Willdan Group, Inc. (‘Willdan’) provides professional, technical and consulting services to utilities, private industry, and public agencies at all levels of government.
As resource and infrastructure needs undergo continuous change, the company helps organizations and their communities evolve and thrive by providing a wide range of technical services for energy solutions, greenhouse gas reduction, and government infrastructure. Through engineering, program management, policy advisory, and soft...
Willdan Group, Inc. (‘Willdan’) provides professional, technical and consulting services to utilities, private industry, and public agencies at all levels of government.
As resource and infrastructure needs undergo continuous change, the company helps organizations and their communities evolve and thrive by providing a wide range of technical services for energy solutions, greenhouse gas reduction, and government infrastructure. Through engineering, program management, policy advisory, and software and data management, the company plans, designs, and delivers trusted, comprehensive, innovative, and proven solutions to improve efficiency, resiliency, and sustainability in energy and infrastructure for its clients.
The company’s overall growth strategy revolves around a combination of strong organic expansion and strategic acquisitions, which provide the ability to expand the breadth and depth of the services it provides to new and existing clients. The company is well positioned to capitalize on the ongoing expansion and transformation of the energy and infrastructure environments as they adapt to climate change, electrification, and technology advancements.
The company operates its business through a nationwide network of offices spread across 22 states, the District of Columbia, the Canadian province of Alberta, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It serves a majority of the largest investor-owned electric utilities and over half of the largest municipal utilities in the United States (‘U.S.’). The company’s business with public and private utilities has concentrations in California and New York, but includes numerous other utilities in the Midwest, Southeast, and Mountain states, and additional acquisitions may continue to expand its geographic footprint. The company’s business with public agencies is concentrated in California, New York, and Arizona. It also serves special districts, school districts, and a large range of public agencies and private industry throughout the U.S.
Markets
The company operates in the energy services market and the engineering and consulting market. It provides a wide variety of services related to energy planning and analysis, energy efficiency and sustainability, engineering, construction management, and economic and financial consulting services primarily to public agencies, utilities, and commercial/industrial firms.
The company serves as municipal engineers and building and safety departments for local governments. It also designs and provides construction oversight for various infrastructure projects for state and local governments to address environmental goals and mandates, population shifts, changes in local and state funding, and aging infrastructure. Additionally, it provides consulting services to public agencies as they raise the necessary funds to develop such infrastructure projects and provide other services. Relatedly, the company provides local government staffing, traffic and transportation engineering, studies, plan reviews, grant support, and inspections.
The company is a professional services firm focused on transformational growth and value creation for its clients, employees, and shareholders. It seeks to establish long-term close working relationships with its clients and expand the breadth and depth of the services it provides to them over time.
Services
The company offers services in two financial reporting segments: Energy and Engineering and Consulting.
During fiscal year 2024, the company derived 10.7% of its Energy segment contract revenues from one customer, Southern California Edison.
Energy Services
The company’s Energy segment provides specialized, innovative, and comprehensive energy solutions to businesses, utilities, state agencies, municipalities, and non-profit organizations. The company’s experienced engineers, consultants, and staff help its clients realize cost and energy savings by tailoring efficient and cost-effective solutions to assist in optimizing energy spend. The company’s energy services include comprehensive audits and surveys, program design, master planning, demand reduction, grid optimization, benchmarking analyses, design engineering, construction management, performance contracting, installation, alternative financing, measurement and verification services, and advances in software and data analytics for long-term planning.
The company’s energy services include the following:
Energy Efficiency: The company provides complete energy efficiency consulting and engineering services, including program design, management, and administration; marketing, customer outreach, and project origination; energy audits and feasibility analyses; implementation; training; management; retro-commissioning; data management and reporting; measurement and verification services; and construction management.
Program Design and Implementation: The company assists utilities and governmental clients with the design, development, and implementation of energy efficiency plans and programs. These plans include the design, outreach, and implementation of strategies to reduce peak energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency, water conservation, and renewable energy planning.
