Ep 1: You Must Be Doing Something Right!

In our inaugural episode of AEC Unscripted: M&A Edition, Jeff Adams, CPA, CM&AA, Director, M&A at Stambaugh Ness chats with Dan Huntington, Executive Vice President of the M&A Synergy Team at IMEG, a leading national engineering and design consulting firm. Dan discusses the secrets behind their impressive M&A growth, having grown from just 3 deals in 2018 to integrating 19 firms in just 28 months! He emphasizes the importance of cultural fit and building strong partnerships as key factors in their success.

You'll also learn about IMEG's vast network. With a national presence of over 2,800 employees and 90 offices, they consider a staggering 150 to 200 firms annually. This unique combination provides clients with both national expertise and the power of local connections. Whether you're interested in M&A insights or seeking a top-notch engineering and design firm, this episode has something for you.

Transcript

[Intro]: Welcome to AEC Unscripted: M&A Edition, your go-to podcast for unfiltered conversations and expert analysis, brought to you by Stambaugh Ness.

[Opening Credits]

Jeff Adams: Welcome to AEC Unscripted, everyone. I'm your host, Jeff Adams, the Director of Mergers and Acquisitions at Stambaugh Ness. I'm delighted to have joining us today for this premiere episode of AEC Unscripted, Dan Huntington, the Executive Vice President of the M&A Synergy Team at IMEG. IMEG is a 2,800-person national engineering and design consulting firm with approximately 90 offices across the country.

IMEG is ranked number 57 on ENR's top 500 Design Firms list in 2023. It is an employee-owned firm held by several individuals, but also every employee has ownership through an ESOP.

Dan, welcome to the podcast! How are you today?

Dan Huntington: Jeff, I'm great. It's good to be here. Thank you so much. This is a real honor to be attending this on behalf of IMEG.

Jeff Adams: Dan, the honor is all ours. We're so glad to have you here. I want to ask you, how was the weather? I know we had some major storms going across the Midwest. Tornadoes, a lot of devastation. How were things in your world?

Dan Huntington: Jeff, I seem to have a gift for traveling or on the road when the weather turns a little bit. Yeah, it sounds like my wife, our dogs, and our cat had a little bit of a rough go, but I was down in Greenville, South Carolina, and it was seven days and sunny

and absolutely beautiful. So, I had some nice weather, but unfortunately, life at home, I think I got a little bit of rain for about 48 straight hours.

Jeff Adams: When you say that, you made me think about what my wife always tells me. It seems like every time I'm out of town, something goes wrong at the house, something unusual, one-off type things. So, I'm sure that you probably heard a little bit about that over the weekend. But, I'm so glad to hear everything was okay with your family, though, I tell you. I'm just praying for everyone who was dealing with the devastation that those storms brought and some loss of life that happened. So, Yeah, I remember them.

But, Dan, you have a unique title. I have to tell you, I don't, the Executive Vice President of the M&A Synergy Team. What is that? Tell us about that.

Dan Huntington: Yeah. Jeff, it is an interesting title. IMEG is a building engineering and surveying firm, and we were really trying to capture what my group is trying to do. I lead our mergers and acquisitions group, and we thought the word synergy, though it's used a lot, would capture what we're trying to accomplish, which is how do we bring the best of both worlds together when our firm and another firm join together?

So that's my responsibility and the team's responsibility to figure out how to bring those worlds together in a way that people aren't drinking through a fire hose. And we're actually enjoying this process as we go through it because there's a reason we chose each other. And let's make sure we follow through on that.

Jeff Adams: Well, that's good to hear. Synergy is so important when you're looking at AEC firms and trying to merge two firms into one. And, speaking of which, you guys, you've acquired 19 firms over the past 28 months. You must be doing something right!

Dan Huntington: Jeff, we've been blessed. We've been absolutely blessed. We feel very fortunate. You know, we've been approached by a lot of firms over the course of a year. It varies between 150 to 200 firms that we'll get an introduction to. I can certainly go into why we're even interested in it. But at the end of the day, either the firms that we're put in touch with or ourselves, you kind of find out it's a little bit like dating to some degree. Is this a match, not a match, or a job interview? And you're filtering along the way to find out if we want to be in business together. At the end of the day, that's really what it amounts to. And so out of those 150 to 200 firms, it's probably only four, six, maybe eight firms in a given year that both sides, at the end of the day, are saying, yes, we want to be joined at the hip, for the next chapters of our firm's careers.

