Vancouver, British Columbia & Omaha, Nebraska – CEI Architecture, one of western Canada’s leading architectural practices, has joined HDR, a global firm with one of the world’s top ranked architecture practices. Leadership of the two firms cite growth opportunities, both geographically and within each firm’s respective market sectors, as the reasons for merging its shared commitment to design innovation in Canada and globally. The transaction was effective July 26, 2015. Going forward, the firm will go to market as HDR | CEI.
“I am confident in the success of this alliance because both of our firms share a philosophy of balancing quality design, technical expertise, business orientation, and customer satisfaction—specifically focusing on being market leaders in clearly defined sectors,” commented Doug Wignall, AIA, president of HDR’s Architecture practice. “This common platform is essential to building a solid foundation for future growth. Additionally, both our firm’s experience with public-private partnerships (P3) for health is perhaps more than any other architecture firm in Canada. This merger of practices provides clients with a much greater depth of experienced resources focused on an incredibly deep portfolio of P3 projects.”
“Together, we are poised to be a preeminent force in many sectors in Canada, particularly in healthcare, research and recreation,” explained Bill Locking, a founding partner of CEI and now Senior Vice President of HDR | CEI. “We will deepen our bench of local healthcare and research expertise with HDR’s global resources in consulting services, which will uniquely position us to deliver healthcare and research projects of all sizes, scopes and complexities. In turn, the expertise CEI brings to the table can help HDR expand into new sectors such as recreation, K-12 education and commercial development not only throughout all provinces of Canada, but beyond the Canadian border as well.”
Locking added that over the past few weeks, CEI has shared news of the merger with key clients. “We have been overwhelmed by how positive the response had been,” Locking said. “Our clients understand that we will remain the same highly professional team, with the same dedication to client service and design excellence they’ve grown accustomed to. What will change, though, is an even greater capacity to bring clients the very best in global research, benchmarking and professional expertise.”
CEI was founded in 1996 and has approximately 70 employees located in British Columbia; its main office is in Vancouver, with additional offices in Victoria and Penticton, as well as Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta. HDR’s presence in the Canadian market began in 2002; currently more than 170 employees are based in offices throughout the country.
HDR has more than 1,450 architecture employees working in offices in six countries who provide complete design, engineering, planning and consulting services across the United States, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Australia, and the People’s Republic of China.
Learn more about HDR | CEI here and at www.hdrcei.com.
About HDR
HDR has partnered with clients to shape communities and push the boundaries of what’s possible since 1917. We specialize in engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services. With nearly 10,000 employees in more than 225 locations around the world, we think global and act local.
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