Direct Customer Support: The company assists clients (including hospitals, hotels, government offices, schools, and private industry) in developing and managing facilities and related infrastructures through a holistic, practical approach to facility management. The company’s services cover audits, local compliance, operations and maintenance review, renewable energy planning, master plan development, infrastructure analyses, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (‘LEED’) certification for buildings, and strategies for energy spend and greenhouse gas reduction.
Turnkey Facility and Infrastructure Projects: The company provides turnkey/design-build facility and infrastructure improvement projects to a wide array of private and public clients, including municipalities, county governments, public and private K-12 schools, and higher education institutions. The company’s services cover preliminary planning, project design, construction management, commissioning, post-project support, and measurement and verification.
Project Examples. The following are examples of typical projects in the Energy segment:
Consolidated Edison, New York: The company serves as Consolidated Edison’s program manager and implementer for its Small Business Direct Install (‘SMB’) program across the utility’s New York City and Westchester County service areas. The SMB program, Consolidated Edison’s largest energy efficiency program, helps customers save energy, lower their bills, and protect the environment by providing financial incentives to identify and install certain energy efficiency measures. To support this effort, the company provides full-service program implementation, including outreach and direct sales to potential commercial customers, on-site energy efficiency assessments, direct implementation of energy-savings measures, and subcontractor and trade ally management.
Dormitory Authority-State New York (‘DASNY’), New York: In connection with the company’s acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Genesys Engineering, P.C. (‘Genesys’) in March 2016, the company entered into an administrative services agreement with Genesys pursuant to which it, through its subsidiary Willdan Energy Solutions (‘WES’), provides Genesys with ongoing administrative, operational, and other non-professional support services in its performance of rehabilitation, construction management, architectural, and engineering services at various college and university sites within New York State. Services for DASNY under these contracts also include energy-efficient design, utility cost evaluation, and various regulatory compliance services. Specific project descriptions are set out by DASNY in work authorizations, which are issued under the terms of the master contracts.
Marshak Science Building Rehabilitation, The City University of New York: Performed under the DASNY master contract, the Marshak Science Building is a mid-rise, 750,000 square-foot science building, which consists of a 350,000 square-foot, 13-story tower and a 300,000 square-foot plaza level and underground. The science building houses research and teaching labs, a vivarium, a morgue, office areas, a library, an auditorium, a gymnasium, and a pool. The company was responsible for the study, design, and construction management that included the retrofit of 200 standard-flow fume hoods to low-flow, high-efficiency hoods and the installation of high-entrainment fume hood exhaust systems, new lab make-up air units with heat recovery, liquid desiccant dehumidification systems, new supply air risers, and general exhaust risers throughout the tower, new hot water and chilled water risers, new central station air handling equipment, new high-temperature hot water to low-temperature hot water heat exchangers, and a lab fit-out with chilled beam secondary heating and cooling.
Pueblo School District 70 Infrastructure Improvement, Colorado: Pueblo School District 70 has 25+ schools and support facilities covering approximately 1.5 million square feet. The company was responsible for development, design, and construction management of nearly 150 energy efficiency and infrastructure improvement projects district-wide. These projects included multiple building additions, several major interior renovations, district-wide LED upgrades, 10 building-wide HVAC and controls projects, 11 roof replacements, a dozen major parking lot improvements and replacements, and multiple CCTV and public address system replacements.
San Diego Gas and Electric (‘SDG&E’), California: The company provided peak-load reduction and energy capacity to SDG&E by coordinating the installation of proven energy efficiency measures, including chiller retrofits, chiller variable-frequency drives (‘VFDs’), HVAC VFDs, evaporative cooling, demand control ventilation, two-way valves, and chilled water pump VFDs. These measures produced both peak-load reductions and energy savings.
Entergy Corporation, Louisiana: The company supported Entergy’s investments in grid data and analytics capabilities across its electric distribution footprint through a software license for LoadSEER. LoadSEER was developed to provide unique insights and modeling capability for distributed energy resources and the evolving distribution grid. The application is used in shortand long-term circuit-level planning and to proactively integrate renewables, energy storage, and efficiency investments. LoadSEER combines multi-layer risk, geospatial, and scenario modeling; utilities’ existing tools; engineering efforts; and multiple data sources in order to deliver dynamic, granular load profiles and perform valuation analyses.
