History

Founded in 1912 in New York City by Elwyn Seelye and Albert Stevenson, Elwyn E. Seelye and Company is the oldest of STV’s firms. Among the most preeminent engineering firms at the time, Seelye provided structural design services for many prominent New York architects and famous landmarks such as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Coney Island Parachute Jump, N.Y., and NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Elwyn Seelye wrote the Data Handbook for Civil Engineers, a classic textbook used for decades. The firm grew to include mechanical and electrical engineering services as it added partners, eventually becoming Seelye Stevenson Value & Knecht.

Sanders & Thomas, a Pennsylvania partnership formed by Whitney Sanders and Ralph Thomas, was formed in 1945 with a staff of four. A merger in 1968 with Voss Engineering, an equipment manufacturer no longer associated with the firm, formed STV, Inc., the management holding company that evolved into STV Group, our company’s parent firm.

Seelye Stevenson Value & Knecht was STV’s first major acquisition in 1972. Acquisition in 1983 of Lyon Associates enhanced STV’s international capabilities with offices in several key foreign cities. In 1994, formation of STV/Silver & Ziskind added specialized architectural expertise in criminal justice and health care facilities. In the final step of the evolution, Seelye Stevenson Value & Knecht, Sanders & Thomas and Lyon Associates became one operating company, New York-based STV Incorporated, in 1995. The international division was sold back to Lyon Associates founder, Frank Lyon in 1997. The seamless reorganization to STV Incorporated enabled us to use our personnel nationwide and provide a single identity to our clients.

On August 29, 2001, STV Group’s employee and public shareholders overwhelmingly approved a proposed transaction to take the firm private and make STV a 100 percent employee-owned firm. In 2006, STV welcomed Ralph Whitehead Associates to the STV family, a consulting civil and transportation engineering firm based in Charlotte, N.C. A transportation-based company founded in 1961 by Ralph L. Whitehead, P.E., RWA expands STV’s highway, bridge and freight expertise, as well as its geographic reach with eight offices located throughout the Southeast. And in 2009, STV created a subsidiary, STV Canada Consulting Inc., to demonstrate our company’s commitment to Canada and to the many clients that we will serve under the auspices of this organization. STV also acquired Civil Structures, Inc., a Dallas-based bridge and highway design firm, in 2009. The new group, called STV/Civil Structures, will continue to operate in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and is part of STV’s Transportation & Infrastructure Division.

Today

STV consistently ranks among the top engineering and architectural firms in the country. Today, STV ranks 40th overall in Engineering News-Record’s list of the Top 500 Design Firms and 21st in the Top 100 “Pure Designers.” Ranked 11th among ENR’s Top 50 in transportation, we are 5th among the Top 25 in mass transit and rail, 13th in the Top 25 in bridges, and 12th among the Top 25 in highways. Ranked 44th in the general building category, we are also 7th among the Top 25 in education and 5th in the Top 25 in correctional facilities. We also rank 76th in the Top 150 Global Design Firms and 180 in the Top 200 Environmental Firms. We are 29th among Architectural Record's Top 250 Architectural Firms, and rank 37th in Consulting-Specifying Engineer's list of the Top 100 Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Engineering Firms.