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TRANSACTIONS WESTWOOD ACQUIRES CALIFORNIA- BASED O’DELL ENGINEERING Westwood Professional Services, Inc., a nationally renowned design and consulting firm, announced its acquisition of Northern California-based O’Dell Engineering. The acquisition of O’Dell supports Westwood’s strategy to expand into new regions and grow its existing markets and services. O’Dell is Westwood’s inaugural investment in California and brings four new offices. “O’Dell’s culture and people are a strong complement to Westwood’s team. The acquisition expands our geographic reach and the professional services we provide, advancing the capabilities we offer our clients. We look forward to the benefit that this partnership will bring to our clients and employees,” says Chief Executive Officer, Bryan P. Powell, PE.
O’Dell Westwood’s market-leading presence in Public Infrastructure and Land Development and strengthens Westwood’s deep reach of service offerings. complements O’Dell’s President, Dylan Crawford, PLS, reflects on the organization’s focus: “We are excited to partner with the Westwood team and to have expanded capabilities for our clients. This partnership allows us to offer more services to our existing client base and more opportunities for our employees. We are very excited to be a part of Westwood and to help the organization grow in California and the surrounding states together as one team.” O’Dell will operate as O’Dell Engineering, a Westwood company, for a period of time and continue to serve clients from their current locations.
Westwood is a leading, award-winning, full-service, professional engineering firm specializing in wind energy, solar energy, energy storage, power delivery, EV infrastructure, commercial, institutional, residential, and public infrastructure projects. Westwood was established in 1972. Through a focus on its people, culture, and clients, Westwood has quickly expanded to serve clients across the nation from multiple U.S. offices. In 2023, Westwood placed No. 12 and No. 30 respectively on Zweig Group’s national Hot Firms and Best Firms to Work for lists. Westwood also ranked consistently higher for five consecutive years on the Engineering News Record 500 as one of the country’s leading design firms. The firm regularly ranks on industry top 25 lists and receives recognition for its involvement on award-winning projects nationwide.
principals off doing projects and try to get them out selling. And they turn out more proposals and responses to RFPs to try to get more work, but the quality of those responses declines with the more of them they do. They then go through a boom-bust cycle and believe that is normal. ■ Branding/working visibility. Entrepreneurial firms have lots of “swag” they give out to everyone. Stickers, water bottles, coffee cups and more. They exhibit at trade shows and professional meetings. They drive branded company vehicles. They have matching company shirts. They have the largest project signage and more. The typical small firms do few or none of these things because they see it as a waste of money. ■ CRM/data management. Entrepreneurial firms realize how valuable every bit of information on their clients and potential clients is, and they capture it all in a customer relationship management (CRM) system so it doesn’t get lost. The top people and the rank and file all have access to this information and help maintain it. The typical small firm does not maintain a CRM and if they do, it’s only the admins and support people who interact with it and maintain it so the quality suffers. I hope I am making my point here. I could go on but am out of space. Please let me know your thoughts! Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.
MARK ZWEIG, from page 5
marketing is a discipline just like those the owners of the firm have been schooled in. There is a large body of knowledge on marketing that takes specialized expertise and experience, and to get good people in marketing you have to pay what it takes to get good people into the line functions of the business. In other words, entrepreneurial firms don’t treat their marketing people like second class citizens the way small business-thinking firms often do. ■ Sales. Entrepreneurial firms understand that selling is easy if you set the stage with your other marketing activities. The phone rings, emails come in, and the clients approach you instead of you having to chase after them. This consistent high investment in all of the other marketing activities also results in a lack of geographic boundaries for the firm and higher prices over time as well. Small firms say none of this other stuff is important and the only thing that matters is sales. So hire people who can sell – IF you can find them. ■ Experimentation. Entrepreneurial firms believe in and practice constant experimentation. They know that marketing tactics that work today may not work tomorrow, and you have to keep trying new things to keep the market’s attention and break through. They do lots of new things because they understand how that increases their prospects for success. Small firms do the same things they have always done. If they need work, they pull their
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THE ZWEIG LETTER MARCH 25, 2024, ISSUE 1530
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