PDC’s Palmer office featuring the new RESPEC brand.

hen you consider significant infrastructure in the State of Alaska, certain projects stand out, like Red Dog Mine development, Anchorage School District renovations, Juneau International Airport improvements, and rural hospital updates. Contained within each of those projects and countless others, you’ll find PDC Engineers’ involvement. For over 50 years, they’ve provided horizontal and vertical design solutions across Alaska for every market sector.

In May 2020, PDC Engineers took steps to offer even more services and voted to expand. They united with a company that has comparable longevity and specializes in mining, energy, water, natural resources, and data technology. PDC Engineers became a RESPEC company.

Since then, they’ve spread the word about their expanded services and products. They wanted their past, current, and future partners to know that they’re still here, just with a different name.

Come January 2022, PDC Engineers will make one final change. They will shed their old brand and fully become RESPEC. Their name and look might be different, but their local staff, offices, and know-how will remain.

Matt Emerson, the former president of PDC Engineers and now the Senior Vice President of Infrastructure, knew uniting with RESPEC meant his Alaskan clients would have more experts at their fingertips. Working with Todd Kenner, RESPEC’s CEO and President, he evaluated goals, markets, and teams. They understood the acquisition was a big decision, but Matt and Todd believed in the compatibility of their companies. The cultures aligned, and the acquisition advanced.

Over the past 18 months, a shared goal informed every step forward: blend their companies in a way that keeps all employees and all partners on board—and earn more. The approach to client-relations and business development that Alaskans have relied on hasn’t changed. The people you’ve known and trusted for years are still here, but you have access to other talented, vouched-for engineers, scientists, programmers, and developers.

Now that PDC Engineers and RESPEC have combined forces, Alaska businesses and endeavors stand to gain. You benefit from solutions that blend extra resources with hands-on experiences coming from more places. Alaska mines have already begun to see the benefits of partnering with RESPEC—from exploration and development to reclamation. Your projects also receive better insights, informed by more perspectives. Communities across Alaska, for example, will see how RESPEC addresses water quality issues with watershed models and easy-to-use apps that allow for viewing results, running scenarios, and seeing improvements in real-time.

RESPEC CEO Todd Kenner (LEFT) and Matt Emerson, former President of PDC and now senior VP of Infrastructure at RESPEC (RIGHT)

Supporters of RESPEC acquiring PDC Engineers exist outside their company too. Joy Huntington, President of Uqaqti Consulting, discovered that PDC Engineers and RESPEC “shared a high sense of responsibility to reach out and incorporate rural and Alaska Native voices.” Then there’s Dan Carow, a Leidos Project Manager for a National Science Foundation project. He noted that RESPEC combined with PDC Engineers “designs with a project’s lifecycle forefront…[and] brings the experience, wisdom, and talent—the ‘engineering mind’—that helped [them] meet [their] goals.” RESPEC is proving that it gets the job done for Alaska businesses too—just like PDC Engineers have done for more than half a century.

RESPEC’s presence in Alaska will ensure the horizontal and vertical designers that you’ve worked with for years will continue to transform your challenges into solutions. PDC Engineers’ name may fade after 2021, but their successes and partnerships with Alaskans will live on through RESPEC.