Employment at Northwest Arkansas’ largest A/E firms jumps by almost 12%

Northwest Arkansas’ top architecture and engineering firms in terms of employment remained largely unchanged on the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual list of Largest Architecture and Engineering Firms.

The list is ranked by the number of local employees working in Northwest Arkansas.

With 197 local employees in its Bentonville office, HFA (Harrison French & Associates) is No. 1 among the 47 firms on the Business Journal list for the eighth consecutive year. HFA, which also has offices in Boston and Fort Worth, Texas, added 10 new employees in Northwest Arkansas in the past year, an increase of 5.3%.

Benchmark Group in Rogers grew by more than 20% in the past year and has 171 local employees to rank No. 2 on the list. North Little Rock-based Garver is No. 3 with 105 employees in Northwest Arkansas. The company recently opened a second regional office in Rogers to go with its office in Fayetteville.

pb2 architecture+engineering in Rogers (101) and CEI Engineering & Associates Inc. in Bentonville (100) round out the top five. CEI’s employee total is up nearly 39% from 72 in early 2019. To handle the increase, CEI expanded its Bentonville office last year.

“That’s helped us diversify our services to provide a stronger more comprehensive approach to what our clients need to be competitive in their respective industries,” said Brent Massey, CEI’s vice president of operations. “For many companies, it is a race to market. We are focused on serving our busy clients to give them the tools and service they need to open locations quicker in Northwest Arkansas and around the country.”

According to data collected by the Business Journal for the list, the number of people employed by all firms increased by 11.9% from 2019 to 2020. The 47 firms on the list employed a total of 1,510 people.