The 1970s: A Growing Institution Focuses on the Environment and Workplace Equality
As we celebrate our 130th anniversary, this series chronicles Freese and Nichols’ achievements decade by decade. These posts are based on A Century in the Works, written by Deborah Sizemore and covering 1894 to 1994, and Continuing the Journey, covering 1995 to 2015.
The environmental concerns of the 1960s continued into the next decade, encouraging federal, state and local attention to waste treatment and water quality enhancement. Freese and Nichols sought to help in these new areas, finding ways to expand its services and adapt to our clients’ growing needs.
Enhancing Water Quality
Several governmental entities retained Freese, Nichols & Endress (as the firm was named then) to study pollution abatement and water quality improvement. The government entities that pollution reports were created for were the Lower Colorado River Authority, Red River Authority of Texas, City of Austin, Texoma Regional Planning Commission, Lower Neches Valley Authority and Concho Valley Council of Governments. A study was also made for the North Central Texas Council of Governments as a joint effort with another firm. Financed jointly by the Texas Water Quality Board and the Federal Water Quality Administration, the two-year, $600,000 study was completed in 1970. It provided a comprehensive review of sewerage and wastewater treatment needs in an 11,000-square-mile area on the upper Trinity River.
Rolling Hills
The centerpiece of the firm’s water work in the early 1970s was the new Rolling Hills Water Treatment Plant on the south side of Fort Worth and the 74 miles of 72- and 84-inch pipeline connecting the plant to Cedar Creek Reservoir.
The project was a key part of the 20-year plan to ensure Fort Worth had an adequate municipal water supply. The $9.5 million treatment plant and $35.5 million pipeline, completed in two years, doubled the water supply of the Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area.
Freese and Nichols expanded the original 80-MGD Rolling Hills plant to 160 MGD in 1986. In 1990, the plant received the statewide Public Water Supply Excellence Award from the EPA. The award is based on the quality of water produced, operations and maintenance practices, administration and management, and customer relations.
Seven Seas and Arlington Stadium
Among the firm’s more unusual assignments of the 1970s were the Seven Seas Marine Life Park and Arlington Stadium. Freese and Nichols assumed the role of construction managers and made all the purchases worth between $7 and $8 million. This was the only job designed by someone else on which the firm acted as construction managers.
“Arlington is a good client of ours, and our philosophy is that we will do whatever our client needs done, provided we can stay within our fields of competence,” recalled Bob Nichols.
The Arlington city manager was so impressed with our field man on the project that he asked us to release him to work for the City on converting its minor league ballpark into a home for the Texas Rangers – before the Seven Seas Marine Life Park was finished.
“When I protested, he offered an alternative: ‘Why don’t you keep the man, and you build the stadium?’ My comment that we had never built a stadium before brought the retort that eight months before, we had never built a sea life park, either.”
Seven Seas Marine Life Park housed exotic fish, elephant seals and a dozen trained dolphins in more than 2.5 million gallons of manufactured salt and fresh water. It opened to the public in March 1972. Arlington Stadium opened the same year.
Read “Then and Now: Engineering Places to Play” for more about this project.
A Growing Institution
What began as an individual practice by 1972 had a staff of 130 registered professional engineers, surveyors, draftsmen, technicians, inspectors and support personnel. In addition to the Fort Worth headquarters and branch office in Austin, the firm had an affiliate in Odessa, Texas.
Building on founder Major Hawley’s original specialties of water, sewerage and flood protection, his successors developed a well-rounded municipal and civil practice that included roads, bridges, airports, water and waste systems, dams, reservoirs, flood control and drainage, watershed management and comprehensive city planning. The firm also did all mechanical, electrical and structural engineering in-house. As compiled by Engineering News-Record (ENR), it ranked 151st among the nation’s top design firms in 1972.
Freese, Nichols & Endress operated as an association of seven partners, each with his client group and areas of specialization: Jim Nichols in water supply, water treatment and airports; Bob Nichols in water quality management and pollution abatement; Lee Freese in water transmission; Bob Gooch in computer operations and feasibility studies; Joe Paul Jones in planning and federal projects, including military installations; Gardner Endress in water resources and wastewater treatment; and Simon Freese in water supply, sewage treatment and flood control.
The World’s Largest Airport
Among Freese and Nichols’ most prominent projects of the 1970s was the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which opened in 1974 and was the largest in the world.
A Freese and Nichols joint venture oversaw more than $50 million in infrastructure work at the mammoth airport – the equivalent of about $300 million in today’s dollars.
Read “Then and Now: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport” for more about this project.
Adding the “Inc.”
After operating as a partnership for most of the firm’s history, Freese and Nichols incorporated in 1977 with Simon Freese chairman of the board and James Nichols president. Robert Nichols and Lee Freese became vice presidents, Bob Gooch became vice president and treasurer, and Joe Paul Jones became vice president and secretary. The new corporation needed all the experience of its predecessors’ 83 years to negotiate the shifting business and social terrain of the late 1970s.
The three “E’s” – energy, environment and employment equality – imposed significant change at home and work. Conserving energy, preserving the environment and promoting equality in hiring practices ranked high on the nation’s agenda.
The firm attended to all three “E’s.” On the energy and environmental front, work included many projects for the military. Dedication to the third “E,” equal employment, was shown through the firm’s employment policy, which stated equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age or national origin.