Tetra Tech - Tetra Tech

Tetra Tech, Inc. provides consulting, engineering, program management, and construction management services that address fundamental needs for water, environment, infrastructure, resource management, and energy. Tetra Tech’s services for consulting and engineering projects include applied science, information technology, engineering, design, construction management, and operations and maintenance.

Engineering News-Record ranked Tetra Tech number one in water treatment/desalination, water treatment and supply, environmental management, environmental science, consulting studies, and solid waste.

Tetra Tech is listed on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) as TTEK.

Operations

Headquartered in Pasadena, California, Tetra Tech has 16,000 employees in 400 offices worldwide. In 2014, Tetra Tech worked on more than 54,000 separate projects in more than 110 countries. Its clients include U.S. commercial, U.S. federal, and U.S. state and local government clients. Commercial clients include companies in the chemical, energy, mining, pharmaceutical, retail, aerospace, automotive, petroleum, and communications industries. No single client, except for U.S. federal government clients, accounted for more than 10 percent of the company’s revenue in fiscal 2014.

The company is organized in two business groups: Water, Environment & Infrastructure (WEI) and Resource Management & Energy (RME).

History

Tetra Tech, Inc. was founded in 1966â€"then Water Management Group of Tetra Tech Inc.â€"by four individuals in Pasadena, California, to provide engineering services to waterways, harbors, and coastal areas. The company has increased its size and scope of business substantially through internal growth and strategic acquisitions. At the end of 2014 Tetra Tech reported gross revenues of $2.5 billion.

Tetra Tech achieved steady growth during its first years designing waterway structures at harbors, ports, and marinas; supporting water quality control projects; supporting oil and gas exploration projects; and calculating the effects of offshore military activities for the Department of Defense.

In 1977 Tetra Tech offered common stock on the American Stock Exchange and used this capital to expand its services, from developing methods to predict the level and frequency of floods and causes of acid rain to environmental impact studies of gas pipeline construction and installing Hydro Products equipment for the U.S. Navy. By 1979, Tetra Tech was helping to analyze data used in exploring Alaska’s North Slope for oil.

In 1982 Honeywell, Inc. purchased Tetra Tech’s U.S. operations and another group acquired Tetra Tech International. Under Honeywell, Tetra Tech’s engineering services, especially environmental, grew steadily. The company phased out gas exploration and related products and phased in data systems.

In 1988 Honeywell sold Tetra Tech’s engineering division to a group of company employees. Dr. Li-San Hwang, who joined the company in 1967, led the new independent Tetra Tech. Honeywell retained the data systems division and a Tetra Tech co-founder to head it. Since its split from Honeywell, the company has grown from 300 employees to more than 13,000.

In 1991 Tetra Tech issued 1.4 million shares of stock on the NASDAQ exchange. The rapid infusion of cash permitted more acquisitions of engineering firms specializing in water resources (urban drainage and flood control), civil engineering (bridges and waterway design), environmental restoration, and hazardous waste cleanup. Gross revenues totaled $96.5 million by 1994.

During the early 2000s, the company’s environmental remediation and water services continued to grow. There was also a transition in executive leadership. In 2005 Dr. Hwang retired, and Dan Batrack, who joined Tetra Tech in the early 1980s, became CEO. His vision of Tetra Tech’s future included servicing new markets in environmental sustainability, renewable energy, and energy efficiency; providing its core services to mining, energy exploration and production, and international development; and construction management.

The remainder of the decade to 2014 involved aggressive growth by acquiring firms in Canada, Australia, and South America in its core (water and infrastructure) and new markets (mining and energy). Tetra Tech also acquired firms that provided international development services to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). These new acquisitions focused on implementing sustainable strategies for water, energy, and the environment in Africa, Asia, and South America and facilitating stability and growth in countries in the aftermath of social conflicts or failed governing institutions.

In 2016, Tetra Tech admitted to providing faked soil samples in San Francisco after being hired to monitor levels of radionuclides, pesticides, petroleum, and other byproducts of shipbuilding and Cold War nuclear experimentation.

Awards

Tetra Tech received numerous awards for its work in several markets. Among those awards are 31 Federal Energy and Water Management Awards for its projects; 19 Secretary of the Navy Energy Awards for its Navy projects; and 7 Presidential Energy Awards for Leadership in Federal Energy Management. In 2012 the company received the American Council of Engineering Companies’ highest awardâ€"The Grand Conceptorâ€"for the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal â€" Lake Borgne Surge Barrier in New Orleans. The National Safety Council awarded Dan Batrack its 2012 “CEOs Who Get It” award for the firm’s companywide safety excellence. Since 2008 the Environmental Business Journal has given Tetra Tech several awards in its Large Business category for achievement in growth and acquisitions. In 2013 the Small Business Administration awarded Tetra Tech the Dwight D. Eisenhower Award for Excellence for Services for mentoring and subcontracting small businesses in federal procurement.

References

External links

• Official website