Blueprints for Success: Local engineering firms power the region's development and conservation
November 2025
The Grand Traverse region is no slouch when it comes to high quality, well-respected engineering firms. Several companies in the region continue to tackle an impressive array of projects in northern Michigan and beyond, with many firms boasting clients across the country. Many of these firms are just as involved with protecting northern Michigan's natural resources as they are with supporting continued growth throughout the region.
The TCBN connected with a few of these companies to see what’s new and what’s next.
Gourdie-Fraser
Tony Kuberski, CEO
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
GFA is privileged to have the opportunity to service many of our northern Michigan communities. So many of our projects are noteworthy, but we’d like to specifically acknowledge some of our park and recreational projects.
There has been significant interest in improving and/or constructing new outdoor facilities in our area. These spaces and amenities promote universally accessible outdoor activities and provide recreation for children, green spaces to relax and locations to host community events. GFA has helped several clients by seeking funding and performing design and construction services to ensure their visions translate into reality. These are projects that can revitalize a community and provide a safe and accessible public space where everyone is welcome.
A few parks and recreational projects of note are the River East Recreation Facility and the Grand Traverse Commons trail in Garfield Township, Railroad Park in Manton, the Betsie Valley Trail in Benzie County, Rotary Park in Elk Rapids and the Ottaway pedestrian bridge for the Grand Traverse Conservation District.
What's next for your firm?
After more than 75 years of proudly operating in downtown Traverse City, we are thrilled to announce that we have recently moved into our brand-new headquarters located in Garfield Township at 1820 Oak Hollow Dr., just off Park Drive. This exciting move marks a new chapter for our team as we continue to grow and serve our clients. We’re especially enjoying the added conveniences our new location offers, including ample on-site parking for staff and clients along with easy access to the scenic Boardman Lake Loop Trail, perfect for walks and outdoor breaks.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
Opportunities ahead include continuing to serve our valued local municipalities, government agencies, private developers and utility companies with high-quality engineering, surveying and inspection services. We also see growing potential in assisting clients with securing funding for critical infrastructure improvement projects throughout the region. Like many firms across northern Michigan, we continue to face challenges in growing local, in-office staffing. It’s a trend that has persisted over the past several years, but we remain optimistic about attracting and developing talented professionals to meet these evolving needs.
Global Environmental
Alaina Zeigler, President and Owner
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
Global Environmental is proud to have supported the Michigan Department of Transportation’s Grandview Parkway project in Traverse City, where new deep storm sewer structures required dewatering in areas impacted by BTEX-contaminated groundwater. Our team designed and implemented a comprehensive on-site treatment system to manage the contaminated groundwater, ensuring safe discharge under the project’s [National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System] permit.
We also provided hands-on training to Team Elmer’s crews and on-site oversight by a [Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy]-certified wastewater treatment plant operator. The system’s performance allowed construction to stay on schedule while meeting stringent environmental standards. This project showcased our ability to collaborate with local contractors and agencies to deliver practical, compliant groundwater treatment solutions that protect both the community and the environment.
What’s next for your firm?
Global Environmental continues to expand its on-site water treatment capabilities across Michigan, with a focus on scalable, mobile treatment systems for construction and remediation projects. We’re investing in advanced remote monitoring technology and data-driven system optimization to make field operations more efficient and responsive. As northern Michigan continues to grow, we aim to be the region’s go-to partner for water treatment solutions that support responsible development while safeguarding local water resources.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
Northern Michigan’s engineering community faces the dual challenge of supporting rapid infrastructure improvements while protecting the region’s sensitive water resources. Construction projects near lakes, rivers and groundwater demand specialized environmental expertise and strong coordination among contractors, consultants, and regulators. At the same time, this creates tremendous opportunity – firms that can combine technical capability with local knowledge are well-positioned to help communities grow sustainably. For Global Environmental, it’s rewarding to see increasing awareness of the importance of water quality and proactive environmental management in every stage of development.
