CDM Smith is an employee-owned engineering and construction firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with a practice weighted toward water, environment, transportation and energy. The firm designs and delivers drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities across the United States and internationally, and it works in design-build and long-term operations roles as well as traditional consulting engagement. CDM Smith is a design and delivery partner on Tampa Bay Water’s $181 million Regional Surface Water Treatment Plant expansion in Hillsborough County, Florida, working alongside Veolia Water North America under a long-running public-private partnership. That project adds up to 12.5 million gallons per day of drinking water capacity and is scheduled to come online in 2028.
Scale of the practice
CDM Smith reports delivering more than 150,000 projects for over 20,000 clients across more than 150 countries. The firm was established in 1947 as a partnership and incorporated in 1970, and today runs roughly 7,000 employees out of offices worldwide, coordinated from 75 State Street, Suite 701 in Boston.
The service span is wider than a design consultancy. CDM Smith lists consulting, engineering, construction and operations across the project life cycle. In practice that means an owner can bring the firm in during planning and feasibility, keep the same organization through detailed design and construction, and hand off into operations without re-procuring at each stage. For multi-year capital programs, that continuity removes several of the handoff points where schedule and budget usually leak.
Digital delivery through Trinnex
CDM Smith has built out a digital practice under the Trinnex name, developing AI-powered tools and partnerships aimed at infrastructure owners working through asset data, condition assessment and long-range planning. It is a notable structural choice: rather than treating digital work as a service line inside engineering, the firm gave it its own identity and product focus.
Safety, ethics and quality as operating standards
Three standards are published as the operating framework teams work under. Health, safety and security is the first, and the company reports more than 120 awards over the past three years tied to that program. Compliance and ethics is the second, framed around transparency and accountability in day-to-day decisions as much as complex ones. Quality is the third, positioned as a mindset carried from planning through execution rather than an inspection applied at the end.
Who it fits
The client mix skews toward organizations with long asset lives and heavy regulatory exposure: municipal and regional water utilities, state transportation agencies, energy clients, and public facility owners. Work is described as globally reaching but locally grounded, relying on regional knowledge and partnerships, which matters for owners whose programs cross several jurisdictions and permitting regimes at once.
The firm also runs a giving-back program covering STEM education support, global disaster relief and employee-directed donations in the communities where its offices sit.
Getting in touch
The Boston world headquarters can be reached at +1.617.452.6000, and the company maintains regional contact routes and an office finder for teams working outside the United States.
