Marking a Milestone: 10 Incredible Years of CobbFendley in Tempe, Arizona!

This year, CobbFendley’s Arizona office celebrates its 10th anniversary, marking a significant milestone in our journey of service, growth, and impact.

Since it opened, our CobbFendley Arizona office has been a standout in engineering and community work in the Valley of the Sun. Built with a goal of providing top-notch infrastructure solutions for the area’s unique challenges, this office has consistently gone above and beyond in its growth and success every year.

As we commemorate this milestone, we invite you to journey back to 2014 and explore the milestones and advancements that have shaped our Tempe, Arizona location into what it is today. We’ll hear from voices within our local offices, sharing insights and reflections on the journey from inception to the present.

Local Perspectives: Q&A with Our Team

This month we celebrate not just a decade of success, but the dedication and innovation that has propelled CobbFendley forward in the State of Arizona. Join us as we honor our past achievements and look ahead to a future filled with continued growth and community impact.

Can you share some memorable moments from the early days of the office?

My main ‘memorable moment’ is getting hit while driving through an intersection in Tempe. I was on my way to a meeting at Maricopa County DOT when someone ran a red light and hit the 4Runner I was driving. The impact pushed me up onto the barrier…and spilled my coffee. An hour later I was in the meeting at McDOT and we ended up securing a project. That was a painful win.

What are some of the most notable projects or achievements the office has accomplished over the years?

In 2017, we were awarded a contract for a 5-year, multi-million-dollar contract with SRP to provide SUE services. This was the catayst we needed to ramp up hiring and expansion in Arizona. We won it twice (2017 and again 2023), and our success with McDOT helped start the office.

What are your hopes and aspirations for the office in the next decade?

As a Tier 1 market, the Phoenix area can support all of CobbFendley’s service lines. I’d like to see the office expand to multiple locations in the metro area. This area could easily support a 100+ person office for CobbFendley. 

 How do you see the office continuing to innovate and lead in its field? 

It is always about the people. Find good people, excite them with the CobbFendley Culture and Vision, and help them succeed.

Can you share some memorable moments from the early days of the office?

Within the first two weeks of being hired as the third person in the office, our brand new On-Call contract with SRP produced an emergency request for a vac truck. The one crew we had was already on another project that day. Because we did not want to decline the request, the then office manager and I jumped in our second vac truck and headed out to the site with all the enthusiasm we could muster. Luckily, it was March, and the weather was beautiful. The project lasted an hour and we did almost nothing, but the SRP crew was delighted to see a couple of 40 something year old guys in their khakis and polo shirts, accented by freshly unwrapped PPE but very worn work boots, jump out of the truck, expertly fire up the vac system, and roll out the tools like they’d been doing it for 15 years, because we had.

What are some of the most notable projects or achievements the office has accomplished over the years? 

Sky Harbor International Airport is one of the fastest growing airports in the country. Projects including the expansions of terminals, concourses, and taxiways, as well as the addition of the PHX Sky Train, have been amongst the most high-profile in the State spanning the last 25 years. Since opening the Tempe office in 2017, CobbFendley has been on teams for Terminal 4 North Concourse 4 (2018), New Crossfield Taxiway U (2022-2024), and Terminal 3 North Concourse 2 (2023-2024), providing SUE Quality Levels A and B, as well as additional vacuum excavation and survey services.  

What makes working at this office unique or special?

The simple, and somewhat cliched answer, is the people. From the early days of just one project manager working from home and using out of town SUE and Survey field crews, to now having more than 20 folks in a 10,000 square feet of flex office with multiple in-house field crews in 3 departments, CobbFendley management (especially at the regional and now local level) has done an excellent job of assembling a core team that continues to cultivate a shared vision of good people who work hard, know their stuff, and are easy to be around.  

What are your hopes and aspirations for the office in the next decade? How do you see the office continuing to innovate and lead in its field?

It is easy to say things like, ‘incorporate new technology’ and ‘embrace new ideas’, which are absolutely important when such innovations line up with the company’s vision. However, one way to stand out in a changing world is to know when and where to not change. CobbFendley’s company mission, “We collaborate. We commit. We build communities.” is rooted in a person to person, face to face ethos. Doubling down on the personal service and genuine care for our clients and each other is becoming more and more rare, and therefore more and more valuable. In the next 10 years my hope is that this office continues to be an example of how to both embrace the future and all the excitement that it holds, as well as maintain the human element that our clients value.