Garney Construction

Garney Construction builds water and wastewater infrastructure and very little else, which is unusual for a contractor of its size. Founded in 1961 and headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, the employee-owned firm self-performs treatment plant construction, large-diameter pipeline, pump stations and tunneling for municipal and utility clients across the country. It works heavily in alternative delivery, running CMAR and progressive design-build contracts where the water utility needs pricing and constructability input before a design is finished. That specialization has made Garney a reference contractor for water agencies planning capital programs, and its project list runs from regional transmission mains to full plant replacements. The firm is 100% employee-owned and operates from offices spread across the United States rather than a single regional base.

The scope breaks into seven self-performed lines, and the numbers behind them are what a water agency will care about. Pipe is the largest: installations up to 156 inches in diameter across concrete, steel, ductile iron, fiberglass, PVC and HDPE, in all soil conditions, going back to 1961. Plant work covers virtually every water and wastewater process and technology used in the country, new build through renovation and expansion, including the sequencing needed to bring new systems online around an operating facility. Pump stations have been a mainstay for thirty years, from greenfield builds to upgrades of intake structures, lift stations, discharge systems and high service booster stations.

Tanks are a distinct specialty dating to the mid-1990s. Garney crews build circular and rectangular concrete tanks, pre-stressed and post-tensioned to AWWA D115 and AWWA D110 Types I, II and III, conventionally reinforced, and in steel. Published capacities reach 20 million gallon circular potable tanks and 120 million gallon rectangular basins.

Marine work is where the equipment position shows. The company owns and operates its own fleet of boats, sectional barges, long-reach excavators and cranes for raw water intakes, river crossings, inverted siphons and outfall diffuser systems, on both design-build and conventional contracts. Heavy civil extends to storm drainage structures, culverts, channels, junction boxes, vaults, foundations, tunnels, dams, reservoirs, intakes, outfalls and spillways, plus industrial foundations, fuel containment and railroad turntables.

Ownership and scale, as published: founded 1961, roughly 2,500 employee-owners, about $2 billion in revenue. Charles Garney left his father’s Kansas City plumbing business to start the company, sold roughly 30 percent of the stock to employees in 1986 and the remainder in 1995.

The ENR rankings the firm publishes are ranked first in water transmission lines, water supply, and sanitary and storm sewers; second in sewer and waste; fourth in both wastewater treatment plants and water treatment and desalination plants; fifth among the top 30 all-environmental firms; and 58th among the top 400 contractors.

Growth has come through targeted acquisition: Grimm Construction in Colorado in 2001, Encore Construction Group in Florida in 2012, Garney Pacific and a federal operation in 2015, epoxy coatings manufacturer Warren Environmental and applicator A&W Coatings in 2018, and Emery & Sons Construction Group in 2026, which established a permanent Pacific Northwest presence.