Our History
Since 1980, Dudek has grown from a two-person, Southern California-focused engineering firm to a 700-person, national, multidisciplinary environmental, planning, engineering firm. Our history includes projects in all 50 states and Dudek is ranked as one of the Top 105 U.S. Environmental Firms (Engineering News-Record, 2022).
Frank Dudek, Founder
“From my 41 years as founder and leader at Dudek, I have three basic takeaways. First, experiencing tremendous satisfaction in helping build a successful, sustainable, and growing consulting firm throughout California—and now well beyond. Second, achieving an early goal I set for myself: to assemble such a diverse and competent management and professional staff that it renders its founder non-essential to the continued success of the firm. And third, accomplishing this with a simple management philosophy: to provide unwavering trust and support, along with meaningful rewards and opportunity for ownership, with minimal bureaucracy.”
Joe Monaco, President and CEO
“I joined Dudek in 2000. What I remember most clearly from those early days is a feeling of opportunity—but also, that we had a lot of work ahead of us to reach our aspirational goals! I never would have imagined back then that we would have achieved so much today: a nationwide presence, successful ownership and leadership transitions, a robust corporate culture that reflects our strong core values, and record financial growth. My feeling of opportunity has only grown as we have achieved great success by identifying and leveraging opportunities throughout the years. By doing so, we continue to create more and better opportunities to work on interesting projects, to develop our careers, to be an industry leader, and to have fun doing it!”
Dudek through the Decades
Dudek History
Dudek Founded
Dudek opens its doors in downtown Encinitas, California as a small civil engineering consulting practice working for municipal wastewater agencies and private land developers in San Diego County.
Construction Management Practice Started
The firm launches its construction management practice focused on Southern California developments and infrastructure.
District Management Practice Launched
The District Management practice is launched, widening the scope of services offered to our water district clients.
Environmental Practice Started
The Environmental practice is launched to help clients navigate projects through California’s complex environmental regulatory permitting and documentation processes.
Hydrogeology/Hazardous Waste Practice Launched
Dudek’s hydrogeology practice is launched to tackle projects requiring the extraction and treatment of contaminated groundwater/soils and recharge of water/treated wastewater.
Central Coast Expansion
Dudek opens its first regional office in Santa Barbara, expanding into California’s Central Coast, with a focus on local development and permitting.
Inland Empire Expansion
Dudek moves into Palm Desert, California to focus on civil engineering and habitat conservation planning throughout the vast and diverse Coachella Valley.
HRS Founded
HRS (Habitat Restoration Sciences), our habitat restoration construction subsidiary is founded, branching out from and complementing our habitat restoration design practice.
Northern California Expansion
Dudek moves into Northern California with an office in Auburn focused on preserving and planning for the Sierra foothills and surrounding regions.
Bay Area Expansion
The firm opens two Bay Area offices in Larkspur and San Francisco to service a diverse set of clients spread geographically around the Bay.
LA Metro Area Expansion
Dudek establishes Pasadena office, positioning the firm to service Los Angeles County clients on large infrastructure and planning projects.
Pacific Expansion
The firm goes west, expanding into Hawai’i to establish our aerial surveying practice (now Mapping and Surveying).
Northwest Expansion
Dudek adds a Portland office to serve as a base for the multifaceted needs of our Pacific Northwest clients.
Joe Monaco Named President
The firm transitions leadership for the first time with the appointment of Joe Monaco, AICP, who serves as President and CEO.
Eastern Expansion
Dudek crosses the nation, opening our first eastern office in Lake Worth Beach, Florida to service our renewable energy clients.
Dudek Celebrates 40th Anniversary
Dudek serves clients in every resource and infrastructure-related sector.
Our team consists of 15 major practice groups.
Our 600+ employees work in 16 offices nationwide.
Our projects span more than 40 states.
Mountain West Expansion
The firm opens an office in Denver, Colorado to further service clients in the Mountain West and beyond.
Eric Wilson Named Executive Vice President
Environmental Division Leader Eric Wilson is named Executive Vice President as part of a long-planned leadership succession process put in place to ensure the continuing viability and sustainability of the firm’s culture and growth strategy.