Commercial Energy Efficiency Programs: Southern California Edison has contracted with the company to develop, implement, and offer these programs to SCE customers. The company is the implementer of the Commercial Program, which is targeted to help SCE customers lower their energy bills and reduce demand and energy usage by providing technical services, connection to financing, and financial incentives to identify and install energy efficiency measures. To support this effort, the company provides full-service program implementation, including customer outreach, performing energy audits, and facilitating installation and verifying savings of approved energy efficiency measures.
City of New York – LL97 Implementation Action Plan: The company developed a plan for New York City that identifies the most feasible route to achieving the City’s deep decarbonization, energy efficiency, and clean and renewable electricity goals. The plan is designed to balance policy compliance, technical and practical feasibility, and cost considerations, and will result in more than 50% greenhouse gas emissions reductions from City government infrastructure and energy system upgrades in City buildings by 2030. Each City agency now has actionable targets and an initial pathway to meeting them under the plan. The effort included the virtual survey of more than 4,000 publicly owned facilities in the city, detailed building energy modeling of prototypical city facilities, and transformation of these analyses into a comprehensive plan for the implementation of new renewable electricity sources, a heat electrification initiative, improved building energy efficiency, and changes in wastewater, transportation, and other processes to meet the established goals.
Engineering and Consulting Services
The company’s Engineering and Consulting segment provides civil engineering-related construction management, building and safety, city engineering office management, city planning, civil design, geotechnical, material testing, and other engineering consulting services to its clients. The company’s engineering services include traffic, bridges, rail, port, water, and other civil engineering projects. It also provides economic and financial consulting to public agencies. Lastly, the company supplements the engineering services it offers its clients by providing expertise and support for the various financing techniques public agencies utilize to finance their operations and infrastructure. It also supports the mandated reporting and other requirements associated with these financings. The company provides financial advisory services for municipal securities but does not provide underwriting services.
In general, contracts for engineering and consulting services are awarded by public agencies based primarily upon the qualifications of the engineering or consulting professional, rather than the proposed fees. The company has longstanding relationships with many of these agencies and is recognized as having relevant expertise and customer-focused services. A substantial percentage of the company’s work is for existing clients that it has served for many years.
The company’s Engineering and Consulting services include the following:
Building and Safety: The company’s building and safety services range from managing and staffing an entire municipal building department to providing specific outsourced services, such as plan review and field inspections for code compliance. Other related services under this umbrella include performing accessibility compliance and providing disaster recovery teams, energy compliance evaluations, fire and life safety, permit processing and issuance, seismic retrofitting programs, and structural plan review. Many of its building and safety services contracts are with municipalities and counties where the company supplements the capacity of in-house staff.
City Engineering and Code Enforcement: The company provides municipalities with city engineering services related to the public works department needs and assists with the development and capital improvements implementation, and enforcement of building and development codes. These services are tailored to the unique needs of each municipality, ranging from staffing an entire engineering department to carrying out specific projects within a municipality.
Development Review: The company offers development plan review and inspection services, including Americans with Disabilities Act (‘ADA’) compliance, preliminary and final plats (maps), grading and drainage, complete infrastructure improvements for residential site plans, commercial site plans, industrial development, and subdivision, and major master plan development services. It has reviewed grading plans, street lighting and traffic signal plans, erosion control plans, storm drain plans, street improvement plans, and sewer water and utility plans.
Disaster Recovery: The company provides disaster recovery services to cities, counties, and local government. Its experience in disaster recovery includes assisting communities in the disaster recovery process following earthquakes, firestorms, hurricanes, mudslides, and other natural disasters. The company typically organizes and staffs several local disaster recovery centers, which function as ‘one-stop permit centers’ that guarantee turnaround performance for fast-track plan checking and inspection services. Additionally, it has performed street and storm drain clean-up, replacement or repair of damaged storm drains, streets, and bridges, debris management, and preparation and implementation of a near-term erosion and sediment control program.
