Business View Magazine | December 2018

280 281 ARCENEAUXWILSON COLE LLC tionally recognized firms to provide the assistance and innovation needed, typ- ically with regard to large master plan- ning for drainage or water and wastewa- ter systems that are labor intensive and require a lot of analysis, data collection, things of that nature.” When it comes to government projects in the State of Texas, firms are not legal- ly allowed to bid against each other for professional services contracts. Instead, companies are selected by their qualifi- cations.When a project comes up, AWC and other interested parties respond to a Request for Qualification (RFQ) and most clients have a panel of employees that review all submissions and then rank the firms and select from that list. The chosen company then negotiates a price, afterwards. AWC has been doing much work in the Houston/Galveston area and looks forward to, potentially, having a remote office there that would allow a better response time to clients requiring AWC’s services. AWC is already an active part of the local business community. Company Marketing Director, Darcy Henry, has had positive results meeting with city and county representatives in an effort to expand market operations in that region. “Regard- ing the competition,” Henry explains, “our sister company, Wild & Associates, gives us an edge over other smaller engineering firms, and our award-winning projects give us the notoriety in the area that the others don’t have.” Arceneaux adds, “Our sister company is an environmental engineering firm located in Hous- ton.We want to expand that operation to include as much civil-type engineering work as we can accommodate. They have made great strides – the principals are well recognized in their field and have worked in that market for many years. So, even though it was a start-up company, they hit the ground running with a good backlog of work that they’re continuing to build on.We also look outside the area to be involved in things like the Texas Municipal League (an organization of elected representatives from county, city, and municipal governments).We always try to attend those annual conferences to identify the decision makers, and to make a good impression with those folks, so they’ll remember us whenever we submit a qualification statement.” AWC has had several inquiries this year from their marketing efforts at industry events. Though, Arceneaux admits, it’s a slow process to develop when you’re seen as an “outsider” in the Houston market. It is especially hard to break into because there are so many capable firms there already.