Insights from an Acquired Team | Main Line Energy Consultants
Throughout the years, Westwood has completed multiple acquisitions. All have been in collaboration with the firm’s owners and focused on delivering positive outcomes for employees, clients, and our combined businesses.
About Main Line Energy Consultants
Main Line Energy Consultants, LLC (MLEC) was founded in 2011 by Estes Parker, Dan Baggiani, and Christian Sorensen. Headquartered in Landsdale, Pennsylvania, MLEC was a multidiscipline engineering firm providing transmission, distribution, and telecommunication design and consulting services for electric utilities, private wind, and solar power developers.
The team was quick to build client respect and recognition as one of the fastest-growing firms in the Philadelphia metropolitan area by focusing on building utility client relationships and consciously hiring industry experts.
Market and Service Diversification for the Win
With strong annual growth and numerous high-profile projects completed, MLEC was approached by strategic acquirers multiple times. The team declined to engage until a unique opportunity presented itself.
A third-party advisor introduced MLEC to Westwood. The initial introduction revealed Westwood’s strong cultural alignment and a similar high growth trajectory. A critical differentiator of Westwood was the diversity of the markets and services available to clients. Diversification afforded the MLEC team further growth and stability.
Westwood presented a strong roadmap for diligence and integration, focusing on employee welfare, client support, and satisfaction. For MLEC, providing a positive environment for staff to be nurtured and flourish post-transaction was very important. Westwood exceeded MLEC’s expectations, and they were officially acquired in 2019.
Strategic Planning: The Establishment of a Substation Team
During the due diligence phase of the acquisition process, Westwood and MLEC leadership teams began forming their combined strategic plan. The strategy blended the existing growth plans for the two firms. Each team had strong ties to utility clients and the renewable energy sector pertaining to electrical engineering and survey service groups. Moving forward, the two organizations focused on determining a new growth model to expand service offerings for the specific client and project base.
Additionally, MLEC had been setting the groundwork to grow a substation service department organically. Building this service group independently would have been a challenge for MLEC. Leveraging Westwood’s robust recruiting and human resources staff and national office presence allowed for a complete substation team to be established shortly after the close of the acquisition.
Future Success for the Substation Team
Westwood’s Power and Renewable divisions are actively supported by substation service teams. The growth in this area helped establish three new office locations and allowed Westwood to better serve clients. Today, the team is 51 employees strong across nine Westwood offices. They look forward to continued growth to support more clients and projects nationwide.
