Industry Interview: Joseph Sczurko New U.S. Region President of WSP

In November 2024, Todd Danielson, Informed Infrastructure’s editorial director, interviewed Joseph Sczurko, WSP U.S. region president, via webcam. They discussed in detail WSP’s acquisitions strategy and why mergers and acquisitions are such an important element in the engineering industry.

The full video interview can be viewed above or at bit.ly/3OSLhFQ.

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Danielson: Please briefly summarize your education and professional background.

Sczurko: My background is as a civil and environmental engineer. I started in this industry in the mid-1980s when, frankly, it was a very different industry than it is today. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a 38-year career in an industry which is really contributing to the mission and fabric of our country. We’re a major economic driver. We’re a business that works at the grassroots level with so many communities to improve the natural and built environment. And I’ve really enjoyed the career progression that I’ve had, starting as a graduate engineer all the way up through project-management assignments, operational assignments, business-development assignments, strategy assignments. And since April of 2024, the incredible opportunity to lead the WSP business as president of WSP in the U.S.

Danielson: How do you feel you’ve settled into the new role, and what are some of the highlights, perhaps any difficulties expected or otherwise?

Sczurko: Prior to being named president, I was running WSP’s Earth and Environment business [since September 2022], when my predecessor announced his retirement. Naturally, WSP went through a process of internal and external search. And I did put my hand up, because I really felt like the potential of this company, its mission, its vision, its contribution, and the people were incredibly strong, and I wanted to be part of it. And I really felt I could help take it to the next level over the next three to five years with our 2025 through 2027 strategic plan about to be rolled out. So I put my hand up, went through a process, and thankfully was chosen.

I dove right in in terms of looking at the business through our client lens, where we were performing for clients, the nature of work opportunities, what I saw were growth opportunities. I looked at it through the lens of obviously our financial performance, our growth, where I think we have more opportunities to expand the business going forward, grow, provide more opportunities to our people.

And then I’ve looked at the business through our people and culture lens in the past six months, really trying to understand what is it that makes us a unique employer in our space. I think over the last seven, eight months now, we’ve made real progress as a collective team in the United States, polishing that message, coming forward with a better employee-value proposition, developing our strategy, which we’re going to unveil in the first quarter of next year.

Danielson: Can you talk at all about some of the plans for 2025 and beyond?

Sczurko: As a significant corporation, we do strategic planning almost on a continual basis, and we certainly do financial planning on a continual basis. So it’s not so much an event or one marker in time, it’s a continual thing, particularly given the size and complexity of our business. Not only do we do that within the United States, but we do that together with our global colleagues, other regions also supported by the group level.

That strategic-planning process, first and foremost, starts with what are those macro trends, those secular drivers, those things that we can really point to that are going to be fuel for future growth.

Where is the money going to be spent? What are the particular market sectors, geographies, industries and opportunities that WSP can really be differentiated? A key part of our forward-looking strategy was enacted when we closed on the POWER Engineers acquisition in September of this year—our recognition for several years now that we could do more in power and energy.

We also think we have room to grow our business with the U.S. federal government and the different clients on the Department of Defense side as well as civilian agencies. In environmental [engineering], we, as a society in the United States, have chosen to have a quality of life where protection of human health and the environment is very important. And that’s manifested itself in a number of environmental legislations related to water, air, hazardous waste, the NEPA planning process for capital projects and major investments by using federal dollars. That’s also going to be a big part of our work going forward. In property and buildings, I’m very excited about our position and our work with some of the larger data-center developer clients and all the unique needs around data centers being the physical structure, mechanical, electrical piping. And now with the acquisition of POWER, we have a unique differentiation where we can help those clients look at how they’re going to electrify.

Danielson: Could you describe WSP’s acquisition process and how it maintains the corporate culture as well as what engineers can learn or expect from the process?

Sczurko: The first thing we look at, from a strategic level, is the flow of money. What are future client demands, what industry sectors are being affected, what is it that’s going to be driving the flow of funds and investment? Is it just general economic conditions, particular regulations, particular geographies, particular investments by blocks of companies, blocks of industry sectors or something that in the case of infrastructure investment is a general trend that’s going to result in a spend in a particular area.

Secondly, we’re very self-evaluative about our current capability in a particular area. We try to be humble. We try not to be arrogant. We try to really understand how strong and differentiated and capable our services are. That helps us understand whether in a particular growth area we really have the skillsets, the capabilities and competencies to grow organically with some additional investments or whether an acquisitive play can best position us to really capitalize on the full market opportunity. That takes a lot of self-evaluation, self-assessment and candid discussion as well as a good understanding of the capacity we have from a financial standpoint, because not only is there investment to make an acquisition, the integration piece is crucial.

