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Subsidiary of Richmond engineering firm opens office
in Romania
Virginia Business
March 2006
When companies think about
where to expand globally, Romania may not be the
first country that leaps to
mind. But that’s exactly where Froehling & Robertson
Inc. (F&R), a Richmond- based engineering firm,
is staking its international future. A newly formed
subsidiary, F&R Worldwide, recently opened an office
in Bucharest. Its goal is to help the former Soviet
Bloc country adapt its environmental practices to meet
the requirements of European Union membership.
"Romania is a rapidly developing country with
many similarities to Virginia, both in its natural
resources and the environmental challenges that it
faces," says Sam Proctor, CEO of F&R. He decided
to open the Bucharest office after going on a trade
mission to Eastern Europe with the Virginia Economic
Development Partnership.
Jeff Hudson, director of international
business for F&R, notes that the Bucharest office staff — made
up of Americans and Romanians — is already at
work on environmental impact assessments and site contamination
studies for the Romanian government. "We’ve
made some great strides over here with technology,
whether it’s remediation, exploration, investigation
or looking at environmental impact," Hudson explains. "They
can use that technology there, and we can bring it
to them."
But beyond this initial service,
Hudson and other F&R officials see a much greater role. Unlike F&R,
which specializes in engineering testing, F&R Worldwide
plans to create a niche as an engineering consulting
firm that manages large infrastructure projects. Hudson
says the goal is to provide project management services
and quality assurance/quality control consulting to
American and foreign companies that are building in
Romania. "We’d be their eyes and ears on
the ground, understanding the laws, the subcontractor
community, the culture and the regulations that they
need to comply with," he says.
By this fall, F&R Worldwide will have a staff
of about 10 employees, with an expectation of reaching
25 to 30 employees by the end of 2007. Most of the
employees will be Romanian, Hudson says, noting that
the country has many well-educated professionals who
until now haven’t had a lot of opportunity to
work in the engineering and environmental fields.
Ultimately F&R officials expect the Romania-based
business to excel and earn enough revenue to enable
the company to fund additional expansion, first in
Eastern Europe and then in other emerging markets. "We
think we’re in the right place, at the right
time, to make that happen," Hudson says.
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