DOWL Engineers opens office in Mat-Su

MAT-SU -- On the first floor of a Palmer building is a spacious office filled with drafting tables and rolls of designs, lined with windows looking out on a row of Colony-era houses. It's a small but meaningful sign that the Valley is coming into its own.

DOWL Engineers, an Anchorage-based engineering firm, recently opened a satellite office in the Scenic View building on South Chugach Street in Palmer.

It is not the first Anchorage business to open a Valley office, and with booming economic growth happening locally, it's likely it won't be the last.

Linda Hulteen, DOWL's Anchorage office manager, oversees the Palmer office. She said the move was a natural one for the company, which has recently been pursuing more contracts in the borough.

DOWL was recently selected by the city of Palmer to work on a renovation project on Felton Street, and has worked on a number of other private and public Valley projects, including the Wal-Mart expansion, Teeland Middle School and Houston High School.

"One of the primary reasons is we have a number of employees who either currently reside in the Valley or want to reside in the Valley," Hulteen said. "This allows us to retain those Valley employees, and it makes it a little easier for us to work on Valley projects."

Becoming a part of the community, Hulteen said, also gives the company a better feel for the needs of the area, and how the company can respond to those needs.

"For a lot of projects, it is better, and we probably do have more of a chance to be successful," Hulteen said. She added that it also makes it easier to respond to changes in the project or discuss aspects of it with the client, if travel time is reduced.

The need for an office became more visible, Hulteen said, over the past two summers.

DOWL was a subcontractor on the Glenn and Parks highways interchange project, she said, and the civil engineer and staff who worked on that project may have saved on travel time had they had a Valley office to work from.

Though an increasing portion of Anchorage's job market is filled by Valley residents, several other factors had to be in place before a Valley office could be feasible.

One of those factors, Hulteen said, was increased technological capabilities. Computers at DOWL's Palmer office are now networked with the Anchorage office, so employees working in Palmer can work remotely on the same projects their Anchorage colleagues are working on.

"It's important we maintain the connection with staff," Hulteen said. "It wouldn't be possible for us to do what we're doing if it weren't for the strides that have been made the last couple years in the information technology world."

DOWL, which employs more than 30 licensed engineers and around 150 full-time staff year-round in Alaska, also has satellite offices in Tucson, Ariz., and Redmond, Wash.

It was established in Anchorage in 1962 by Lewis E. Dickinson, a civil engineer, and Maurice P. Oswald, a land surveyor, and, as of a 1999 agreement reached through a partnership, 51 percent of the $21 million company is owned by NANA Development Corp.

The Palmer office currently has a staff of three, but Hulteen said that number will likely grow when the construction season amps up in the spring. And, if DOWL is successful in bidding on future contracts, it's possible the company may expand further. For now, she said, the company will concentrate on the current expansion.

"It's been fun -- it's an exciting change for DOWL," Hulteen said. "It's really exciting for the young people, out taking charge of DOWL's Palmer office -- and it's great they don't have to drive [to Anchorage]. It's safer."

Contact Rindi White at rindi.white@frontiersman.com.