CBJ's Largest Privately Held Companies 2018

Stanley Consultants
8
Balancing its long legacy with today’s challenges is
what has kept 105-year-old Stanley Consultants at the
top of the engineering industry, decade after decade.
“We won’t compromise who we are,” said President
and CEO Kate Harris, who was elected to her
current post at the global engineering and consulting
firm in 2017, taking over for Gayle Roberts, who became chair
of the board. “We are incredibly respectful of our legacy. It’s
so important as a foundation for our values – our long history
provides us with equilibrium.”
Founded as Central States
Engineering in 1913, the
Muscatine-based firm originally
focused on regional
jobs like drainage work. It
went international in 1957
and never looked back, now
counting offices not just
across the United States, but
in the Caribbean, the Middle
East, South Asia and the Pacific
region.
Today, Stanley Consultants
is the largest engineering
firm in Iowa with more
KATE HARRIS
PRESIDENT & CEO
than 900 member-owners
in 30 offices worldwide. The
company ranks No. 78 out of
the top 500 engineering design
firms in the U.S. and has been named among the nation’s
top 50 designers in power, fossil fuel, water, wastewater and
transportation by Engineering News-Record.
“Those that know us love us,” Ms. Harris said. “People will
be surprised to learn that Stanley Consultants has designed
some of the largest projects in the world.”
Some of the firm’s highest-profile projects include the
world’s largest desalination water plant in Algeria and providing
master planning and program management services to the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reconstruct Iraq’s infrastructure
following the second Gulf War.
Stanley Consultants isn’t content to rest on its laurels, however.
The firm is currently providing master planning services
at Abu Dhabi International Airport, and its design of the new
$95 million Fox River
Bridge along the Illinois
Tollway has garnered
multiple awards,
as well as a finalist nod
for the American Society
of Civil Engineers’
prestigious Outstanding
Civil Engineering
Achievement award.
“With buoyant
markets, Stanley
Consultants is well
positioned in the
power and infrastructure
markets with
THE TEAM
EXECUTIVE TEAM
Kate Harris, President & CEO
Gayle Roberts, Board Chair
Bill Harper, VP & CFO
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Gayle Roberts, Chair
Steve Hammes
Kate Harris
Mike Helms
Mike Hunzinger
Douglas Smith
Bob Uhler
long-standing relationships
and great
expertise,” Ms. Harris
said. “The firm is capitalizing
on the strength within the company and supplementing
it with new skills and acquisitions to ensure clients
are provided with the best service, expertise and advice.”
The firm is not averse to growth through acquisition, having
purchased Hartwig & Associates, a Denver, Colorado-based
engineering and construction firm in February 2016. But Ms.
Harris said Stanley Consultants, which has bucked the trend
toward “mega firms with many thousands of employees,” will
continue to prioritize its values and clients over growth for
growth’s sake.
“Consolidation in the engineering industry has created a
bifurcated market,” she said. “There are some mega firms with
incredible depth and reach but they sometimes struggle to successfully
provide some of the basic client services that come as
second nature to Stanley Consultants.”
Ms. Harris stressed that Stanley Consultants’ brand stands for
longevity and ethics, as well as “smart and creative solutions.”
“As a privately held company, we can take a longer partnership-based
approach rather than relying on short-term returns,”
she said. “This allows us to think more creatively, dream bigger
dreams and do things in a bold, yet balanced way, calling on
decades of experience and the appropriate risk management.”
- Katharine Carlon
20 CBJ’S LARGEST PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES 2018