[As featured in ENR Magazine April 30, 2018 Edition]
Nearly 50 years after the firm started as a home-based business in 1965, engineering and planning firm Pond decided it was time to grow—by rapidly expanding its workforce. With engineering talent in high demand across the industry, the goal of roughly doubling its staff was indeed ambitious.
In 2014, Pond’s full-time staff numbered 260—a modest number given the fact that the diversified firm had business throughout Georgia as well as across the Southeast and, to a lesser degree, the rest of the country. The Peachtree Corners, Georgia-based firm had long established its bona fides by delivering a range of design and planning services, including assignments related to transportation, structural, environmental, life safety, MEP, fueling systems and civil and site engineering projects.
But Pond saw plenty of business opportunity ahead for design firms with the resources and talent to meet the demand. So leadership set a goal of reaching a total of 520 employees — doubling the number of staff — by the year 2020. Launched on July 1, 2014, Pond met its the ambitious target well ahead of schedule, achieving it by June 2017…