HDR is celebrating its 90th year of providing communities with safe drinking water and treated wastewater. Water-related services have been key company offerings since HDR’s inception in 1917 as the Henningson Engineering Company. One of the firm’s earliest projects was the Hastings, Neb., sewage treatment plant, built around 1925.
A long-term client is the Omaha Metropolitan Utilities District. In 1963, HDR prepared the engineering report for and later designed its 60mgd Platte River Water Treatment Plant. Forty-five years later, HDR helped the client design its new 100 mgd Platte West Water Production Facilities, which will provide a critical new source of drinking water for the Omaha metropolitan area. The new facility will reflect 21st century realities such as incorporating security features into the design.
Other 21st century changes range from helping small rural water systems find financing to assisting the Minneapolis Water Works in implementing more than 160mgd of membrane treatment in one of the largest such plants in the United States. HDR’s services now stretch coast to coast, serving utilities from the Hampton Roads Sanitation District in Norfolk, Va, to the Orange County Sanitation District in Southern California.
From small beginnings in 1917, HDR has grown to more than 6,400 professionals—an increase of more than 4,000 in the last decade alone—in 150 locations worldwide.
Source: HDR Inc.