How it started
History
In 1917, the Henningson Engineering Company started as a civil engineering firm in Omaha, where HDR's headquarters remain. Willard Richardson and Charles W. "Chuck" Durham joined the firm in 1939 as interns. Circa 1950, Richardson and Durham purchased shares in the firm, which then became known as Henningson, Durham, and Richardson, Inc.
The company's first project was designing a power station for the city of Ogallala, Nebraska. Similar projects followed as the firm built water, sewer, electric, and road systems for cities and towns throughout the Midwestern United States, emerging from frontier status.
In 1983, Bouygues SA, France's largest construction company, purchased HDR for $60 million. An employee group bought back HDR in 1996 for $55 million. The company has since grown from 1,100 employees to over 12,000.
From Wikipedia’s article on HDR, Inc., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2