Washington Group International NYSE: WNG provides integrated
engineering, construction and management services to businesses and governments around the world. Based in Boise, Idaho, it has approximately 25,000 employees working in over 40 states and more than 30 countries.
Its primary areas of expertise are: infrastructure, mining, industrial/process, energy & environment, and power.
Origins
At the age of 30, Dennis R. Washington founded Washington Construction Company in
Missoula, Montana in 1964. He guided the company to the
top of the civil construction market in Montana, and expanded into mining, industrial
construction, and environmental cleanup work. As his company grew into a major regional firm, Washington's vision for the future
continued to expand also - leading to a series of acquisitions that produced the international company of today.
In 1993 it expanded its heavy civil construction-operation, when it merged with Kasler
Corporation, a California-based firm with large-scale operations in
heavy-civil construction.
Morrison-Knudsen Co.
In 1996, the Washington Group acquired Morrison-Knudsen Co. of Boise, the major construction company. M-K was one of the consortium of firms that built
Hoover Dam and the San Francisco Bay
Bridge, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and many other large projects of
American infrastructure. M-K was also involved in the construction of rail projects such as the BART extension (M-K also built the C2 cars for BART). It built the California Cars as well as other rail passenger cars and light rail. It built locomotives under the
MPI name brand, such as the MPI F40PH-C3.
M-K's origins date to 1905, when Morris Knudsen met Harry Morrison while working on the
construction of the New York Canal (irrigation) in southwestern Idaho. Knudsen was a
fifty-something Nebraska farmer (and Danish immigrant) with a
team of horses and a fresno scraper; Morrison was a 27 year-old concrete superintendent for the Reclamation Service.
Their first venture together was in 1912, on a pump plant in nearby Grand View, where they lost money but gained experience. For several years the firm built irrigation
canals, logging roads, and railways. They incorporated in 1923, the year gross revenues topped $1
million.
During World War II, M-K built airfields, storage depots, and ships, and it later
expanded into foreign construction. It built the locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway,
the DEW system, Minuteman missile
silos, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and over 100
major dams. Knudsen died in 1943, Morrison in 1971.
M-K was led into some risky non-core areas by William Agee, who became CEO in 1988, and was ousted by the board of directors in February 1995. The company had been in financial
difficulty for several years and declared bankruptcy that same year, it was purchased by Washington Group in 1996.
Additional growth
Growth by acquisition has brought the Washington Group into the top tier (by size) of American construction firms. However,
Washington Group also declared bankruptcy - virtually eliminating all shareholder value. In 1999 it
acquired the government-services operations of Westinghouse Electric
Company, becoming a science and technology services leader, and in 2000 the company expanded its
market leadership by acquiring Raytheon Engineers & Constructors, which owned Rust
International, to produce one of the largest companies in the industry.
However, Washington Group entered bankruptcy in 2001, but later successfully exited it.
Its competitors include Bechtel and Fluor Corp..
Purchase of Washington Group International
On May 28, 2007, it was announced that URS Corporation, based out of San Francisco, California had reached an inital agreement with WGII Management to purchase the
entire company for 2.6 billion dollars (U.S) (which is about $80.00 per share). According to the plan WGI will operate as a
division of URS with the headquarters remaining in Boise, Idaho. The final approval,
however, requires a vote from the shareholders of WGII.
External links
References
"Idaho for the Curious", by Cort Conley, ©1982, ISBN 0-9603566-3-0, p. 403-404
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