When the Red River Valley gets flooded with water, Fargo-based Houston Engineering Inc. gets flooded with work.

That’s one reason the 42-year-old, full-service engineering consulting firm has experienced continued growth when other businesses are struggling to survive the current economic downturn.

Houston Engineering, founded in 1969 by George Houston as a civil engineering consulting and surveying firm, employs 100 people who serve private and public clients in 14 states.

The company also has North Dakota offices in Bismarck and Minot and Minnesota locations in Barnesville, Thief River Falls and Minneapolis.

"Our main focus is water resources,” said Houston Engineering President and CEO Jeff LeDoux, a 1981 North Dakota State University civil engineering graduate who joined the company in 1988.

HEI is also heavily involved in municipal and transportation engineering, surveying, waste management, land and site development, environmental consulting on water quality, wetlands, hazardous waste and landfills, and Geographic Information System and Web development.

"Fargo-Moorhead flood reduction was one of our biggest efforts during the last year,” LeDoux said.

It started with HEI employees working around the clock helping the National Weather Service accurately predict movement of the Red River and eventually its record 40.82 foot crest on March 28, 2009.

HEI continues to work with Fargo-Moorhead city and county officials, and state and federal agencies – including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – to study the Red River and its tributaries in an effort to help secure permanent flood protection.

The company provides engineering services to several northwestern Minnesota watershed districts.

After Browns Valley, Minn., was flooded in 2007, HEI was hired to design a $7 million flood mitigation project to divert the Little Minnesota River around the city.

"They were phenomenal. They helped us through the entire process,” said Diane Radermacher, administrator for the Upper Minnesota River Watershed District, the agency that hired HEI to design the project.

As a result, the city of 650 now has a diversion with a control structure that regulates the amount of water flowing into the city, Radermacher said.

"Houston Engineering did a wonderful job for us” in helping consult with multiple state, federal and county agencies to secure funding for the project, said Browns Valley Mayor Jeff Backer.

"One of the things that impressed the Corps of Engineers was how detailed their (Houston Engineering’s) permit application was,” Backer said.

Managed growth

Houston, a 1964 North Dakota State University civil engineering graduate, expanded and incorporated the business in 1972 with partners Robert Muscha and Henry Trangsrud.

The company built a 5,760-square-foot headquarters at 1213 19th Ave. N. in Fargo, in 1974, then employing 29 people.

Last February, HEI moved into its new 20,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at 1401 21st Ave. N. in Fargo.

About 50 engineers, scientists, surveyors, computer-assisted drafting technicians, and accounting and general office staff work there.

"We had people and equipment in five different buildings,” LeDoux said. "We wanted to get them all under one roof again.”

From his work pod, Nick Pribula designs street and utility installations for a new project north of Hector International Airport in Fargo.

Pribula, a 2004 NDSU engineering graduate, has been employed by HEI for five years.

Nearby, civil engineer Greg Thompson, a six-year employee, is busy designing farmstead ring dikes for about 75 projects in Minnesota and North Dakota, and diversion models for the Corps of Engineers to analyze downstream flooding impacts on the Red River.

"We run about six survey crews during summertime,” said LeDoux, and two to three crews during winter months.

HEI typically hires 10 to 12 engineering students each year as summer employees.

"We work them up until they are seniors. If we get an opportunity to hire them, we do that,” LeDoux said.

The company has averaged about 7 percent yearly growth during its 42 years, he said.

"We have a growth goal. We don’t want to grow too fast,” he said. "We’re very selective with who we hire.”

Readers can reach Forum Business Editor Craig McEwen at (701) 241-5502