Company

Even before Alaska became a state and DOWL opened shop, the foundation of our operation was laid. Two firms later purchased by DOWL, Toner-Nordling and Associates, founded in Juneau, Alaska, and HKM Engineering, founded in Billings, Montana, were started in 1945 and 1955, respectively. These are two of DOWL’s anchor offices today and continue under the DOWL moniker, but they have a storied history of their own in communities we love.

A garage, a PE, and a dream: This is how DOWL was born. We began in a garage as a small, one-man shop named for its founder, Lewis E. Dickinson, Jr., PE, in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1962. Six weeks later, Maurice Oswald (Ozzie) joined the firm to found D&O. The small company had clients and work, but it was the Good Friday earthquake that shook central Alaska and seeded the firm’s backlog that gave rise to the DOWL we know today. Around the same time, another of DOWL’s future partners sprung up in Springfield, Oregon: In 1966, Oregon Bridge Engineering Company (later known as OBEC) was founded as a subsidiary of Hamilton Construction.

As the 1970s began, D&O had clearly established itself as a legitimate firm in Anchorage. By 1971, the company had $2 million in revenue and 35 employees. In a few years’ time, Dickinson and Oswald took on two more partners: Ken Walch and Harry Lee. By 1974, the firm was known as DOWL Engineers. That same year, the firm expanded its client base and service lines with the purchase of assets from materials testing company Alaska Testlab. The 1970s would end with a boom for the Alaska economy with the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. While DOWL Engineers didn’t work directly on the pipeline, the state’s economic engine was fueled, and DOWL benefited from the residual work for developers, municipalities, utilities, and contractors.

DOWL continued growing its employees and revenue well into the 1980s. The firm also added additional owners to its ranks, but this time did not change the letters on the door. DOWL was on an upward trajectory until the late 1980s, when the price of oil tanked and crashed the local economy. In one years’ time, DOWL lost nearly two-thirds of its revenue and a comparable number of employees (from 140 to 40). The firm buckled down and restructured—and it paid off. By 1988, DOWL appointed its second president, Mel Nichols, PE, and a year later, DOWL opened its first office outside of Alaska, in Federal Way, Washington.

The 1990s started with cautious optimism, but a boom of retail store chain construction began in Anchorage, and DOWL was able to garner a lion’s share of the work. That, along with DOWL’s new corporate structure, which allowed key staff to become minority owners in the company, helped solidify DOWL’s resilience in the market. By 1992, DOWL had nearly rebounded with $8 million in revenue and about 80 employees. To close the decade, DOWL made yet another large change in its ownership: In 1999, NANA Development Corporation (one of Alaska’s 13 Native Corporations) became a 51% owner of DOWL.

Like everyone, DOWL made it through Y2K without a hitch and began the decade with its third president, Stewart Osgood, PE. By 2002, DOWL was at $17 million in revenue and 173 employees. That same year, DOWL moved even farther outside of Alaska by opening an office in Tucson, Arizona. Stewart and the rest of DOWL’s management focused on diversifying the firm to ensure a more balanced portfolio of public- and private-sector clients. This started with a merger with the Juneau-based firm Toner-Nordling and Associates in 2007, and a year later with Montana- and Wyoming-based firm HKM Engineering. The decade closed with $54 million in revenue and nearly 400 employees.

Like most firms, DOWL was set back by the financial crisis in 2009, which lingered into the early ‘10s. However, Alaska’s economy remained relatively strong and more mergers began the decade, first with a firm in Laramie, Wyoming (Aspen-Banner and Associates), and then with a firm out of Montrose, Colorado (Buckhorn Geotech). In 2012, DOWL turned 50 and the minority shareholders purchased back the 51% ownership held by NANA Development Corporation. In 2018, DOWL merged with Oregon-based OBEC, known for services similar to DOWL’s, plus a reputation as regional experts in bridge design. DOWL anticipates that by the close of the decade, the company will reach more than $70 million in revenue and 450 employees working in seven states.

So far this decade, DOWL merged with Farr West Engineering out of Nevada to add to our team of experts. We named our fourth president, Jeffrey Shoemaker, PE, in 2023. Through mergers, earthquakes, recessions, booms, social strife, and even a pandemic, DOWL has remained a firm that is true to its mission to meet design challenges in safe and extraordinary ways. We have our people—both past and present—to thank for our success. We are excited for where the next 60 years will take us!