Kleinfelder Relocates Professional Services Office to Hacienda

Company's Local Projects include Work for PUSD, Zone 7 Water Agency, BART

Kleinfelder, a company that specializes in planning, engineering, scientific, technical, and management solutions, has moved into new offices in Hacienda. After a 15-year presence in a smaller business park at the southern end of Pleasanton, the nationally known professional services firm recently realigned its space for a better fit. Its construction materials testing lab has been centralized with all other Bay Area testing functions in Hayward, and approximately 30 professional services employees settled into a 15,000 square foot suite at 4670 Willow Road in May.

Headquartered in San Diego, today's Kleinfelder is substantially different from the concrete testing outfit founder Jim Kleinfelder established as Stockton Test Labs in 1961. Several expansions, mergers, and acquisitions in the late 1990s helped to build a national presence and knowledge base in three primary areas - water, energy, and transportation - with clients in commercial, industrial, government, and institutional markets. The company now has almost 2,000 employees in 65 offices in 23 states.

The Pleasanton office's portfolio includes several projects for local school districts, consulting for the Zone 7 flood control district, the 580 overpass at Fallon Road, and a substantial amount of design work for BART. The Oakland office is participating in the Hunters Point clean-up and the San Pablo Dam seismic retrofit.

In its search for new quarters, Kleinfelder found that Hacienda offered many advantages that aligned with its corporate vision. "We wanted to keep our engineering, marketing, and administration staff here in the Tri-Valley. The high quality of the schools always helps to attract the best people," remarks regional manager Kris Johnson.

Proximity to BART was another top consideration, and Johnson cites a recent example highlighting the wisdom of the decision. Last month, John Moosazadeh, the division manager based in San Diego, paid a visit to the new Hacienda office. To simplify his travel, he flew into Oakland, took BART out to Pleasanton, and walked over to 4670 Willow Road. After meetings, he walked back to his hotel, also in the park, and then on to dinner. He returned to San Diego the next day, all without having to worry about a parking space. According to Johnson, Moosazadeh "loved not having to deal with any of the issues associated with renting or driving a car."

Johnson expects that kind of story to become more common at Kleinfelder. "We are currently looking to position our offices close to mass transit throughout the company," he relates, adding that most of the region's potential new hires consider proximity to BART one of top criteria in selecting a new employer. "We find this not only in our own business model, but in all the transit villages sprouting up around BART throughout the Bay Area, from San Carlos to Pleasanton/Dublin to Oakland and Walnut Creek."

In addition to easy access to mass transit, hotels, and restaurants, the firm also appreciates being close to many professionals in the wider engineering community. "Having our peers nearby makes Hacienda very attractive to us, in addition to the good values currently present in the marketplace," Johnson notes.

For more information about the company's engineering prowess, visit www.kleinfelder.com.

Photo: Kleinfelder's Hacienda staff.

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