Otwell Mawby, P.C.
James Jackson, Senior Project Manager
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
As our area has grown, we have been fortunate to be able to provide our services to a wide variety of clients that include municipalities, schools, conservancies and the development community. While we’re grateful for all of our projects, over the last year we’ve been fortunate to be involved in several high-profile projects in the area that have provided tremendous community benefit, including the Freshwater Research and Innovation Center, the Boardman Building (former TCAPS Administrative Building), the Liv East Bay development, several Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy acquisitions including the Elberta Waterfront, the Brown Bridge Quiet Area expansion, among numerous others.
What’s next for your firm?
As a small business that’s been a part of a growing community for over 35 years, Otwell Mawby plans to continue to play a strategic role in assisting clients with ensuring environmental compliance for existing and new businesses and public services and adapting to ever-changing environmental regulations and employing new technologies. We foresee our business growing as expansion in the area continues.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
We live in a region that is highly sought after, desirable and attractive to professionals and their families looking for new and better opportunities. However, like other area businesses, finding affordable housing for staff is a challenge. We have been fortunate to take an active role in supporting property acquisition and securing financial incentives to add additional affordable housing options to the area. As the region looks to add additional affordable housing options, we look forward to having the opportunity to be a part of these developments while servicing our existing and future client base.
Gosling Czubak Engineering Sciences
Craig J. Pullen, President
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
Traverse City State Park’s improvement project will have a profound impact on the functionality of the campground with the new headquarters building, reconfigured entrance and dump station. We were able to use many of our core disciplines, including topographic surveying, civil site design, wetland delineation, geotechnical soil borings, and now construction observation and staking, which made us especially suited for the project.
We have been involved in the Fish Pass project for almost a decade, beginning with topographic and hydrographic surveys in 2016, so it’s especially rewarding to see the project being completed and also to provide construction staking and settlement monitoring.
Replacing and upgrading Crystal River crossings along County Road 675 near Glen Arbor has been a goal of the Leelanau County Road Commission and Conservation Resource Alliance for years. Working with them on design and construction to improve these crossings to bridges along with stream flow and recreational watercraft movement has been rewarding.
What's next for your firm?
Gosling Czubak has served public and private clients throughout Michigan and the Midwest since 1957. We have achieved success and longevity through fulfilling our mission to provide excellent professional services and solutions to our clients in a timely, efficient manner. We strive to be at the forefront of our core disciplines of engineering, surveying, environmental, drilling and construction materials testing. Being one of the few consulting engineering firms in this region that can offer all these services under one roof is key.
With nearly 50 professional and technical staff, we have a wide array of skills and talents. Training and mentoring along with equipping staff with the most technologically advanced tools such as LiDAR aerial mapping and terrestrial laser scanning is a constant process of continuous improvement. Our people are what’s next and our vision is that each staff member will find passion in their profession, career and project work.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
Finding and retaining talented staff is always a great challenge. We have been fortunate to consistently hire exceptional staff across our company. Not only have these been young or graduate employees, but also seasoned professionals that continue to move our company and culture forward.
As we have passed the first quarter of this century, new mindsets and processes are always refreshing. Marrying these ideals with long-standing successful methods can be challenging. This challenge is also a great opportunity. The workplace and methods of work evolve, but providing services and solutions to our clients is always constant. Direct project opportunities continue to come from the infrastructure sector, due diligence services, environmental cleanup and compliance and construction projects. Additionally, the Traverse City area is especially strong in parks, trails and conservancy of the land. Our landscape architecture staff has been instrumental in many of these projects.
Nealis Engineering
Jason A. VanBrocklin, President
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
Traverse City Senior Center: A new 18,000 square-foot facility for the seniors of Traverse City and Grand Traverse County. Our design scope included plumbing, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, geothermal heat exchanger bores and heat pumps, energy recovery, snow melt, interior, exterior, and site lighting, power distribution, fire alarm, communications, and security systems, making the building all-electric building complying with the City of Traverse City’s building electrification policy.
