AE firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood acquires Georgia engineering company

Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, the Montgomery, Ala.-based architecture and engineering outfit, strengthened its position in Georgia by completing its acquisition of Smyrna, Ga.-based Stevenson & Palmer Engineering, which has been in business in the Peach State for more than 50 years.

The two firms have been collaborators for at least the past two years, and currently have several projects underway. Teams from both companies have been working on an integration strategy to ensure a smooth transition.

Stevenson & Palmer’s 22 employees will continue to provide engineering support services from their company’s four Georgia offices, albeit under the name Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, which already had an office in Atlanta. “The SPE team is still in place—we’ve just added a few names and a new list of services to our resume,” said Corkey Welch, Stevenson & Palmer’s former President, who is staying on as a Senior Client Manager for the combined firm. That team now reports to Jim Teel, Goodwyn, Mills’ Vice President of Georgia.

Founded in 1947, Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood employs more than 300 people who work out of its dozen offices in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina. The company assembled its Georgia team in 2011. Steve Cawood, President of the firm’s Eastern Region, which encompasses its operations in Georgia and South Carolina, spearheaded the negotiations between the two companies, which began two years ago, says Abby Basinger, a GMC spokesperson.

Its services include environmental, geotechnical, interior design, landscape, planning, surveying, and transportation. This month, GMC started construction on a 140,000-sf, $55 million football complex at Clemson University that is scheduled to open in early 2017. The firm is also in the planning stages of a $29 million expansion and upgrade of Franklin High School in Williamson County, Tenn., which if greenlighted would include more classrooms, a new athletic facility, and multipurpose field and track.

Basinger says GMC, which does work nationally, has no immediate plans to open new offices. But she also points out that GMC has customers in Mississippi and North Carolina, “so you never know.”