An area of concern on the international power side is water use. "Water is a finite resource, so we have begun designing plants that limit water use," says Oskvig. For example, the firm is building the 4,800-MW coal-fired Kusile Power Station in South Africa. It uses air-cooled condensers, rather than cooling towers. "It uses 5% of the water that a normal plant of this size would use," he says. "As the world becomes more urbanized, there will be a greater demand for closed-loop systems that conserve natural resources like water."

The strong international market has drawn firms from around the world, not just from the U.S., that increasingly are competing in the global marketplace. "We've seen the emergence of strong competitors from Asia, particularly from Korea," says Giorgio. He is particularly concerned "because they have a greater appetite for risk than we have." CDI is meeting this challenge through alliances. "We recently formed an alliance with [Japan's] Toyo Engineering to work in the Asian polysilicone market," Giorgio says.

Who Will Do the Work?

Many firms fear that, once the market begins to recover, they may have staffing shortages. Some engineering firms already are experiencing a lack of qualified people. "On the power side, we are struggling to find enough good engineers," says Vincze.

Vincze is not alone in worrying. "One of the biggest trends I see in the profession and the industry is the number of retiring baby boomers and the small population of 40-somethings in the group behind the baby boomers," says Mark Kramer, president of Soil and Materials Engineers Inc. He believes this will create an experience gap on field teams as institutional knowledge is lost to retirements.

These shortfalls have become an acute issue for some firms. "Offshoring resources was once believed to be the solution," says Bean of O'Neal. But he says that offshoring to places such as India has not worked for fast-track, complicated projects that require intense coordination with other designers, contractors and owners.

Many firms are implementing new personnel policies to retain experienced, older employees. "We are beginning to allow people to cut back on work hours rather than go immediately into retirement," says Pierson. Using this tactic, Parsons Brinckerhoff can retain its talent by allowing people nearing retirement to wind down their careers, Pierson says.

CDI has instituted a work-sharing program for older workers and young people with family needs. "If you have the technology to share work with people in India, you can share work with your own people 15 miles away," Giorgio says.

Another issue among design firms is a trend among public clients to retain greater amounts of work for their own staffs. "There is a continued threat by the federal government of insourcing some work [that] is best performed by private-sector engineers and architects," says Ralph W. Christie Jr., CEO of Merrick.

But this concern is not just about the federal government. "Some of the transportation agencies in the West are doing more insourcing to maintain head counts," says Vincze. "This has been a continuing issue in states such as California."

Design as a Commodity

One of the biggest frustrations among design firms is the increasingly held view that design is just a commodity. This emphasis on price is especially annoying as client demands are ramping up but prices are not. "In some markets, we're seeing a trend to commoditization of design services, which is somewhat ironic, as owners and contractors are pressing for innovative and sustainable solutions," says Adams of Parsons.

This view is hurting the designers, too. "Engineering has always been a problem-solving profession," says Giorgio. "When you treat design like a commodity, it will be managed that way, without regard to the value-added capabilities of the top problem-solvers."

Many firms say the market is just now beginning to recover, but few believe the overall market will return to where it was five years ago. "There are a lot of naysayers who complain that the recovery will be slow," says Pierson. "I think a moderate recovery is a good thing. Too fast a recovery just invites just as fast a crash."