EXTON, PA, Aug. 2, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Bentley Systems Inc., a global provider of software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure, today announced that it has acquired Haestad Methods Inc., which focuses on hydrologic and hydraulic software solutions for the water resources industry.
Haestad solutions provide for design, analysis and management of water distribution supply, municipal sanitary sewers, urban stormwater collection, roadway and civil site drainage, and flood control. These products serve municipalities, transportation agencies, consulting engineers, and contracting firms. Its new parent anticipates expanded international adoption of the Haestad Methods product line as a result of Bentley's extensive global operations.
Bentley CEO Greg Bentley called Haestad Methods an "amazing success story" since being founded 25 years ago by John Haestad, company president and CEO. In becoming a hydrology expert in applying information technology to water systems, it's grown to more than 100 employees and over $16 million in annual revenues by being "consistent and entirely self-financed."
John Haestad, president and CEO of Haestad Methods, was excited about the deal. "This is an ideal match of culture and technology." Haestad has been appointed senior vice president of Bentley Software. The Haestad Methods responsibilities within Bentley will soon be expanded at a new 54,000-square-foot headquarters facility in Watertown, CT.
As water quality has become a critical issue worldwide, water quality engineering is now a significant growth area in AEC (architecture, engineering and construction). According to infrastructure industry management consultant Alan Farkas, of Farkas Berkowitz & Company, the growth rate of water-quality engineering has increased just over 10% per year on a compounded basis for the last six years. "Water-quality engineering has been and should continue to be the most attractive engineering market segment in the U.S.," Farkas said. "With this acquisition, Bentley positions itself with a broad-based software offering to water-quality engineers."
In serving this market, the Bentley and Haestads team will continue to upgrade and extend Haestad's products and move to integrate them more directly into the AEC lifecycle spanning design, construction and operations. These plans include supporting Haestad Methods functionality on Bentley's MicroStation, the standard design platform for 47 of the 50 state departments of transportation, and connecting to Bentley ProjectWise, the company's collaboration servers.
Haestad solutions run as standalone applications as well on the AutoCAD and ESRI platforms. Existing Bentley support for these platforms includes MX, from its acquisition of Infrasoft, and AutoPLANT, from Rebis, running on AutoCAD; MicroStation V8 native support of the Autodesk DWG format as well as Bentley's DGN format; and the Bentley Connector for ArcGIS software supporting workflows spanning AEC and GIS environments.
For Bentley, the acquisition of Haestad Methods is a continuation of its consolidation of AEC solutions to streamline the AEC lifecycle of asset owners and their providers. Other recent acquisitions furthering this vision include ISIS, the leading specialist in deploying municipal and other geospatial implementations in Benelux, and AspenTech's AXSYS applications for conceptual design of process plants.
Haestad Methods provides hydrologic and hydraulic modeling software, services, continuing education workshops, and publications to hundreds of thousands of engineering professionals. Its complete suite of engineering software products for water, wastewater, and storm water management includes CivilStorm Dynamic, WaterGEMS, WaterCAD, PumpMaster, HAMMER, GISConnect, Darwin, WaterSAFE, SewerCAD, StormCAD, PondPack, FlowMaster, CulvertMaster, and HEC-Pack.
Bentley Systems' comprehensive portfolio includes infrastructure planning software for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial vertical markets spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2003 revenues reaching $260 million, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Design 500 and major owner-operators.
Henniker River Group, LLC, a business development firm, acted as consultants to Haestad Methods and helped facilitate the transaction with Bentley.
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