Parsons Brinckerhoff reaches milestone

New York, US-based engineering company Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) is celebrating its 125^th birthday.

Among the projects the company has contributed to are the first mass transit systems for New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Taipei and Singapore. PB's service to the New York City subway system has spanned its entire 125-year history - from when it opened in 1904, to the current extension of the No. 7 line and the new Second Avenue Subway.

Meanwhile, one of PB's earliest bridge projects was the railway bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, in Bourne Massachusetts, which was the longest vertical lift bridge in the world when it opened in 1935. The company also helped design cable-stayed bridges in Owensboro, Kentucky; Charleston in South Carolina and Bangkok, Thailand.

The 1.6 km Detroit-Windsor Tunnel connecting Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, which opened in 1930, was also designed by PB. At the time it was only the third under water road tunnel in the US and served as a model for more than a dozen immersed-tube tunnels to which PB has contributed.

Today, PB is a consultant and construction manager with 14000 employees in 150 offices on six continents.

Current PB projects include the Medupi Power Station in South Africa, the Chicago O'Hare International Airport Modernisation Programme and the Building Schools for the Future programme in Newcastle, UK.

In January this year the company appointed George J. Pierson as chief executive and began its first full year of operation as a wholly-owned subsidiary of UK-based Balfour Beatty.