The new telecommunications arm of Black & Veatch is the fastest growing segment of the Kansas City, Mo.-based engineering company, and is expected to bring in 20 percent of the firm’s annual $1.1 billion in revenue this year.
“We believe we’ll be extremely busy doing PCS in the United States for the next five years,” said Mike Morris, marketing manager for Black & Veatch Telecommunication Services.
Until about a year ago, Black & Veatch treated wireless telecommunications as only a service area. The 81-year-old private company specializes in managing large projects, such as constructing power plants or waste treatment facilities. For instance, Black & Veatch is in a consortium to help design the New Seoul International Airport in Korea, and is involved in building a $275 million major power plant in China.
The company’s telecom work was primarily for utility companies, building towers for microwave and trunked radio transmission systems. It laid down 5,000 miles of fiber for AT&T Corp.
But last fall, Black & Veatch realigned its emphasis on telecommunications and declared the worldwide marketplace to be a strategic business unit. “We saw that in the U.S., buildout would involve large, complex projects, and that’s what we do,” Morris said.
Black & Veatch has two significant contracts at this time. It is site builder, on behalf of Northern Telecom Ltd., for the Sprint PCS turnkey contracts. Black & Veatch is handling nine Sprint markets.
Black & Veatch also contracted the InterCel Inc. network buildout of three major trading areas in the southeastern United States. Additionally, the company has three letters of intent and several proposals outstanding for further work.
Black & Veatch recently built 49 sites in 11 states for Spectrum Resources, a specialized mobile radio operator.
“Four utility companies have hired us to analyze their high voltage transmission towers for collocation” opportunities, Morris said.
The company wasn’t involved in the cellular industry’s buildout because it was slow. “What cellular did in 10 years, PCS is doing all at one time. That’s the expertise we have,” Morris said.
Black & Veatch sees the international market just starting to grow and expects it to be the company’s next emphasis. “We think we’ll have that market for about 10 years, after the U.S.,” Morris said.
Black & Veatch has alliance agreements with Lucent Technologies Inc., Motorola Inc. and Nortel for turnkey projects.
