A doubling in world population. This is how Ralph Peterson sees the new era of environmental management. As President and CEO of CH2M HILL, one of the world's leading environmental engineering firms, it's his job to anticipate such shifts and then position his 7,000 employees to deliver the water, environmental, transportation, and industrial projects needed for the emerging 21st century. We are in the embryonic stages of this next generation of environmental management. Here at the starting line for this new era, however, many environmental consulting firms have consolidated, restructured, or folded.
Uncertainty fills the air.
Peterson likens his industry's anxious mood to that of Lewis and Clark in 1805, when they were poised on the banks of the Missouri River, eager to find safe passage across an uncharted Northern America. Peterson clearly believes he and his colleagues must forge ahead. He sees several forces shaping this engineering manifest destiny. These include globalization, privatization, a new era of business alliances and partnerships, and sustainable development practices. The winners in the new millennium will be the engineering firms that create core competencies in sustainable engineering.