AECOM (, ; formerly AECOM Technology Corporation, and stylised AΞCOM) is a multinational infrastructure consulting firm.
AECOM has approximately 51,000 employees, and is number 157 on the 2019 Fortune 500 list.
The company's official name from 1990 to 2015 was AECOM Technology Corporation, and is now AECOM. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol ACM and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol E6Z.
In August 2021, AECOM announced plans to relocate its global headquarters from Los Angeles, California to Dallas, Texas.
History
AECOM traces its origins to Kentucky-based Ashland Oil & Refining Company, which in turn grew out of Swiss Drilling Company, founded in Oklahoma in 1910 by J. Fred Miles. He gained control of some 200,000 acres and formed Swiss Oil Company in Lexington. In 1924, Miles launched a refining operation called Ashland Refining Company, headed by Paul Blazer. While the parent company struggled, leading to the ouster of Miles, Ashland prospered under Blazer's leadership, and in 1936, he was named chief executive officer of the reorganized company, Ashland Oil & Refining Company. In 1966, Ashland acquired Warren Brothers and became involved in highway construction and construction materials. The company was able to take advantage of refinery byproducts to produce asphalt. Ashland grew into one of the nation's major road-construction firms, and laid a foundation for AECOM. Through a series of acquisitions and technological developments, Ashland grew to include chemical, petrochemical, highway construction, and construction materials firms within its realm, laying the groundwork for a management buyout of Ashland Technology in 1985.
In the 1970s, Ashland Oil & Refining became Ashland Oil, Inc. Five years later the company consolidated its construction assets into a construction division and also formed a coal subsidiary, indicative of a changing focus at Ashland. Although it generated more than $1 billion a year in sales, Ashland was a small player in the oil industry at a time when the cost of exploration was prohibitively expensive. By 1980, Ashland sold its production assets, and a year later was reorganized as a modified holding company. A new corporate strategy was implemented as Ashland now focused on refining and marketing and sought to grow its non-refining businesses. In 1984, Ashland acquired Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall (DMJM), a global provider of transportation-related engineering services. Originally focused on military projects, after World War II it had become one of the first integrated engineering and architectural firms in the western United States. The acquisition of DMJM also included its president, Richard G. Newman. In 1985, DMJM became part of a new subsidiary, Ashland Technology Corporation. Two years later Newman was named its new chief executive and president.
When Ashland chose to return to its core petroleum refining business in the late 1980s, Newman recommended an employee buyback proposal, resulting in the spin-off of Ashland Technology and the creation of AECOM (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations, and Management) in 1990. The company went on to acquire a number of engineering, design and planning firms including engineering company Maunsell, urbanism and sustainability practice EDAW, Economic Research Associates (ERA), environmental management firm ENSR and The RETEC Group Inc., architects Ellerbe Becket and Davis Langdon, the quantity surveyors and construction consultants.
In 2000, AECOM acquired Metcalf and Eddy, a water and wastewater engineering firm based in Massachusetts, and in September, 2004 it acquired the Canadian company, UMA Engineering Ltd.