Geotechnical: The company’s geotechnical and earthquake engineering services include soil engineering, earthquake and seismic hazard studies, geology, and hydrogeology engineering, and construction inspection. The company operates a licensed, full-service geotechnical laboratory at its headquarters in Anaheim, California, which offers an array of testing services, including construction materials testing and inspection.
Planning and Surveying: The company assists communities with a full range of planning services, from the preparation of long-range policy plans to assistance with the day-to-day operations of a planning department. For several cities, the company provides contract staff support, which ranges from staffing entire departments to providing interim or long-term services to entities that have determined that it is not cost-effective to have a full-time engineer on staff, to relieve peak workload situations or to fill vacant positions during a job search. Typical assignments include land use studies, development of specific plans or general plan elements, design guidelines, and zoning ordinances. The company also provides surveying and mapping services, including major construction layout, design survey, topographic survey, aerial mapping, Geographic Information Systems, and right-of-way engineering.
Program and Construction Management: The company provides comprehensive program and construction management services to its public sector clients. These services include construction administration, inspection, observation, labor compliance, and community relations, depending on the client’s needs and the scope of the specific project. The company’s construction management experience encompasses projects, such as streets, bridges, sewers and storm drains, water systems, parks, pools, public buildings, and utilities.
Structures: The company’s structural engineering services include bridge design, bridge evaluation and inspection, highway and railroad bridge planning and design, highway interchange design, railroad grade separation design, bridge seismic retrofitting, building design and retrofit, sound wall and retaining wall design, and planning and design for bridge rehabilitation and replacement.
Transportation and Traffic: The company provides a wide range of services relating to transportation, traffic, and other infrastructure projects. For example, the company’s transportation engineering services cover a full spectrum of support functions, including right of way, utility relocation, landscape, survey and mapping, geographic information systems, public outreach, and interagency coordination. The company’s traffic engineering services include serving as the contract city traffic engineer in communities, as well as performing design and traffic planning projects for its clients.
Water Resources: The company assists clients in addressing the many facets of water development, treatment, distribution, and conservation, including energy savings, technical, financial, legal, political, and regulatory requirements. The company’s core competencies include hydraulic modeling, master planning, rate studies, and design and construction services. The company’s design experience includes reservoirs, pressure reducing stations, pump and lift stations, and pipeline alignment studies, as well as water/wastewater collection, distribution, and treatment facilities. The company also provides a complete analysis and projection of storm flows for use in drainage master plans and for individual storm drain systems to reduce flooding in streets and adjacent properties. It designs open and closed storm drain systems and detention basin facilities for cities, counties, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
District Administration: The company administers special districts on behalf of public agencies. The types of special districts administered include property assessed clean energy (PACE), community facilities districts (in California, Mello-Roos districts), assessment districts, landscape and lighting districts, school facilities improvement districts, benefit assessment districts, fire suppression districts, and business improvement districts. The company’s district administration services include calculating the annual levy for each parcel in the district, billing charges directly or through a county tax roll, preparing the annual Engineer’s Report, budget, and resolutions, reporting on collections and payment status, calculating prepayment quotes, and providing financial analyses, modeling, and budget forecasting.
Financial Consulting: The company performs economic analyses and financial projects for public agencies, including fee and rate studies, utility rate analyses, utility system appraisals and asset acquisitions, economic development and redevelopment planning, development and implementation of land-based financing districts to provide revenue for public facilities and services, feasibility analyses, formation assistance, long-term financial plans, and annual district administration of Texas special districts (Public Improvement Districts, Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones, and Municipal Management Districts); real estate and market analyses associated with planning efforts; development fee studies; special district formation and other special projects.
Federal Compliance: The company offers several services that support bonded debt compliance reporting for cities, counties, states, school districts, water districts, housing authorities, 501(c)(3), and other municipal entities. The company provides federal compliance services to approximately 750 issuers in 43 states and the District of Columbia, managing approximately $69 billion in municipal debt.
