Parsons Brinckerhoff launches management consulting firm

Real Estate Weekly, Nov 22, 2000

Parsons Brinckerhoff, an international engineering, planning, and construction management organization, has launched PBConsult, a new subsidiary that provides high value advisory and management consulting services top private and public owners, developers, and builders of infrastructure projects.

PB Consult serves clients across the globe in all areas of infrastructure management, investments, and development -- transportation, water and power, telecommunications, and logistics. The firm specializes in the areas of sector and agency policy, institutional development and change management, project and program delivery systems, financial structuring and evaluation, and logistics management and strategy development.

The firm advises senior managers and decision makers from government agencies, private companies, and financial institutions.

"We provide management, technical, financial, and operational analysis and consultation to help deliver infrastructure projects successfully," said Michael Schneider, executive vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc., and president of PBConsult. "This strategic and cutting edge unit of PB helps clients determine how to best manage and develop assets, deliver fundamental services cost effectively, and compete more efficiently."

According to Schneider, PBConsult will operate independently, but will draw upon PB's most senior professionals and its 100-plus years of experience in designing and managing major infrastructure projects. "By consolidating and tapping the global technical resources of PB's principal operating units, PBConsult delivers management expertise on a par with the top names in the global consulting field," he said. "Our, goal is to assist clients in making intelligent investment decisions, while at the same time structuring viable solutions to infrastructure problems."

Tom O'Neill, PB's president and CEO, noted that "PBConsult's critical factors for success are the extraordinary level of competence of its principal consultants and its targeted market focus on planning and management issues in the infrastructure industry."

PBConsult will initially operate from 13 offices in the U.S., and will expand its global base to Europe and Asia over the next year. Its principal consultants are drawn from international consulting and financial services firms, and from various operating units of PB.

According to Schneider, who has been instrumental in conceiving many of PB's global initiatives, PBConsult will also incorporate Parsons Brickerhoff Infrastructure Development Company, Inc. (PBIDC), the PB subsidiary responsible for "project development and equity investment."

Richard Ravitch, a member of PB's board of directors and former head of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), will serve as chairman of PBConsult. Ravitch, a prominent attorney and business leader, led the MTA through the implementation of a massive capital funding program.