Jeff Adams: That's unbelievable. Just when you said 150 to 200 firms that you get introduced to every year, that's amazing. I mean, has it always been that way?

Dan Huntington: It hasn't. Our roots are strongly organic. For the longest time, we focused very heavily, almost exclusively on organic growth. And we would have the occasional acquisition. But then, Jeff, I tell you, 2008, 09, 10 came along. And for those that were in the industry, I think we all remember, you know, that great recession that happened, and it was the first time in our firm's history that it just ripped at our heart.

You know, we genuinely did every trick in the book. And still couldn't keep everyone that we wanted to keep. And, you know, I think the easy thing is to say, well, that's an external event beyond your control. And we just thought that was a really lousy response. We really felt like if we were management, we would have a responsibility to navigate through those things more successfully.

So we don't know what the next one is going to be. But we do know right now that we're pretty concentrated in the Midwest and the West. At the time this happened, and we were very concentrated in a couple of markets, and we thought, you know, I betcha if we were better diversified either geographically or by service line or by market, would probably weather these storms a whole lot better.

In fact, maybe even during the good times, we'd be able to take better advantage of that. So that's exactly what we did. And I'm kind of launching a little bit into why we even got into this. We allowed some firms to join us that we thought would be good matches, and that turned out really, really well. And then, we started to add it to our strategic growth plan.

And then in 2018, we formalized it and built an actual mergers and acquisitions team. That's about six of us to start with. And, you know, kind of took off from there.

Jeff Adams: Well, so, you know, when you talk about the 150 to 200 going back you up, just to me, you talk about 150 to 200. I mean, are they coming to you? How are you finding those? I know Stambaugh Ness has brought a few your way. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of firms over the past couple of years that you've been up closing on that we brought.

But how are you finding all these? How are you sourcing?

Dan Huntington: Well, you nailed it, Jeff. We have been really fortunate when a firm like yours, Stambaugh Ness, introduces us to a firm that they think we would be a good match. Generally, they they know our core values. They know how we're structured. They know what we're interested in. And that goes so far in helping to clear a lot of the hurdles.

So, about half of all the firms that join us come through a trusted advisor, from the seller making an introduction to us. The other half that joins us is really just part of our DNA. We ask our partners in the firm, well, you're located in Portland, Oregon, and you're extremely well-reputed for our structural engineering services. Who else is in Portland, do you know that's a really strong, maybe mechanical and electrical engineering consulting firm that you respect and want to be in business with or a survey firm or technology consulting firm? And so the other half comes through partners talking to other sellers just about where they're at in their succession planning or where they're at and their strategic goals and whether they might want to have a conversation with IMEG and see if we might be stronger together than apart.

Jeff Adams: Yeah. You know, I hear that word opportunistic, thrown out there from time to time, you know, and being an opportunistic buyer and, you know, opportunistic can mean two different things, really. I mean, on one hand, it can be, where you see a distressed firm maybe out there that's just not doing well. And you think you can get them for, pennies on the dollar?

That's one type of opportunistic, but the other type is more about what you guys are doing. And the more appropriate way, in my opinion, where you're out there being strategic, you know, what you're about, you know what you're looking for, and you're being opportunistic when these opportunities come along that are in your geographical area that you're you're trying to maybe grow more into or offer services that you're trying to add on.

Right?

Dan Huntington: I fully agree, Jeff. You know, the vast majority of the firms that join us and that we feel are a good match are due to strategic needs. We will have clients that say, we would love you to have a strong East Coast presence. In fact, more specifically, we'd love it to be commissioning, energy services, or surveying.

And so our clients are asking us to be in more locations and be full service and be that convenient. Our staff love it because they love being that easy button for their clients to be able to say, we have a great group in Jacksonville, Florida, that I think you're going to really enjoy working with. I'll still be there and be helpful to our clients.

You know, the only two times just off the top of my head that I can think of that were true opportunistic. It was great for us, but it was a tough situation. We had one case where there was a publicly traded firm that decided an entire division they wanted to spin off. It just didn't align with their strategic goals.

And when that doesn't happen, you know, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Staff can feel they're not part of this strategic goal. And so we were fortunate in that case. We loved that group. It was a building structural engineering firm that had done some amazing projects. And so we did get that opportunity to work with that group.

The other time was a situation with private equity, and I'm passing out judgment. There are a lot of different traits of private equity firms, but this one took a look, and the firm they purchased just wasn't returning the value that they wanted to see. We took a look and said, well, we're an engineering lead firm owned and run by engineers, surveyors, and consultants.

