Over the past five years, Montreal-based engineering firm WSP has grown significantly through notable strategic acquisitions that have expanded its business lines and geographic footprint. Its purchase of John Wood Group plc’s environment and infrastructure business in 2022 and its acquisition of heavyweight TRC Cos. of the energy and power sector earlier this year indicate that there is considerable growth ahead.
The numbers prove the merits of these additions. For example, ENR’s 2026 Top 500 Design Firms ranking shows WSP’s total annual revenue more than doubling from $2.3 billion in 2022 to nearly $5.1 billion in 2025, ranking fourth overall.
In ENR’s Texas and Southeast region, WSP has climbed the charts, from reporting $542 million in regional revenue in 2021 to a total of $1.185 billion in 2025, securing the No. 2 spot in this year’s Top Design Firms regional ranking.
The acquisition of Wood Group and its approximately 6,000 employees was particularly impactful for the Southeast, significantly strengthening WSP’s footprint in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the time of the purchase, WSP chairman and CEO Alexandre L’Heureux said the move would “contribute to the achievement of our strategic ambitions while expanding our geographic reach and adding expertise in key sectors. This will create even more momentum as we prepare our cities and our environment.”
WSP’s extensive experience is manifesting itself in a wide range of projects, keeping the company more than busy. Their work includes raw water supply well systems and injection wells in an effort to provide alternative water sources to Polk County, Florida; providing weather guidance to the Georgia Department of Transportation; helping to create living shorelines in Apalachicola Bay; design and deliver a shore power system at PortMiami; and serving as lead designer on the Superior-Lane JV team that built Florida DOT’s $1 billion Westshore Interchange project.
To expand Concourse D at Hartsfield-Jackson, the project team is using 19 large-scale modules for the new structures.
Photo courtesy WSP
Stay warm in the southeast
Atlanta’s construction market keeps WSP increasingly active. Since 2019, the company has served as the general engineering consultant on the $1.25 billion I-285 to I-20 West Interchange project in Georgia, which began construction in 2025. The project will reconstruct and widen several interstate system-to-system ramps at the I-285/I-20 interchange and add the I-2085 interchange to northwest and other auxiliary lanes of I-2085. improvements
Chief among his current contracts in the Atlanta area, however, is his work leading the Atlanta Aviation Associates joint venture effort to deliver the $11.6 billion ATLNext program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. There, WSP performs numerous tasks including program/project management support, quality management, safety oversight, constructability reviews, and supplier diversity outreach, among others.
Within that program is the $1.4 billion expansion of ATL’s Concourse D, where WSP reports that the CM venture joint venture of Holder Construction Group, CD Moody Construction Co., Bryson Constructors and Sovereign Construction and Development is building a total of 19 modular building units and will move them more than 1 mile to 60-foot, 90-meter landings. extend its length 288 feet.
“Given the scale and visibility of the Concourse D project, WSP’s role goes well beyond traditional program management,” says Edmund Ramos, WSP’s vice president of aviation delivery and deputy program director for the project. “Our main contribution is helping the airport balance heavy construction with day-to-day operational demands.”
Regarding the extensive work in ATL and other major projects, Claudia M. Bilotto, WSP Southeast Region Executive based in Atlanta, says, “Part of leading a big job is that you have to be able to manage a big job and have the infrastructure to do it.
“We have a lot of very experienced project managers who have done great work before,” he continues, “but we also have the infrastructure to support them.”
The company’s ability to offer clients a wide variety of services is key, Bilotto adds.
“We have customers like Amazon where we can provide services from site location, due diligence and civil work to engineering the data center itself and installation,” he says. “Being able to offer a full suite of services to clients is a critical part of our growth strategy, and it’s been really effective.”
“Being able to offer a full suite of services to clients is a critical part of our growth strategy.”
—Claudia Bilotto, Southeast Regional Executive, WSP
Another prominent Atlanta project involving WSP is the Stitch, described as a “transformative civic infrastructure investment” that will create approximately 17 acres of community park space on a ¾-mile-long platform spanning the downtown connector between Ted Turner Drive and Piedmont Avenue, among other features.
