“We have a great thing going. Let’s build upon  it!”

BWSC is proud of its history, from its launch in 1955 to its broadening scope of capabilities and geographic reach in the 21st century. The company was established in Nashville by Dan Barge, Jr., William Waggoner, and Billy Sumner, three classmates at Vanderbilt University (Bill Cannon, who started with the firm in 1955, was added to the firm leadership in 1972, giving the firm its present name).

In 2005, as a way to mine some of the stories embedded in the firm's rich history, business historian Bill Carey was hired to write a history of BWSC's first 50 years. He was asked to take a look back at the firm's people and projects that make up its story. The result was a snapshot of how three men started a small engineering firm; how they kept it alive despite unforeseen challenges; how they got along; how they changed their business plan along the way because of changes in the marketplace and new laws; and how they changed the landscape and built environment everywhere the firm worked. The following is an excerpt from the book. We pick up the story where Dan Barge, Jr., Bill Waggoner, and Billy Sumner decide to start their own company. Dan was working for the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad (NC&StL); Bill had his own firm (Waggoner and Associates), and Billy was with another company finishing up design work for Nashville’s first central wastewater plant.

Click here for book excerpt.