H2R Corp. purchases Gannett Flemings Florida-based drilling operations

Pinellas Park, Fla. — Florida-based Small Business Enterprise H2R Corp purchased Gannett Fleming’s drilling equipment, foundation quality assurance technology, and laboratory facilities in Florida. H2R is headed by two former Gannett Fleming employees, Dan Hart, MBA, PE, DBIA, and Dave Rancman, PE. H2R is headquartered in Pinellas Park, and has offices in Pompano Beach and Orlando.

All 24 employees from Gannett Fleming’s drilling, subsurface exploration, and geotechnical testing operations are now H2R employees. No personnel were displaced as a result of this acquisition.

Gannett Fleming, a 60-year resident of Florida’s business community and a national expert in engineering and infrastructure solutions, has formed a strategic partnership with H2R, enabling our companies to team on projects when specialized drilling and testing are needed. “We have full confidence in H2R’s leadership; they’ve successfully delivered for us on many projects in the past and we know they will continue to do so in the future,” stated Paul Nowicki, PE, an executive vice president and the Southeast Region director of Gannett Fleming.

Gannett Fleming currently has 120 employees in six key offices in Florida: Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Tallahassee, Tampa, and West Palm Beach. This transition from the drilling and geotechnical testing market enables the firm to invest in its core business and advance its strategic growth plans for Florida.

By the end of 2017, Gannett Fleming plans to increase staff by 20 percent including highway, bridge, water, wastewater, dams and hydraulics, geotechnical, and construction/program management engineers along with transportation planners and modelers, and environmental compliance/remediation professionals. This will enable Gannett Fleming to partner with public and private sector clients to meet the present and future infrastructure demands in Florida.

Gannett Fleming’s Florida operations has had a role in developing and improving some of Florida’s most challenging and significant infrastructure improvements, such as the C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir, Tampa Bay’s Regional Transportation Analysis and Long Range Plan, Design-Build for Electronic Tolling on the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, Risk Mapping Assessment and Planning Production in Orange County, Runway Extension of the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, a 20-inch water main in Florida’s largest community-owned utility, and Florida’s Petroleum Restoration Program covering 50 sites across the state.

Assignments underway include two projects for the Florida Turnpike Enterprise’s Homestead Extension: the design-build delivery from north of Sunset Drive to north of Bird Road, and the new trumpet interchange at NW 74th Street, both in Miami. Other key transportation infrastructure improvements in progress include the SR 836 Extension design-build project from NW 107th Avenue to NW 117th Avenue in Miami, and the widening, reconstruction and extension of NW 74th street to a six-lane divided arterial in Doral, Florida.

The firm is providing Type II Independent External Peer Review (IEPR) and Safety Assurance Review engineering services for the South Florida Water Management District, IEPR on multiple dams and levees for the Army Corps of Engineers.