We think that's exactly the type of firm that could do great with us. And so they did sell them again on an opportunistic type of basis. And in both cases, those entities just flourished afterward. It was really, really nice to see.

Jeff Adams: Yeah. You know, Dan, I want to take a moment just to reiterate to our audience that 19 firms in 28 months, that's us basically closing about one firm every 6 to 7 weeks.

Dan Huntington: Yeah.

Jeff Adams: What we're talking about here, I mean, you just got to let that sink in a minute. That is mind-boggling. I've come across buyers who struggle to do one a year, and to be doing one every 6 to 7 weeks is just unfathomable. Again, it echoes why you guys must be doing something right. And a big reason why we have you here today, right? So that other people have the opportunity maybe just to, to learn some things about how you go about doing that successfully. And what makes IMEG so successful at doing it?

Dan Huntington: Well, Jeff, I appreciate that compliment. I really do, or it means you rise to the level of your incompetence, and we're about to hit that limit.

Jeff Adams: Well, I'm sure that's not the case. Hey, let me ask you Dan, you were talking about 2018 I think it was a date you threw out there, kind of where you started this M&A synergy team.

Dan Huntington: Yes.

Jeff Adams: So, tell me, man, how many people are on this M&A synergy team?

Dan Huntington: Yeah. You know, Jeff, I'd loved, if I could just take a few minutes and talk about our journey in a little more detail in that infancy stage, because we hear a lot about how do you do this? And these are firms that are looking to become acquirers and want to know, how do you get started? And we started probably like most where there was a firm that we wanted to have join us, and it was a match.

And so we did it and everybody was excited. And then, about a year and a half, two years later, there was another one, and we were excited. But maybe not everyone in the firm was excited because you're starting to do things in addition to your day job. And about the third firm. This has been going on for about five years.

You're starting to see some fatigue, especially on the HR side, the accounting side, and the IT side. I mean, everybody has a day job, and they're being asked to do this in addition to their day job, not to mention the leadership, engineering, and production side. So once we made this strategic decision that we want to embrace acquisitive growth, in addition to our organic growth, we felt it fundamental to dedicate some resources.

So we had a dedicated HR manager, dedicated IT manager, marketing manager, finance and accounting manager, myself, and one other person, and we said that's our initial investment to actually see if this can be part of our strategic growth and live up to what we think. In that first year, we started with three firms, which is a heck of a lot, and we're a lot of lessons learned.

Oh my goodness, I'm so glad our staff are gracious, as we marveled through some things. But then the next year was five and then it just kept growing incrementally from there. Both our network of the number of firms we were getting introduced to and our ability to do this effectively without forcing a script down upon them really made it successful to where it is today.

So it's been a slow, gradual build-up to be able to hit this level of volume.

Jeff Adams: Wow. I imagine going through, frivolously taking notes right now, or wanting to go back to their own management and say, "Hey, IMEG actually has a team that's dedicated to doing this." You know, anybody who's been involved in mergers and acquisitions, including myself within firms, can fully appreciate what you're saying about the day job.

If you have a day job to do and you have to, try to figure out how you're doing this kind of extra hours here.

Dan Huntington: There's that fatigue element; there's no doubt about it. And then there's even just the business element. Let's take the salaries and costs of the six folks that I mentioned at the beginning, and let's compare that to the revenue that was joining us and say that revenue from the firms that joined us dropped by 10%. It didn't. In fact, it actually went up upon joining us.

But that was in part the litmus test a little bit to say, can you manage and allow firms to continue to get great projects out the door, performing really well with high client satisfaction, not have a lot of staff attrition? And if so, then you've probably been able to more than recoup your investment in a dedicated M&A team, whether that's one person, three people, or, you know, approaching double digits in some cases.

I know of our firm and some other peers that have close to double digits or more, and that's all they do.

Jeff Adams: So, that is an interesting way. Kind of a return on investment. You guys put on that. So, so six people you were doing that with, you said six people. How many deals did you close from six people in 2018?

Dan Huntington: Yes.

Jeff Adams: So, how many deals did you close in 2018?

Dan Huntington: Three.

Jeff Adams: See, I think most people were probably flipping over in their chairs right now thinking, wait a minute; you had a full-time staff of six people that did three acquisitions in the first year, right? That just kind of blows people's minds to think the typical way of doing an ROI wouldn't tell you that, but I think you said one thing that was really key there, and that was in your suppose you had lost 10% of revenue on the firms you acquired, but you didn't right.

