Robert Craggs, Fred Doran Burns & McDonnell

Title: Department managers, solid waste practice group

Longtime colleagues Robert Craggs and Fred Doran have teamed up to lead the solid waste practice group in the Bloomington office of Burns & McDonnell, a national engineering, architecture, construction, environmental and consulting services firm.

Craggs and Doran say the firm's rapid growth here, its strong reputation for client service and the culture of the employee-owned firm, which ranked as one of the Star Tribune's Top Workplaces, all appealed to them. Also important was the opportunity to see projects through to construction, which they said was not an option at their previous firm.

"It looks like a great place to build a solid waste practice, with the diversity of skills that support what we do," Doran said. "It will allow us to help solid waste managers run programs that are financially successful and environmentally protective."

Both men have 25 years' experience in environmental consulting. Craggs, who has a law degree and a master's degree in environmental policy, works with local governments and private companies on planning solid waste management programs. Doran, an environmental engineer, focuses on permitting, construction, operation assessments and compliance for solid waste management facilities.

Doran and Craggs previously worked together for more than two decades in the solid waste section at design engineering firm R.W. Beck, now part of Science Applications International Corp.

Kansas City-based Burns & McDonnell has more than 50 employees in its Minnesota office, which opened in 2007. The firm, founded in 1898, has 3,300 employees in 30 regional, national and international offices.

Q: Who are your clients?

Craggs: Presently our work is with local and state governments but we do see opportunities to work with private entities, for example, in the development of a facility where you're taking organics and generating energy. Burns & McDonnell has done that on other projects.

Q: How will you pursue new business for your practice?

Doran: Bob and I both have a strong connection with the solid waste business here in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. That fills a hole that Burns & McDonnell didn't have in this office.

Q: What types of projects do you work on?

Doran: The focus is on facilities that manage solid waste, landfills, transfer stations, waste-to-energy plants.

Craggs: Some would include helping clients with innovative approaches to managing waste and taking waste and using it as fuel and generating energy. One that I'm interested in particular that would be very applicable here is to find opportunities to take the organic waste stream and generate energy from it.