Jot down a few iconic construction and engineering projects in Alabama and elsewhere, and you’ll most probably hit on one or two or more that involved Volkert, the Mobile engineering company, in a major way.
The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. Gulf State Park. Mobile’s I-10 Bayway bridge. Huntsville’s I-565. The APM Container Terminal at Choctaw Point. Birmingham’s I-20/59. All of these are projects that Volkert figured into prominently.
And that just scratches the surface. In fact, there’s at least one major project that Volkert led that came as a surprise to even the company’s employees — development of the Mobile Causeway in the 1920s. That revelation came during research for the company’s 100th anniversary, which is Feb. 4.
“For all that we knew about the company, we were looking at newspaper clippings and found out about projects like the spillway and the causeway that people in our company didn’t even know we had done,” says Steven James, vice president of marketing and communications. “That’s crazy, because half of us drive over the Mobile Causeway every day, and our office overlooks it, but really no one in our company knew we had designed it and built it until we saw it in a 1926 newspaper.”
That’s just one of the nuggets James found as he researched Volkert’s history for a book the company is publishing in conjunction with its centennial.
Founded in New Orleans in 1925 as Doullut & Ewin, the company opened an Alabama office in 1926 and, in 1946, was purchased by the Waterman Steamship Corp. and moved its headquarters to Mobile. David G. Volkert bought the company in 1954. Thomas Hand has been CEO since 2022.
All along, the company has forged its way in infrastructure, specializing in highways and bridges but tackling many different types of projects along the way.
The company evolved as different infrastructure challenges evolved, James says.
That began with the Great Flood of 1927, with the company’s efforts including flood-control projects in Louisiana.
World War II activity at the Port of Mobile led the company to projects such as the design and expansions of the Alabama State Docks. Likewise, the advent of the interstate system in the 1950s and 1960s led to the company’s massive highway-system projects, several of which, at the time they were built, were the largest construction projects to date in Alabama. More recently, disaster relief efforts have led to Volkert’s restoration work on the coast.
“The picture that came through to me is the company is responsive to the infrastructure needs of the country as those have evolved through time,” James says. “Whatever the particular infrastructure need in the country has been, the company has moved in that direction.”
And that has led to enormous growth.
When David Volkert took over the company, it had 14 employees, and that’s grown to be a company with 1,500 employees, James says. Employee-owned for 50 years, Volkert has 60 offices in 25 states. Hand is just the eighth CEO the company has had in 100 years.
Outside of Alabama, Volkert’s biggest presences are in Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Illinois and North Carolina, according to James.
Right now, Volkert is designing a rerouting of I-35, which runs through Austin, Texas. “They’re sinking the entire interstate into the ground and running streets and parks over it,” James says. “It’s one of the biggest projects in the history of Texas. The segment we’re working on is a $3 or $4 billion project.”
Like its other projects, Volkert is not doing any of the construction of the Texas project. Volkert’s role is to either design or monitor construction of the projects it is involved with, James says.
Volkert plans to market its centennial in a number of ways. There’s the book, “A Century of Integrity in Infrastructure,” as well as a company-wide party on Feb. 5 and a managers’ meeting in April that will mark the centennial. The company also will be making some monetary gifts, including to the University of South Alabama’s engineering and marine sciences programs.
It’s all to celebrate a company that has not been stagnant over the past century.
“It always has been nimble, adaptive and entrepreneurial,” James says. “Where there’s an opportunity to get involved in something that’s going on in infrastructure, we’re going to explore that.”
And that will probably lead to different focuses in future decades.
“I think in a hundred years, we could be a completely different type of company because we are a completely different kind of company than when we were founded 100 years ago,” James says. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Alec Harvey is executive editor of Business Alabama, working from the Birmingham office.
This article appears in the February 2025 issue of Business Alabama.