Dan Huntington: That's exactly right. In fact, the revenues in each case, for those three, thankfully, we were blessed exactly what we'd hoped: either held level or two out of the three cases grew. And that's what you want to see. That's why both sides are doing this. The other part, because we're privately held, and we don't have to respond to any sort of quarterly earnings or a return on our investment for buying that firm within a three-year period, or we're looking to flip it or anything like that.

We've always been willing, were talking about M&A on this podcast, but to make strategic investments in trying overseas and putting in an office overseas, in fact, multiple offices overseas, to see if that works. And we understand that's an investment; it may or may not work out. And many times, thankfully, those strategic investments do work out, but they don't always.

And we have that tolerance for that. We're very comfortable being in that growth oriented mode, knowing that not everything will work out along the way. In this case, it's, obviously done pretty well. So we're we're very happy with that.

Jeff Adams: You know, Dan, you bring up, another kind of topic with that, really. And that is, you mentioned internationally there, but when you think nationally, when you guys are thinking

about new geographies you want to enter into, I mean, I guess you could go make a strategic hire, you could relocate one of your employees and hang a shingle in a, in a new city, or you go acquire someone.

How do you decide which of the three to do?

Dan Huntington: You know, we've done all three. Absolutely done all three. I will say the growth rate of doing a strategic hire or a transplant. In other words, organic growth is phenomenally slow. We've taken some absolutely great talent and asked them to, they have a client in our target city that wants them to be there. And the person moved.

I think what makes it so slow on the organic side is you're trying to go into, let's say, San Francisco. And now you have to remember that San Francisco has built relationships in that community that also go back decades. So even if you're a phenomenally great, talented principal and charge designer, whatever it may be, you know, unseating the relationships that have been there for decades for good reasons with other really good firms.

It takes a long time. It can be done, but it's certainly, a slower growth path. So that's where coupling organic growth with inorganic, if we want to be in a new location, almost always it's going to be through inorganic growth.

Jeff Adams: Interesting, interesting. Well, that's really good. It seems like you guys have a good methodology. And I guess I can say maybe you you learned through the school of hard knocks a little bit, right? Tell us about some of those. Has everything always worked out perfectly? Have you always gotten it right, or have there been a few things where it's okay that was a major hiccup?

Dan Huntington: Jeff, you know, I should share my background just a little bit. I'm a structural engineer. You know, that's what I was trained to do. That's what I did for the largest portion of my career, and then switched to this role in 2018, in part because we felt it was really important that the person leading up M&A did not have a financial MBA background.

I mean, we are a building engineering and surveying firm. So we really wanted this to be led by someone who knows that world inside and out. Well, that means the trade-off was that I wasn't an expert in M&A, so we were all learning on the fly. And you know, it's a phenomenally strong team. But I remember the very first firm that joined us in 2018; they probably wouldn't be as critical as I would, but we were trying to have their network join our network.

Sounds like a simple thing. It should be a simple thing. And they came in the next day. There was no production. I mean, it couldn't have gone more wrong. We had a lot of great people, but we were truly trying to figure out every situation is unique and how to tackle that one. Since then, probably one of our lessons learned is that we had a plan A, and now we have a plan B and a plan C for every major milestone joining our firms, whether it's engineering, production, accounting, marketing, or IT, we've got a few backup plans in place just to ensure we don't lose production like that. And goodwill with staff, honestly.

Jeff Adams: Well, you know, when I think about the number of firms, I mean, they are obviously sourcing that many. Right. And your team's ability to process and analyze and do

the due diligence and just get through to closing in and of itself is amazing. But when I think about the integration of a firm every six weeks.

Dan Huntington: Yeah,

Jeff Adams: I mean, you know, I'm blown away. I mean, it just seems it seems impossible. I mean, tell us how how do you do that? How are you integrating that many firms that quickly? And and what's been your experience on retaining employees with that?

Dan Huntington: Well, there are probably a couple of things maybe, to share, at least on our journey. So, our dedicated team truly takes things from the letter of intent all the way through integration. And we don't have a fixed timeline. We're not trying to get you fully integrated within the first year; if a firm joins us, we're not changing your name. Day one. We're not changing your accounting systems. Month one. There are things in our mind that, you know, you look at the day after this gets announced, probably two things are going to happen. Clients are going to want to know: are you still empowered to make the decisions that you used to make, or is IMEG going to come along and now dictate your fee rates?

