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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis-based Beam Longest & Neff LLC, one of the area’s largest engineering firms, has merged with Toronto-based McIntosh Perry Consulting Engineers Ltd., the companies announced Wednesday.
The combination forms a business with more than 800 engineers, project managers and technical experts in 21 offices throughout North America.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company will operate as BLN in the United States and as McIntosh Perry in Canada.
CEO Tom Longest and President Jim Longest will continue to manage operations and support client relations at BLN while serving on the board of directors at McIntosh Perry.
“We are excited to be combining forces with McIntosh Perry as we create a large, dynamic North American engineering consulting firm that brings together the best people, industry-leading knowledge and decades of experience so that we can continue to serve the growing needs of our clients and put forward the best solutions possible,” said Tom Longest in written remarks.
Founded in 1945, BLN is the fourth-largest engineering firm in the Indianapolis area, based on 2020 local engineering revenue of $42.7 million. The company has about 150 local employees.
BLN has Indiana offices in Indianapolis, Kokomo, Hammond, Bloomington and Evansville, and out-of-state offices in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, West Virginia and Puerto Rico.
The company provides a full slate of infrastructure engineering and environmental services, from design to consulting. It has worked on dozens of highway projects in Indiana. Among its largest projects are the two signature bridges forming the $2.3 billion Ohio River Bridges Projects in Louisville and the $4.4 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge under construction between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
The firm was founded in Indianapolis as Pierce, Gruber and Beam in 1945. It formed a division called Highway Surveys Inc., managed independently by engineer Hubert Longest Sr. The two merged in 1965, creating what became Beam, Longest and Neff.
Company leadership transitioned from Hubert Longest Sr. to Hubert Longest Jr. to brothers Jim and Tom Longest. Jim and Tom have been leading the company since 1998.
McIntosh Perry, founded in 1990, has more than 600 engineers and staff in 14 cities in Canada.
“It is very exciting to see our company fulfill our strategic vision and evolve into a full-service North American engineering consulting company,” said Gus Sarrouh, CEO of McIntosh Perry, in written comments. “As the COVID restrictions are lifted across North America, we are ideally positioned to take advantage of opportunities on both sides of the border, including the $1.2 trillion stimulus that the United States plans to spend on rebuilding aging infrastructure. We are very fortunate to have found a firm with the history, reputation, and capability that BLN has, and we look forward to working with their people to build a unified firm that provides rewarding career opportunities and delivers high-quality projects.”
Correction: This story was changed to eliminate two erroneous references to BLM instead of BLN. You can see all of our corrections here.
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BLN is a terrific company and my best wishes to Jim and Tom Longest in this next phase of their company’s expansion. The infrastructure bill will provide remarkable opportunities and this merger will help BLN take advantage of the new construction that will be coming.
Amen