“We expect to bring global experience to opportunities right here,” Lyon said. “We have 9,000 employees in 150 countries, and are a preeminent provider of infrastructure and design services, and we expect to become a major player in the United States.”
Agbede said Hatch is an employee-owned firm that shares his entrepreneurial spirit, and that he and all his Chester employees are now vested in the new firm’s growth. And to those who say that Hatch’s acquisition of Chester means the demise of a major Black-owned company, Agbede said that’s not the case.
“Frankly, we’ve grown beyond disadvantaged status for some time now—maybe by definition, but not by substance,” he said. “People don’t hire us because of our minority status, they hire us for our technical competence. Hatch didn’t seek us out for our MBE (Minority-owned Business Enterprise) status. We have an alignment of values.”
Asked whether the merger puts Hatch Chester in a better position to win some of the billions in contract dollars ALCOSAN (Allegheny County Sanitary Authority) will be awarding to refurbish its rainwater and sewer systems, Agbede said he hopes so.
“We can only do so much, but with Hatch, this is a case where one plus one equals at least three,” he said. “They have design infrastructure and tunneling expertise, for example—and of course with our environmental expertise, we are asking them to take a look at our capabilities.”
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