We're not. We know that the firm that joined us knows that, but our clients need some time to truly see that and appreciate that. And so we have to give our clients some extra attention. Two, every headhunter in the country now knows to call that firm and call every staff member at the firm because they know it's right.

They've seen so many go wrong. And knock on wood, we haven't had a single failure of a firm that's joined us. So it's really important to focus on staff during the first 30, 60, and 90 days. And for us as a firm, it just doesn't ever stop. So, we said the integration timeline is somewhere between 2 and 3 years.

Jeff Adams: Wow.

Dan Huntington: And it's flexible by design. We may go very slow if a firm that joins us is absolutely blessed with more work than they know what to do with, well then the last thing I need to do is upset their world and say, well, let's learn IMEG's accounting system and how to get those out the door. And be disruptive that way.

Now, let's parking lot that we can wait a little while. That's absolutely not an issue. Or if the firm knows itself and is truly a change-embracing, rapid-adopting firm. Maybe we can accelerate this and move this forward a lot quicker. So, that goes for changing the firm's name to any other aspect.

Jeff Adams: So it sounds like you guys truly let operations dictate the timeline for when you do these integrations. And not having the tail wagging the dog. You know, so many firms want to make it more about getting our IT systems integrated promptly, getting our HR systems integrated, definitely getting our accounting systems integrated and all.

But you don't have to worry so much about that. It sounds more like you focus on making sure we take care of our clients and our people, and we'll get the rest of it when we can.

Dan Huntington: And I think that's in part because we purposefully had someone who grew up in production leading this. So we know what it's like. Deadlines are bearing down. Those don't change every hour that I'm asking you to attend the training. You're not answering emails or mentoring someone. The other part that I think goes with it is I think many firms associate integration with accomplishing those items that you just mentioned.

And if we don't quickly do that, we can't get the best of both worlds. Well, in our model, we're privately held and so and one profit center; if you wanted to leverage what Columbus, Ohio, brings to the table and you're down in North Carolina, you just pick up the phone and call. It's my job to work out behind the scenes how to make that easy for you, whether you're on our network or not, on our network yet, on the same accounting system, not on the same accounting system, that's our full-time job.

That's why we have a dedicated team to do that: at any given moment, you may want to leverage that. You may want to shed some work on that group, help that group out, or do a joint pursuit on an opportunity. Let us work all that out for you behind the scenes rather than be disruptive in trying to accomplish it in the first 60, 90, or 180 days.

We can do that behind the scenes.

Jeff Adams: Dan, I can't help but notice these little nuggets you keep throwing out here. One I just heard in that statement that you made was that you guys have one profit center. You don't track all your acquisitions separately or even have your legacy firm; you don't have to separate; you have one profit center, and you're all kind of part of the same team is what I'm hearing.

Dan Huntington: Jeff, that's so true. We are literally one profit center. And quite frankly, we're always looking through the windshield. Not looking back. What's the purpose of going back and looking at a deal to see how it panned out? I mean, you kind of know how things are going, and, you know, if things are working out really well or not working out well, but you're not going to go revisit the terms and say, "Hey, let's, let's talk about, the numbers that we already paid you, a year ago," that that doesn't happen. This is all forward-looking.

You know, we're fortunate now. We have about 2,800 employees, and about 700 of them are shareholders in the firm. And that alone creates one IMEG mindset. And then all 2,800 end up being an owner through our ESOP - Employee Stock Ownership Plan. So there is a true cultural aspect to this that if a person had, I don't know, a key butch kill mindset or wasn't one IMEG fundamentally through and through, it would probably show up pretty early on during due diligence or even pre-LOI, and we would just shake hands and part ways because it's not going to be a match for them.

And that's not going to be helpful for anyone.

Jeff Adams: Well, Dan, it sounds like you guys pretty much got this figured out. Are there any challenges you still face?

Dan Huntington: Oh, you know, they just don't stop, Jeff. Every firm that joins us is such a wonderful experience because it does come with its own unique challenges. I mean, every firm

has its challenges. Things they're trying to accomplish. There is a reason they are joining IMEG, and we're joining them. So we're both have this goal that we're trying to achieve.

