Trenchless Technology Publisher’s Message: Honoring the Top 50 Trenchless Engineers
As I write the last publisher’s message for 2021, I can’t help but think about the top 25 NCAA Division 1 college football teams. While putting together my thoughts for this message, it is mid-November and the top four teams ranked at this time by the College Football Playoff Committee are (in order): Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State (another Ohio school, Cincinnati, comes in at No. 5). Being an Ohioan, I’d sure like to see both Ohio teams make it to the playoffs.
Georgia, Alabama, and Ohio State always seem to be in the mix each year, vying for a National Championship. Relating this to our industry, these schools remind me of Jacobs, Stantec and AECOM, which are always vying for the top spot for our annual Top 50 Trenchless Engineering Firms Survey. In actuality, there has been little change in the Top 10 trenchless firms ranking from year to year. This annual ranking is based on trenchless engineering dollars. If you did the ranking just based on the number of trenchless specialists employed by these firms, the order does change, which I will leave for you to take a look at in our special package of stories.
RELATED: The 2021 Top 50 Trenchless Engineering Firms in North America
This year’s survey results reveal some interesting findings, as we consistently tweak the information we ask for in an effort to make sure revenue figures and data submitted to us is as accurate as possible. Among the Top 50, total trenchless engineering dollars was $1.436 billion. This is a slight decrease from the Top 50 total a year ago and a 7.5 percent decrease over the past two years. However, there are some variables that may account for the dip, and we believe the trend for the market is stable. There also seems to be a ton of optimism among the engineers.
We send 38,000 copies of Trenchless Technology each month. Over the course of the year, the survey is one the top feature stories on trenchlesstechnology.com, averaging 15,000-plus visitors/month. The story is also the headline feature in Trenchless Technology Enewsletters that go out to 11,000-plus subscribed readers. Our staff also takes full advantage of our social media presence with more than 7,600 followers on our social media networks, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. That’s a lot of coverage!
I’d like to extend a shout out to Trenchless Technology contributing editor Andrew Farr, who spearheads this annual engineering survey, for all the effort and hours he puts into this project each year. Andrew is also the managing editor of Trenchless Technology’s sister publication, Water Finance & Management.
Christmas Season
As 2021 comes to a close, we should take the opportunity to be thankful for all the blessings we’ve had. Covid has put a damper on things again this year, but we are still here ready to take on the challenges and opportunities to be had in 2022. All of our staff here at Benjamin Media and Trenchless Technology wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a happy and successful new year.
Till we meet again in 2022,
Publisher