One interesting fact about us: We’ve had 10 percent annual growth the past four years and 97 percent of our revenue is from repeat clients,” states Tim Cutshaw, executive vice president. “We have significant revenues from repeat clients yet we are growing. This shows that we are doing a good job for our clients and they reward us by increasing our workload in important areas for growth.”

Mesa Associates excels in this way because of its outstanding team. “Our employees take ownership of projects they are working on. They put themselves in place of the client and act as if they were the client,” he says.

Primarily an engineering and design consulting firm, approximately 85 percent of Mesa Associates’ sales stem from the electrical utility sector. 

“We are a multi-discipline firm performing civil, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering for various clients,” Cutshaw says. This includes work for utilities, government, such as the U.S. Department of Energy and large industrial plants. For its electric business, “we have three business units,” Cutshaw explains. “One team handles substations, another transmission lines and the other team handles power generation. We engineer projects from the generating fuel source of water, coal, gas and nuclear power to the transmission lines and substations for powering homes and businesses.”

Mesa Associates is an Alabama-based company with 12 offices, and derives its name from combining the first names of the late founder Chandrashekhar “Shekhar” Savant’s two children Megha and Sagar. Spouse Ranjana Savant serves as president and CEO. 

“Mesa continues to build strong long-term relations with our customers by conducting business with honesty and integrity,” the company says. “A reflection of the way Mesa treats our employees is their dedication and the personal interest each one takes in making the company successful. Employees are considered part of an extended family, the Mesa Family, and caring for our employees and their families was part of the original dream.”

This family oriented vision is an important component of the company’s success, Cutshaw says. “That is part of our vision to be different and recognized as a valued and trusted partner between employees, clients, suppliers and communities,” he says.

Industry Challenges

A challenge facing the United States and the electric power industry is aging infrastructure. “Plants are getting older and fossil plants are increasingly coming under EPA scrutiny,” Cutshaw says. 

Power delivery systems are aging. The protection and controls system is becoming antiquated as well as transmission lines, poles and associated equipment. “It is a financial and resource issue,” Cutshaw says. “The infrastructure is aging quicker than corporate America is willing and able to replace it. It is now a matter of resources to get all that work done in a timely fashion.”

Cyber security also is growing in significance, especially considering the key role the electric infrastructure plays in society. Mesa Associates has completed design and engineering work for the nationwide program that followed the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, designing facilities to better withstand potential tornados and floodwaters. “We are prepared for eliminating the potential of what happened at Fukushima where the diesel generators were flooded and there was no backup power supply to shut-down the plant,” Cutshaw says. “The U.S. is very prepared with rapid response centers. It boils down to having the right equipment onsite for a safe shutdown 24 hours per day.”