Kalkaska Memorial Health Center’s Acute Care Pavilion and Fixed MRI projects: Construction of a new two-story, 27,230 square-foot acute care addition and fixed MRI renovation for Kalkaska Memorial Health Center. Our design scope included plumbing, medical gas, snow melt, in-floor heating, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, interior and exterior lighting, power distribution, fire alarm, and communications systems.
What's next for your firm?
Traverse City Area Public Schools Sabin Administration addition and renovation: An 8,300 square-foot classroom renovation and a 3,500 square-foot addition to an existing school building to create new administrative offices for TCAPS. Our design scope includes plumbing, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, interior, exterior, and site lighting, power distribution, fire alarm and communications systems.
Traverse City State Park new contact station and new headquarters: A new 559 square-foot contact station and a new 7,650 square-foot headquarters and maintenance building for the Traverse City State Park. Our design scope includes plumbing, sand and oil separation, compressed air, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, gas monitoring, interior, exterior, and site lighting, and power distribution systems, and provisions for a roof-mounted photovoltaic system.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
Like other local small businesses, we struggle to recruit and retain employees. We don’t have a tremendous amount of turnover, so we aren’t looking often, but we periodically need to fill an opening, and it can be difficult to find a person with the qualities and skills that we are looking for. We try to prevent this struggle through summer internships or cooperatives for local college students who are trying to understand their engineering options. Other challenges include building and energy code and updates, building construction costs that can push projects over budget and equipment delivery delays that can delay projects.
Trison Engineering Group
Jim Edmonson, Owner
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
We are proud to have provided structural engineering services for a number of the following local projects: The newly opened Traverse City Senior Center, Immaculate Conception Elementary School, Cathedral Barn at the Historic Barns Park, a new music center at Interlochen Center of the Arts, the Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Williamsburg and the Morgan Farms apartment complex. We have also teamed up to provide the newest additions to many of the local elementary schools.
What's next for your firm?
We’re involved with a number of exciting projects including Phase II of the YMCA gymnasium addition as well as currently providing structural engineering for the new clubhouse at the Kingsley Club, construction at High Pointe Golf Course and the remodel and addition to the Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport café and gift store. We are currently also working on a number of high-end residences in the residential sector in our area.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
Keeping up with the high demand of projects is one of our biggest challenges, and even as a busy engineering company offering great benefits and a dynamic team environment, we are dealing with the labor shortage similar to the rest of the construction industry. Another challenge we have seen is that the higher cost of living makes it difficult to find experienced talent willing to move to the area to keep up with the high demands of growth.
Machin Engineering
Patrick Machin, Principal
What recent or current projects are you most proud of?
We are most proud of our work on several notable projects, including the Ironton Ferry Landing reconstruction in Ironton, Michigan, the reconstruction of West Bluff Road and retaining walls at the historic Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, serving as construction engineer for the contractor rebuilding five dams for the Four Lakes Task Force in Gladwin and Midland Counties, acting as reviewing engineer for the Boyne Skybridge and project engineer for high-speed lifts at Boyne Mountain and The Highlands, engineering modular structures for PopStroke facilities in Alabama and Texas and designing foundation systems supporting Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) projects in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.
What's next for your firm?
We’re excited about the future as we continue to grow in our key market sectors and expand our services across the country. By adding talented team members and strengthening our existing client relationships, we aim to deliver even greater value while maintaining the high level of support and expertise our clients have come to expect, both locally and nationally.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in the local engineering scene?
One of the biggest challenges in the local engineering scene is competing with larger firms for both public and private projects. However, we see this as an opportunity to showcase our firm’s unique strengths. Our specialized expertise, hands-on approach and ability to tackle complex, challenging problems allow us to provide solutions that are unmatched. We focus on delivering quality and innovation, building strong client relationships and leveraging our niche skills to make a meaningful impact in each project.
