Washington Group International was an American corporation which provided integrated engineering, construction, and management services to businesses and governments around the world. Based in

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...

, WGI had approximately 25,000 employees working in over 40 US states and more than 30 countries. Its primary areas of expertise were: infrastructure, mining, industrial/process, energy & environment, and power. It was acquired by

URS Corporation URS Corporation (formerly United Research Services) was an engineering, design, and construction firm and a U.S. federal government contractor. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, URS was a full-service, global organization with office ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

in November 2007 for $3.1 billion, subsequently purchased by AECOM.

Washington Construction

At the age of 30, Dennis R. Washington founded Washington Construction Company in

Missoula, Montana Missoula ( ; fla, label= Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County. It is located along the Clark Fork ...

in 1964. He guided the company to the top of the civil construction market in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, 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 an international company. In 1993 it expanded its heavy civil construction-operation, when it merged with Kasler Corporation, a

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

-based firm with large-scale operations in heavy-civil construction. Washington Construction Group Inc. was then based in Highland, California.

Morrison Knudsen Co.

In 1996, the much smaller Washington Construction Group merged with Morrison-Knudsen Corp. of Boise, which had been in financial difficulty.

Acquisition by URS

On May 28, 2007,

, based in

, announced it had reached an initial agreement with WGI management to purchase the entire company for $2.6 billion (about $80 per share). According to the plan, WGI would operate as a division of URS, with the headquarters remaining in Boise. On November 15, the price was increased and finalized for a purchase price of $3.1 billion ($95.116 per share). URS competitors include

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the '' Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the se ...

, Fluor Corp.,

CB&I CB&I is a large engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company with its administrative headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas. CB&I specializes in projects for oil and gas companies. CB&I employs more than 32,000 people worldwide. In May ...

, Kiewit, and Jacobs Engineering Group. URS was purchased by AECOM in 2014.

References

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'', April 3, 1995
Idaho company recovers
- ''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

'', (AP), July 28, 2004 Morrison-Knudsen ballast hopper

External links

Washington Division of URS
- official site

- ''URS & Washington Group - Nuclear Fusion'' - 29-May-2007

- 29-May-2007 {{Authority control Defunct companies based in Idaho American companies established in 1964 Defunct engineering companies of the United States American companies disestablished in 2007 1964 establishments in Idaho 2007 disestablishments in Idaho

Washington Construction

Morrison Knudsen Co.

Acquisition by URS

See also

References

External links