I would say the most common challenge that I see is you'll have some technology challenges that can be overcome fairly readily, but truly getting to know the culture and then the quality and depth of leadership. And if I look back to one of the lessons learned early on in our production, I talked about that IT one that's more of a technical one, I would say really understanding that during due diligence, probably one of the most important things we could do is assess the quality and depth of leadership; not so much as a deal breaker, but presumably, there are going to be some owners that may be looking to retire 2 or 3 years down the road out of this. Where's that next generation at? How good are they? Did they have an entrepreneurial mindset? Are they interested in ownership at IMEG because we would want them to become owners? We don't believe in transplanting leaders around and implanting them in a region. We want it to be local. And so we've really had to learn to assess that and then assess it through their cultural lens, leadership style.

Seattle is much different than Montana, and it's much different than Boston or New York. They all come with different variations that we as a team need to be able to work with and see what that quality is.

Jeff Adams: Yeah, that's a very important part. And it's very typical when a firm is selling. As you said, the senior owners typically are looking to exit right within a 2 to 3-year time frame. So, it's definitely important to look deeper into the organization and figure out what you have and how you're going to integrate that into your own firm. To keep the success alive inside that firm or inside the combined firm. Now, I should say.

Dan Huntington: Right, you are spot on. And, if I could offer some advice to anyone who's either considering joining another firm or looking at buying, do that during due diligence. Don't wait till the deal is closed. That next generation of leadership, if they aren't genuinely feeling like IMEG in this case, is the right choice for them and see how this can accelerate their career and their relationships with their clients.

It's not going to work even if the owners are excited about it. If the next generation isn't excited about it, it won't work. And conversely, we want to know who we're going to be in business with three years down the road. It may not be the same person I'm talking to today during due diligence. And so let's have those early conversations and, literally, just spend a day together, whether it's a half day and a dinner or some time together, that FaceTime goes a long way.

Jeff Adams: You know, Dan, I sit there and think, basically saying if it doesn't fit, if you don't feel like the firm's a good fit, it's okay to walk away. That's easy for a guy who's got 150 to 200 firms sitting in their pipeline, right, to kind of sift through, take yourself back to 2018 when you were when you closed on three deals.

Dan Huntington: Yeah.

Jeff Adams: Put yourself ba

Dan Huntington: You know, I would, but I was also blessed with coming from an engineering background; probably the first thing I did was I went and bought a bunch of books. I'm a book learner, so I read all these M&A books, and then I was smart enough to know they're other firms out there that do this, do it really, really well.

So we called some very well-respected and trusted firms. One of them, specifically TerraCon consultants, was so generous with their time. We literally said we do a lot of work with you. We don't swim in your waters. We know you seem to do this very, very well. Would you share your best practices with us?

And we still to this day share best practices back and forth between our two firms. And so they offered up some of these very same nuggets of, being willing to walk away if it doesn't fit culturally. I almost hear things go a little bit too far the other way, where new to the market buyers are looking for the perfect match.

There's no perfect match. I don't want to dismay this. We love every firm that's ever joined us, but I don't think even they would say everything about this was 100% a perfect match was a great match up. On the whole. Absolutely. They were thrilled about it. You can talk to any of the firms that joined us, but that perfect match just doesn't exist.

And being willing to push through the obstacles that are going to happen and allow and acknowledge that there's a certain amount of obstacles that will happen. Don't let that stop you from doing the deal. You'll work through it together. Great people, great leaders. I'll find a way to get through it.

Jeff Adams: Well, Dan, I so much appreciate you doing the same thing today where you're giving back and you're helping, your industry be better at mergers and acquisitions by giving insight to what you've learned as you've gone through it. So very appreciative of that. As we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to say to the listeners that you'd like to share?

Dan Huntington: I'm well, you know, we are very proud of what we've accomplished. We aren't necessarily a fit for everyone, but we are a 2,800-person engineering, surveying, and building consulting firm. We love the fact that we have over 90 offices. And so, in essence, we have the national expertise and bench depth but with really strong local relationships.

Reach out. We are just try to be a helpful company, contact one of our local offices, contact me with anything, whether it's mergers and acquisitions or just general advice, you're more than likely going to get someone that's, very glad to be helpful and, be willing to help you on your journey.

Jeff Adams: Well, Dan, I appreciate you so much for joining us today. And it's obvious just talking with you today why you guys are so successful at mergers and acquisitions and doing things the right way. You just give a good name to mergers and acquisitions. So we we appreciate appreciate your willingness to share today. And I want to just thank everyone for tuning in to AEC Unscripted, the mergers and acquisitions edition.

I'm Jeff Adams, and it's been a pleasure guiding you through the ins and outs of M&A. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. And until next time, keep pushing forward.