The following are examples of typical projects the company has performed in the Engineering and Consulting segment:
City of Elk Grove, California, City Engineering, Capital Improvement, and Infrastructure Services: The company provided comprehensive technical support to the Public Works and Development Services Departments for the over 170,000-resident community of Elk Grove, California. The company’s services have included public counter service, drainage/stormwater/NPDES, traffic engineering, permitting, land development review and inspection, CIP design, and construction support. Serving the two City departments was a team of full-time engineers, scientists, managers, observers/inspectors, project managers, administrative support staff, and a team of subconsultants. All work was accomplished through a task order process that defined the scope of work, time of performance, and cost of services.
City of Long Beach, California, Engineering and Construction Management Services: The company provided construction management and public works inspection services for the City’s capital improvement and street maintenance programs. The projects involve building tenant improvements, landscaping, asphalt overlays, ADA compliance ramps, sidewalks, storm drains, water lines, sewer installations, underground utility improvements, and other appurtenant work. The company acted as the Owner’s Representative and Construction Manager responsible for coordinating all aspects of the construction, including coordination with the City’s Building Inspection Staff.
County of Los Angeles, California, Traffic Design and Operational Support Services: The company provides professional traffic engineering services for the Traffic Signal Synchronization Project. The services include meetings and project coordination with Los Angeles County and various municipalities, as well as field review, equipment inventory, reporting for recommended improvements, traffic signal base plans, traffic signal improvement plans, traffic signal utility plans, and engineering estimates for multiple signalized intersections along various street corridors.
County of Orange, California, Code Enforcement Services: The company’s code enforcement team is responsible for responding to citizen concerns and investigations of a variety of code violations throughout the unincorporated areas of Orange County in support of its Neighborhood Preservation Program, including the reviewing, processing, and closing of code enforcement cases related to land use, zoning, building, grading, nuisance, and property maintenance violations. The company’s staff performs reviews of all case files, inspections of properties, filing notices and complaints against violators, documenting, and preparing violation cases for the district attorney’s office and/or County counsel, and testifying in court. The company assists in the entitlement/development process consisting of general land use, zoning, and building violations.
City of Phoenix, Building and Safety Services: The company has provided Building Safety, Building Inspection, and Building and Fire plan review services to the City of Phoenix Building and Fire Departments since 2001. Willdan Building Inspectors and Reviewers report to the City of Phoenix, where the city provides assignments. Inspectors are assigned residential new construction, additions, and remodel inspections. Fire plan reviewers are assigned commercial fire protection systems and Fire Code reviews. Plan reviewers are assigned residential new construction, additions, and remodel reviews.
City of Sherman, Texas, Financial Services: The company assists the City of Sherman with navigating the financial aspects of the largest capital projects in the city’s history to support $3 billion in private investment for chip and wafer manufacturing. The company completed a Water and Wastewater Utility Rate Study, provides economic development decision support, ongoing comparative scenario analyses, and holds briefings and alignment workshops for elected officials.
Great Lakes Water Authority (‘GLWA’), Detroit, Michigan, Financial Services: The company serves as GLWA’s rate and financial consultant. It provides annual cost of service studies, proposed schedules of recommended rates and charges, community-specific charge calculation sheets, member outreach, and public hearing presentations regarding proposed changes to water and wastewater service charges, and other related support services at the request of GLWA.
Clients
The company’s clients primarily consist of investor- and municipal-owned energy utilities, public and governmental agencies, including cities, counties, redevelopment agencies, water districts, school districts, and universities, state agencies, federal agencies, and a variety of other special districts and agencies. The company also provides services to private industry, hospitals, hotels, and a wide variety of other commercial enterprises.
The company’s contracts typically have a duration of between two and thirty-six months, although it has city services contracts that have been renewed or re-awarded and are in effect for over 30 years. Most of its contracts include a provision allowing for termination for convenience after reimbursement of any unbilled effort under the contract. As of December 27, 2024, the company had approximately 2,500 open projects.
The company’s largest clients are based in California and New York. In fiscal year 2024, services provided to clients in California accounted for 43.9% of its consolidated contract revenue, and services provided to clients in New York accounted for 23.6% of its consolidated contract revenue.
The company collaborates with the LADWP through the Commercial Direct Install Program, which is a small business lighting energy efficiency program that serves all commercial customers in the LADWP territory with demand up to 250kW. On average, this program typically implements approximately 8,000 energy efficiency projects a year and has implemented over 106,000 projects since program inception in 2008. Over that time, the company has saved the LADWP and its customers over half a million MWh per year and almost one hundred MW of peak demand, and also provided lead generation identifying over 5,500 water efficiency upgrades.
