KSA Reaches 40 Year Milestone
Milestones are checkpoints along a journey that allow you to know you are precisely in the place you determined for yourself when you started the journey. Milestones also provide an opportunity to acknowledge accomplishments that have been made and, in some cases, provide opportunities to reach even higher for the next goal.The founders, leadership, and staff of KSA certainly did not set out on this journey with the belief that 40 years of successful consulting practice would be our final destination, and thankfully it’s not.
As 2018 comes to a close we endeavor to plant a flag in our 40-year anniversary milestone as we pass it by at a high rate of speed. 2018 has not afforded us the luxury of sitting back and reflecting on our 4 decades of service to our clients. Rather, it has been an exhilarating year of accomplishment, growth, adjustments, and stretching ourselves to position us for the next 40 years and beyond.
Recently, we have seen some major changes in who we are as a company, some include staffing changes that have actually positioned us for even greater success in the very near future. In addition, KSA has spent the better part of 2018 planning and positioning ourselves to serve our clients even better than we have in the past. To be perfectly honest we are already reaping the benefits of some of those changes.
Specifically, KSA has dedicated ourselves to becoming the premier consulting firm dedicated to educating and training our staff first and foremost. To demonstrate this, KSA has recently adopted a new mission statement, “We build people who build the future.” Simply put, we feel having the best possible staff with the best possible mentoring and training program in existence will not only result in better consulting practices but also better customer service.
As we close out 2018 it’s also important to note that we currently have on record one of the highest backlogs of work to be performed in the history of our company. The good news for you is that we also have an extremely talented and productive staff with which to tackle this work effectively and efficiently.
KSA’s Aviation Group continues to be the one of the strongest aviation engineering & planning groups in Texas and neighboring states. With the addition of a new National Aviation Director, Peter Van Pelt, we expect to see our influence expand even greater in 2019. Craig Phipps, P.E., continues to lead the Aviation Group for KSA. His legacy and commitment to our aviation clients is second to none in our industry.
KSA’s Municipal Group has now been serving communities in and around Texas for 40 years. Many of those original, founding clients are still with KSA today. Although KSA will continue to provide engineering and planning services to communities for sidewalks, streets, trails and other infrastructure maintenance, we have recently seen a dramatic uptick in our water and wastewater services. These services include planning and design of new water and wastewater treatment plants as well as upgrades and renovations to existing treatment plants. As a result of this increase we have already added and continue to add new and exciting water and wastewater experts to our municipal team.
The other service sectors that are contained within our Emerging Markets Group expect 2019 to be a banner year as well. Our architects are already working on exciting projects that are connected, in many ways, to emergency services in our client communities. This includes the planning and design of emergency shelters as well as police and fire station remodels.
In 2019 Mitch Fortner, P.E., will be starting his fourth year as president of KSA. Through his leadership Mitch has set some lofty but attainable goals for KSA as a company and for our employees as individuals. If you are at all familiar with KSA, it should not be surprising that each goal set for KSA ties back, in some way, to serving our clients better. “I’m honored to lead the firm founded by Toby Kindle, P.E., and others in 1978 forward into the future. Much has changed since our original staff was first assembled, but one thing has remained the same – our focus on serving our clients and doing our very best to ensure that every project we undertake is a success. We believe that building people who build the future captures the essence of what KSA is about at this point in history, and we look forward to 2019 with excitement.” – KSA President Mitchell L. Fortner, P.E.
