Delta Engineers uses acquisition to open Syracuse-area office, add services

Delta Engineers, Architects, & Land Surveyors, DPC (Delta), which is based in Broome County, has wanted to open an office in the Syracuse area for quite some time.

The firm has worked with Syracuse University and other clients in the Syracuse area.

“[Such an office] would allow us to further establish that market penetration,” says Anthony Paniccia, president & CEO of Endwell–based Delta Engineers.

In the middle part of 2019, a company that deals with mergers and acquisitions alerted Delta Engineers that Terrestrial Environmental Specialists, Inc. (TES) wanted to join a larger firm. 

Paniccia spoke with Steve Gido of Rusk O’Brien Gido + Partners, LLC, which advises architecture, engineering, planning and environmental consulting firms. It has offices near Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; and in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The discussions with TES started in mid-2019 and progressed during the fall, according to Paniccia, who spoke with CNYBJ on Jan. 21.

Delta earlier this month announced it has acquired TES in a deal that became effective Jan. 10. The firm didn’t release any financial terms of the agreement.

Previously based in Phoenix in Oswego County, TES staff members have moved to a new Delta office at 6700 Thompson Road, Suite 1 in DeWitt. TES is now operating under the Delta brand.

In the deal, Delta adds TES’s six employees, increasing the Delta employee count to 150, Kim Collavo, marketing manager at Delta, tells CNYBJ. The firm operates four offices in New York state and one in Maryland. Besides Endwell and DeWitt, its other two Empire State locations are in Vernon and Schenectady.

Getting acquainted

Paniccia notes that Delta was familiar with TES but didn’t recall having worked with the firm in the last decade. Delta has worked with other consultants that provide services that are similar to the ones that TES offers.

“We do know they have a very good reputation and they have stability in their firm … and wanted to relocate to [the] Syracuse [area],” says Paniccia.

Stephen Sheridan, who prior to the acquisition was a principal with TES, says he wasn’t familiar with Delta Engineers prior to the start of acquisition discussions. 

Sheridan and Bernard Carr, another of the TES former principals, met with Delta’s Paniccia in the spring of 2019. 

Adding services

TES ecological services will “expand the existing portfolio of Delta and enhance the breadth of consulting expertise” available to the client rosters of each firm, Delta says.

Sheridan, who serves as Delta’s Syracuse office director and director of the firm’s ecological science services group, explains what the group focuses on.

“We specialize primarily in wetlands, but we also [handle] endangered and threatened species, [and] vegetation inventories. We work from local residential developers to commercial developers to the mining industry and utility industry,” says Sheridan, who spoke with CNYBJ on Jan. 20. 

“All of those services are what Delta did not provide [for its clients],” Paniccia adds. 

TES was founded in 1975 in response to state and federal legislation related to the nuclear industry. The firm now specializes in natural resource and ecological services with emphasis on wetland delineation, wetland mitigation, and ecological inventories. 

It also provides related services such as environmental-impact statements, wildlife-habitat restoration, plant and water quality studies, and subject-matter expertise for court proceedings.