The third thing we look at, and probably this is the first arena that can potentially be a stop point, is the people and culture fit. So even if an acquisition target fits from a market standpoint, even if they really augment our capability and could take us to the next level, we don’t feel we are at a stage to really get aggressive in the acquisition process for that particular target unless we do our due diligence and our discussions around do we share a similar set of values? Do we share cultural alignment? Do we really feel like their people will be a good fit with our people, with our culture, with what we’ve set forward for a value structure within WSP? It ultimately becomes the key decision box, even ahead of doing the deal from a financial standpoint or capability standpoint.

We don’t run differently branded franchises (businesses) at WSP; we run an integrated company. To do that, we have to take the best of what an acquired firm does and have them bring that into WSP. And we have to take the best of what WSP does and offer that to the acquired firm. We want entities that want to collaborate with us, come into the WSP fold to share some of the best practices and processes and things they do, and are willing to bring elements of their culture to our culture and bring that blend together.

Danielson: Are there some tips for companies looking to be acquired that might make them more attractive to WSP [or other larger firms]?

Sczurko: First and foremost, any capital structure can work in our industry. I fully respect companies that have an ESOP. In the last five years, there’s been the uptick of companies that are private-equity backed and might go through different private-equity transitions over a company history. And then there are several companies like WSP that might be large, publicly traded companies; and there are some large, great competitors to WSP that are still privately held. Any one of those structures can work, so I won’t be forward in saying this should be the end journey of your company, and it should look like this.

There are opportunities that larger companies can provide people at different stages in their career, provided those companies first and foremost are client focused. I don’t think anybody wants to have organizations that don’t do a great job for their clients, don’t have client relationships that can be sustained over the course of many years. We want successful organizations, and I don’t mean just from the standpoint of financial performance. We want partners that have people with long tenures in those organizations, who have good career-development paths, who have been successful in servicing clients.

Organizations see the potential in coming into WSP that they can’t realize on their own. For some corporations, it might be working domestically in the United States—we’re 20,000 people in the United States, but we’re 70,000-plus people globally. Some of our people from the United States are fortunate to take assignments that are in Australia or Latin America or, at the very least, work with colleagues in different parts across the world. Those kinds of opportunities may not be open to organizations operating at a smaller scale.

When you’re in a smaller organization, you’re probably a little more specialized, and you’re probably working within particular end-market sectors. You might be a business that’s just working with, or largely working with, state agencies in transportation or, perhaps like POWER Engineers, the bulk of your work is with investor-owned utilities or power developers in the power end markets. As a diversified, large engineering company, we can provide an opportunity for people in those organizations to get exposure and work with clients in those other end-market sectors. And that generates some really unique solutions.

Danielson: As an outside observer, it seems acquisitions are a large part of the engineering business, and I don’t see that in too many other fields. Why do you think it’s such an important part of the engineering business?

Sczurko: Engineering is a business that has pretty low barriers to entry. You have the opportunity as a professional in this business, based on client relationships, to be at the startup level of an engineering business and consulting business, or perhaps take over the business from a colleague or perhaps team with a colleague to progress through the business and operate. But it’s very local in how we deliver.

A lot of those client relationships start with a relationship to a local agency, a local transportation agency, a local water agency, a local private-sector client. As a result, historically it’s been an unconsolidated and very diverse business. As things have become more complex to deliver projects to clients, as clients have wanted more “one-stop shop” to solve their different problems, you’re seeing companies come together and say, “if we added your capability with my capability, we could do something bigger for our client base. If we added your capability in that city across the state together with our capability in this portion of the state, now we have broader coverage across the state.”

I think consolidation has happened because local businesses have the opportunity to grow up in their offerings to clients and across geographies. And it’s only natural that at larger-scale providers, consulting engineers can take on more for their clients, they can do more-complex projects, they can offer more services.

Talking to my peers and colleagues, there’s tremendous amount of momentum behind this industry. We’ve attracted a lot of professionals and not just engineers. All our businesses are filled now with community-involvement specialists with scientists that weren’t in this business 10 or 20 years ago that now make important contributions to what we do.

We frequently team with a lot of firms, and oftentimes those grassroots communications and relationships ultimately become discussions and mature into talk about mergers and acquisitions. And those, frankly, are the best ones that happen through teaming relationships, seeing the people and culture through enjoying working with each other.

One of the first things I like to explore is where we work together. Where have we been successful together? Where was it that we took what you do, what you’ve really done exceptionally well, even as a small company, better than our big 20,000-person team? Where can we jointly work together? I’m always interested in partnering, collaborating with other firms of various sizes and scale to find out not only how we can work together more in other projects and perhaps in acquisitive setting, but also how we can do more for the public, how we can do for stakeholders.
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