Vantage Point Solutions has acquired BKI Engineering Services, including wholly-owned subsidiary Utility Resource Collaborative. The move adds power engineering and wildfire mitigation planning expertise to the existing broadband engineering and consulting services already supporting power utilities across the country.
“We’re excited to expand our services, blending our respective strengths in communication networks and power engineering to provide further depth of expertise and breadth of services to our clients,” said Larry Thompson, PE, CEO of Vantage Point. “This is especially important for emerging smart grid applications and other emerging technologies. Electric providers have come to us numerous times wanting assistance with power engineering because they’ve appreciated the quality of our services regarding broadband. Now, we can follow through on those requests and give our combined staff exciting new opportunities to grow.”
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Now known as the Power Engineering division of Vantage Point, BKI’s nearly 40 years of experience encompasses distribution, transmission, substation, and power supply engineering, as well as long-range planning, strategy, and work plans. Utility Resource Collaborative specializes in wildfire mitigation plans and guidance. These join Vantage Point’s longstanding broadband engineering, consulting, cybersecurity, marketing, and environmental services, offering power utilities an integrated, one-source team to support their broadband, communications and power network needs.
Jeff Waldbauer, CEO of BKI and URC, said “This is the right move and the right time.” Pointing to emerging technologies such as grid security and modernization, electric vehicles, distributed generation, and various automations, he added, “All of these will require transformative integrations of communication technologies into existing and improved electric networks. We are now positioned to leverage these synergies to support the evolving needs of consumer-owned utilities.”
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Both companies have strong cultures that simultaneously prioritize client success and employee well-being, and all BKI staff have joined Vantage Point’s engineering practice as part of the acquisition. BKI’s office in Vancouver will remain open, becoming Vantage Point’s tenth brick-and-mortar location across the country.
“Combining power engineering and our fiber expertise is the next chapter in Vantage Point’s history of innovation,” said Thompson. “These technologies coming together makes for new questions and new opportunities, and a different kind of challenge. We have so many smart people, so many creative thinkers who like rising to challenges – that’s what makes this exciting.”