The company also collaborates with Duke Energy - Progress to manage the small business direct install program in North Carolina and South Carolina. Since its launch in 2013, the program has grown to encompass all eligible Duke Energy customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, and Kentucky. The Small Business Energy Saver Program offers eligible commercial customers the opportunity to retrofit a comprehensive list of existing inefficient equipment with more energy-efficient measures. The program provides integrated turn-key services, including program marketing, energy assessments, installation by local contractors, up to 80 percent incentives to offset the cost of projects, and education to encourage the replacement of existing equipment with improvements in lighting, refrigeration, and HVAC. The company continues to implement programs across these four states and has completed over 35,000 projects for Duke Energy, resulting in over 925,000 MWh in savings to small businesses.
The company implements Consolidated Edison’s Small and Medium Business Program across the utility's New York City and Westchester County service area, as well as Consolidated Edison’s Multifamily program, their largest energy efficiency program. After giving effect to renewals and extensions, both contracts continue through the end of 2025. These programs help customers save energy, lower their bills, and protect the environment by providing financial incentives to identify and buy down the cost of energy efficiency measures. They also provide incentives to customers who electrify their buildings and reduce their carbon footprint by installing heat pumps. To support this effort, the company provides full-service program implementation, including outreach and direct sales to potential commercial customers, on-site energy efficiency assessments, direct implementation of energy savings measures, and participating contractor management. The administration of incentive payments to other contractors providing services through the program is included in its scope, but the structure of the contract is such that these payments are not included in revenue or expenses. Consolidated Edison may terminate the contract at any time for any reason. Consolidated Edison has been a customer of the company since 2009.
In connection with the company’s acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Genesys in March 2016, the company entered into an administrative services agreement with Genesys pursuant to which its subsidiary, WES, provides Genesys with ongoing administrative, operational, and other non-professional support services. Under such administrative services agreement, WES provides administrative services for a series of Genesys’s DASNY and other contracts. WES provides administrative services to Genesys in its performance of rehabilitation and construction work and architectural and engineering services at various sites within New York State. Services for DASNY under these contracts also include energy-efficient design, utility cost evaluation and review, and various regulatory compliance services. Specific project descriptions are set out by DASNY in work authorizations, which are issued under the terms of the contracts. The termination dates of the DASNY contracts vary; the latest of which is November 2026. Work authorized but not yet completed under this contract continues to be bound by the terms of the agreement beyond the termination date until completion of the projects. Genesys expects to continue to receive amendments from DASNY to the master contract extending the termination date under DASNY’s option to extend this contract term twice, one year at a time. DASNY may at any time terminate any of the contracts or suspend all projects for its convenience and without cause. DASNY has been a customer of Genesys since 1983.
Intellectual Property
The Willdan, Willdan Group, Inc., Willdan Engineering, Willdan Energy Company, Willdan Financial Services, and Willdan Energy Solutions names are service marks of the company, and it has obtained service marks for ‘E3’, ‘Willdan’, and its stylized ‘W’ logo. The company has also obtained federal service mark registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the ‘Willdan’ name and ‘Willdan Group, Inc.’ name. The name and logo of the company’s proprietary software, MuniMagic+SM, its California energy efficiency CEDA, as well as its proprietary platform as a service VIEWPOINT are also registered marks, and the company has registered a federal copyright for the source code for the MuniMagic+SM software. In connection with the company’s acquisitions, it has obtained the trademark for its ‘LoadSEER’ software, has obtained the patent for ‘Optimization of Microgrid Energy Use and Distribution’, has obtained the service marks for the Enerpath, Enerworks, and Lime/Green Dial Design, and has obtained the registered copyright of Lime, Lime Energy, and Main Street Efficiency, NEO, Net Energy Optimizer, Collaboration Analysis Research, and several Weidt Group designs.
History
Willdan Group, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was founded in 1964. The company was incorporated in 2006.
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