Engineer Greg Edmonds arrives at work Friday with the same team, same job and same mission.
The big difference is he isn’t the owner. He and his three partners sold Jacksonville-based Ellis & Associates Inc. on Thursday to Engineering Consulting Services of Chantilly, Va.
But the day-to-day remains the same.
“As I told my clients, it’s the same folks doing the same things we’ve been doing,” said Edmonds.
Ellis & Associates will continue to operate under its name, as a subsidiary of Engineering Consulting Services Ltd. and a member of the ECS Group of Companies.
Edmonds would not disclose the purchase price.
Ellis & Associates, established in 1970, specializes in geotechnical engineering, construction materials testing, environmental engineering, construction engineering and inspections and more.
It provides integrated engineering services support for land procurement throughout the development process.
It owns one of the largest fleets of drill rigs in the area and will deliver the equipment and personnel to complete a project, according to a news release.
Edmonds bought Ellis & Associates in 1988 and remains as president and CEO.
The company is based at 7064 Davis Creek Road in South Jacksonville and also has offices in Daytona and in Brunswick, Ga. It has 80 employees. Edmonds said everyone will continue in their current roles.
Edmonds and former shareholder Michael Lithman will serve as senior leaders of Ellis & Associates. Lithman will continue as executive vice president.
Former shareholders Joe Champion and Nick Oweis will continue as directors. Champion is director of construction engineering and inspection services. Oweis is chief engineer and director of construction materials testing and special inspection.
ECS was founded in 1988. The employee-owned engineering consulting firm has more than 1,300 employees and has grown to 50 locations and eight subsidiaries in the mid-Atlantic, Southern and Midwestern states.
Bill Prescott of Heritage Capital Group advised Ellis & Associates in the transaction.
“We will slowly mesh our systems together. We’ve been pretty dominant in our market all these years. That is what they understood, too. You don’t want to tinker with something that is not broken,” Edmonds said.
Edmonds, 66, said he would remain with the company for at least two years.
He said discussions with ESC began in earnest a year ago. “It was the best thing for the company and the group in terms of potential growth because of the synergy,” he said.
Edmonds said that engineering consulting companies grow in two ways –– they buy companies or grow internally by grooming and training people to set up in other markets.
Edmonds said ECS typically has grown organically, and that Ellis & Associates was one of its largest acquisitions.
He called the deal a “combination of a great cultural fit, a great market location for them, and they have tremendous growth potential.”
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