3 min read March 2023 — The future is in the infrastructure work for companies like T&M Associates as the State of New Jersey is going to receive $2 billion per year in the next six years to invest in roads, bridges, ports and more. “We are in a great spot for the next three to five years”, said Gary Dahms, President & CEO of the company.
What are the key highlights and milestones for your company over the last year?
Over the last 12 months, we exceeded both our growth and our profitability goals for the year and continue to get better and our trajectory is even steeper. One of the questions while going through COVID was how we were going to cope. The first and second years were fine, and the third was even better. I think some of the reasons were that we were moving toward a more technical type of environment with our workforce — meaning more flexible hours and a more accommodating work-life balance.
We learned a lot of lessons along the way. Coming out of that, we’re a much stronger company. We have pivoted quickly to rely more on technology. So, for example, coming out of COVID, for the first time in our history all four of our regional headquarters have been named best places to work, one in New Jersey, two in Pennsylvania and one in the Midwest. That truly speaks to the culture we have, which has been enhanced and matured coming out of COVID to be a great workplace. A lot of that is attributable to the work-life balance. It’s a real achievement.
What differentiates your company from others in the market?
One of the things that differentiate us from our competitors, particularly of a firm our size, is we have 10 practices. That’s a very diverse number of practices for a firm our size. We have five core practices, the larger practices and the more established practices — transportation, water resources, environmental, real estate development and municipal engineering.
We also have five smaller emerging practices, which are health and safety, automation and energy, construction management, natural hazards and MEP, which stands for mechanical, electrical, plumbing. So, the diversity of our practices in this market is a key differentiator.
Where do you see the biggest business opportunities?
There is a huge amount of infrastructure money coming out as a result of the federal Infrastructure Investment Jobs and Act. That money is directed to and is dedicated to infrastructure improvement, including water and sewer, roads and bridges, and energy and storm resiliency, which is part of our natural hazard practice. And our environmental practice is involved in all aspects. Also, there’s been an emphasis on environmental and social governance (ESG). We have a lot of clients in the public and private sectors that are required to have an ESG policy in place. That is a business model that speaks to environmental concerns, social concerns and good governance.
All those things combined put us in a very good spot. Our core practices are right at the forefront of all aspects of infrastructure, and many of our emerging practices are high growth and complementary to our core practices. They’re smaller, so they can grow faster and be involved in the infrastructure world. We’re seeing very good things both as a company and in the industry.
As it relates particularly to New Jersey and even more specifically to North Jersey, the state is going to receive $2 billion in federal funding each year for the next six years for infrastructure as a result of the $1.3 trillion in IIJA funds that the president authorized about a year ago. The annual budget in New Jersey is $50 billion, so that additional $2 billion a year dedicated to Jersey is 4% of the budget. It’s a huge economic boon to the North and Central parts of New Jersey.
How is your company navigating the current workforce shortage?
It has been a challenge, particularly in engineering. When technology took off and became the hot industry, a lot of the STEM students directed their careers to the tech industry to the detriment of the traditional engineering degree. That’s part of the challenge that we’re facing now. However, we are now seeing the tech industry starting to reduce its labor force and as students are going into college, they’re going to start to think more about the traditional engineering degrees. So, we’re going to see a rebound as has happened in the past. The younger generations have also put much more emphasis on the work environment and work-life balance. We use that as a technique for both attracting and retaining talent, and we have adopted a more flexible work schedule and hybrid office environment. It’s also worth noting that we launched the T&M Foundation in 2021 as a way not only of giving back to our communities, but also of investing in the next generation of talent. Last year we awarded our first of many STEM scholarships to a very talented and promising civil engineering student at Stevens Institute of Technology.
How are you leveraging technology to be more efficient?
The use and evolution of technology was accelerated by COVID. Before COVID, there was electronic design and programs that could do some of the more repetitive engineering calculations and drawings. We were already starting to move toward a paperless model. In the past, engineers would design and plot plans on large-scale sheets of paper. We were moving faster with technology to a paperless type of model where we could just submit the plans electronically. But many of our clients and our contractors were not keeping up with us. We still had to do the paper. COVID accelerated the use of virtual meetings, because you couldn’t meet in person anymore, which necessitated the transition to paperless initiatives. We’ve taken that and gone even further with that in terms of interactions among teams and offices. Technology continues to play a big part in making us a more paperless, efficient, and environmentally sound business.
What is your outlook for the region over the next three to five years?
The infrastructure in this country has been in terrible shape for decades. Much of the critical infrastructure; roads and bridges; water and sewer; transit; energy; ports, etc. were designed under different conditions and outdated design criteria. And most of it was built more than 50 years ago, which exceeds its useful lifespan.
We’ve exceeded the useful life of our critical infrastructure. This money is going to provide the opportunity to upgrade and/or replace our infrastructure and bring it up to current standards. The design and construction phase of this effort will be eight to 12 years, and provide improved infrastructure conditions for the next 50 years.
The other thing that’s going to happen is the increased demand on the port with Amazon and the monumental shift to increased online shopping. North Jersey has not only the busiest port in the country, but its infrastructure is also among the oldest in the state. We are going to continue to see growth in the real estate market in terms of warehouses and distribution centers in this region. For the overall North Jersey and Central Jersey State economy, the engineering and construction industries have a great opportunity.
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