While also noting WSP’s considerable environmental and resiliency work, Bittolo adds, “What I’m really excited about is the sheer breadth we cover in the Southeast. In that area of the country, we have some of the most exciting projects just because of the growth, and we’re also a company that’s able to participate in those projects in a lot of different ways.”
Work in the Sunshine State that is of particular note includes the estimated $1 million Westshore Interchange project, considered Tampa’s largest freeway construction contract. Joint venture partners Superior Construction and The Lane Construction Corp. hired WSP as the lead designer for the phased design-build (PDB) project, which will increase capacity in the general-use express and toll lanes and improve the east end of I-275 at the Howard Frankland Bridge, replace an existing loop ramp and build new direct connectors there from Tampa International Airport.
In the phased design-build approach, the joint venture team will work in partnership with FDOT to refine the design, with work packages incorporated into the project in phases as the design progresses. Through the PDB procurement, the first of its kind for a major transportation initiative in Florida, WSP will facilitate collaboration among stakeholders to produce innovation and design optimization.
In particular, WSP has a history of working with Superior Construction, including serving as the lead design firm on the $171 million, 2,111-foot-long John T. Brooks Bridge over the Santa Rosa Sound, currently under construction in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Evan Lawrence, Superior’s construction project manager, says that in addition to WSP’s excellent communication with the project team, their work on the Brooks Bridge has proven that “their problem-solving ability is second to none because they are such a great resource.”
“A lot of engineers understand what it looks like on paper, but they don’t know what it looks like in the field,” adds Lawrence. “WSP really really understands how we need to build. It’s a nicer approach where [both parties know] we’re going to have cost overruns, we’re going to have problems at work, but we’re going to work them out,” says Lawrence. “There’s never any finger-pointing.”
The Apalachicola Bay Living Shoreline/Franklin 98 project aims to strengthen the 6-mile stretch of Florida Highway 98.
Photo courtesy WSP
Attract, retain talent
Another notable acquisition took place last April, when WSP announced that Katus Watson had joined the company as director of US operations. With Jacobs for the previous eight years, Watson most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of that company’s Eastern Canada and United States region. As chief operating officer, Tampa-based Watson is responsible for overseeing operational performance.
Watson sees many opportunities for growth while addressing significant challenges. Despite noting the “high caliber of [WSP’s] The leadership and strength of his talent” in an interview with ENR, Watson said, “The opportunity to adopt a future-ready mindset, building the future, was one of the things that brought me to WSP.”
“The opportunity to adopt a future-ready mindset … was one of the things that brought me to WSP.”
—Katus Watson, Chief Operating Officer, WSP
While he acknowledges the constant demand for major improvements in all kinds of infrastructure systems as a “big problem that we have to solve,” Watson sees his new company as ready to meet the challenges.
“WSP is pretty well prepared to address all of these issues, whether it’s transportation, energy transition … data centers, environmental remediation, sustainability and defense,” he says. “We have the depth, talent and skills to help meet all of these challenges.”
To that end, WSP describes its Developing Professional Network (DPN) as a program where employees can be “surrounded by experienced mentors, participate in cutting-edge projects, and build a strong foundation for a successful career.”
Richard Sinz Lopez, a civil engineering consultant in WSP’s Atlanta office, says the DPN network offers him real opportunities.
“The DPN allows you to really see and find those opportunities if you look for them,” he says, adding that WSP’s size and scale make for a seamless transition into a new venture.
Sinz Lopez says that when she was looking for her first position after graduating college six years ago, “what really sold me was the structure and the career opportunities that were presented to me at the time that were so obvious.”
Since then, Sinz Lopez, after seeing what similar programs other companies offer, “I really realized that no other company has developed a network of young professionals as robust, well-organized and well-structured as the DPN.”
With WSP’s broad focus on solving today’s big infrastructure challenges, keeping your employees engaged like this can’t hurt.
