Our History Shapes Our Competitive Advantage

Woolpert is one of very few firms that has been in business for more than a century. Charlton Putnam founded the engineering and surveying firm in Dayton, Ohio, in 1911. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 resulted in one of the greatest private-public works of all time and created countless opportunities for Woolpert to perform surveying and engineering work for the area’s new housing developments. Then in 1916, our namesake Ralph L. Woolpert joined the firm.

Through the decades, Woolpert has consistently added service offerings to an expanding client base. As we’ve grown, we’ve added environmental and sanitary engineering, city and regional planning, photogrammetry, airport planning and design, traffic engineering, landscape architecture, environmental sciences, architecture, and geospatial services to our repertoire.

In 2019, Woolpert acquired three firms: Waller, Todd & Sadler Architects in Virginia Beach, Va.; Geomatics Data Solutions from Portland, Ore., and Calgary, Canada; and the South African geospatial firm, Southern Mapping. 2020 saw the addition of Denver-based Jviation as well as Data Cloud Solutions, an industry-leading integrated CAMA solutions provider. We kicked off 2021 with the acquisition of Texas-based CivilTech Engineering. September 2021 was a big month for Woolpert's geospatial sector—we acquired long-time geospatial partner, Optimal GEO (Athens, Ala.), and AAM, a global geospatial firm based in Australia. Then, in February 2022, eTrac Inc., a vessel-based hydrographic survey/marine technology firm headquartered in San Rafael, Calif., joined the Woolpert family of companies. Sheehan Nagle Hartray Architects, a global expert in mission critical design based in Chicago and London, joined in October 2022.

2024 started off strong with the acquisitions of Bermello Ajamil and Murphy Geospatial. Headquartered in Miami, Bermello Ajamil provides architectural design services across the globe, and Murphy Geospatial, based in Ireland and the U.K., is a leading provider of geospatial solutions across Europe. These additions to our corporate family bolster our architecture, engineering, and geospatial capabilities while providing our clients with an impeccable reputation for quality, innovation and excellence in customer service.

Today, Woolpert is an international AEG firm of more than 2,500 talented professionals. Our headquarters remain in Dayton, and we serve clients on a local, regional, national and international basis from over 60 offices on four continents. Woolpert’s ability to continually adapt to changing times and provide an increasing range of professional services is the basis for our service-oriented culture.

We started as a local engineering and surveying company over 100 years ago. Today, we are a worldwide leader in AEG services and an ENR top design firm. Woolpert is moving forward—with forward thinking.