JACKSON, Miss.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Waggoner Engineering is excited to announce its strategic partnership with Trilon Group, a family of infrastructure consulting businesses. The partnership will provide additional capital to help the firm expand and continue providing quality services for its clients.
Waggoner has a proud 46-year history of delivering infrastructure solutions across Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Texas. Their expertise spans water, utilities, municipal infrastructure and disaster recovery. A year ago, Waggoner designed an ambitious plan that called for the expansion of its business in existing core markets and into complementary services and geographic markets. Waggoner CEO Emad Al-Turk said the goal of this ambitious plan was to accelerate the growth of Waggoner, unlock significant opportunity for its staff to grow their careers and to strengthen and expand service offerings to its clients.
“As execution of our strategic plan requires investment in resources and targeted M&A, we sought the right partner to invest in our business,” commented Mr. Al-Turk. “Through the selection process, we carefully considered alignment with our culture and values, understanding of our industry, ability to be a strategic growth platform and access to capital and resources.”
With these objectives in mind, Waggoner selected the Trilon Group, which is backed by Alpine Investors, a people-driven private equity firm. Alpine has allocated significant capital for growth in infrastructure consulting and established the Trilon Group to make strategic investments in the sector. Since its formation, Alpine has made investments in more than 200 services and software businesses with a goal of actively helping each of them achieve long-term growth.
Within Trilon, Waggoner will lead the growth strategy in Water and Disaster Recovery while continuing to build its array of services across its existing regional footprint. Day-to-day, not much will change at Waggoner except for additional investment in talent and technology. Waggoner has more than doubled in size over the last five years and growth is expected to significantly increase by expanding its M&A strategy and organic growth through the addition of talented personnel. The business will continue operating as an independent brand within Trilon, and their existing management team will continue on in the business. Mr. Al-Turk will remain President and CEO of Waggoner and will join the Trilon Group Executive Committee.
“For the vast majority of our staff it is ‘business as usual’ following this announcement, but I do expect that this growth investment will provide the Waggoner team with additional career development opportunities and bring clients an expanded array of technical expertise,” said Mr. Al-Turk.
Trilon Group was formed with a vision to build the next Top 20 design firm in North America by bringing together some of the nation’s best infrastructure consulting firms. Key focus areas include Transportation, Water, Utilities, Environment and Community Infrastructure.
“Similar to the infrastructure we design, we want to build an enduring company for our clients, our people and the communities we serve,” said Trilon Group CEO Michael (Mick) Renshaw. “We seek partnerships with firms that provide infrastructure solutions to address complex challenges of sustainability, resiliency, social equity and constructability. Waggoner is an ideal partner because of its leadership in these areas. We intend to support Waggoner with growth investment in talent, technology and targeted M&A to help them realize their growth ambitions.”
“Alpine is committed to the Trilon and Waggoner growth strategy and will allocate capital from our 8th and most recent fund to support their expansion,” commented Alpine Partner Dan Sanner. “We are excited to supplement and support Waggoner’s existing growth trajectory.”
About Waggoner
Waggoner Engineering, founded in 1976, is a civil engineering firm with a passion for helping communities realize their full potential. Today, Waggoner has expanded to 12 offices in five states and is recognized for its innovative, multi-disciplinary services that make it much more than a traditional engineering firm. For more information, visit www.waggonereng.com
About Trilon Group
Trilon group was formed with a vision to build the next Top 20 design firm in North America by bringing together some of the nation’s best infrastructure consulting firms. Key focus areas include Transportation, Water, Utilities, Environment and Community Infrastructure. For more information, visit www.trilongroup.com
About Alpine Investors
Alpine Investors is a people-driven private equity firm that is committed to building enduring companies by working with, learning from, and developing exceptional people. Alpine specializes in investments in companies in the software and services industries. Its PeopleFirst strategy includes a CEO program which allows Alpine to bring leadership to situations where additional or new management is needed post-transaction. Alpine is currently investing out of its $2.25 billion eighth fund. For more information, visit www.alpineinvestors.com.
