. In the U.S., on the other hand, work has concentrated on infrastructure.

The firm expects to begin generating more infrastructure work overseas in the years ahead, Wade says, and has been seeing more demand for those services lately in its international markets.

CHA was a good merger partner because of its strength in the eastern U.S., Wade says. 

There were only two locations where the firms had any overlap, he adds. Both companies had offices in Texas and in the Tampa
area, but they were focused on different sectors.

The combination of the two firms should allow for more work in areas like power and energy, stadium design, higher education projects, and rail and other transportation projects, Wade says.

“It’s going to give us a great platform for growth,” Wade says of the deal.

CHA’s other offices in the state include locations in Buffalo, Rochester, Goshen, and New York City (two offices).