ACCO Engineered Systems

ACCO Engineered Systems is one of the largest mechanical contractors on the West Coast, working from Glendale, California across California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Founded in 1934, the employee-owned firm self-performs HVAC design-build and installation, plumbing, process piping, sheet metal fabrication, building automation and controls, and a large mechanical service and maintenance book that follows its installed base. Its own fabrication shops feed the field, which is the operating model that data center and healthcare owners increasingly ask for when schedule compression pushes assembly work off the jobsite. ACCO works across commercial, healthcare, education, industrial, life sciences and mission-critical markets, and its energy solutions group handles retro-commissioning and central plant retrofits on existing buildings.

ACCO’s licensure footprint is wider than its office footprint, which matters if you are considering the firm for work outside the West. It holds licenses in nineteen states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

The construction side is published as ten distinct scopes rather than one mechanical package: engineering, project management and delivery methods, estimating, BIM and VDC, fabrication, HVAC piping, industrial construction, process piping, energy optimization, plumbing, rigging, sheet metal, low temperature and industrial refrigeration, site utilities, fire sprinklers, mission critical and commissioning. Rigging as a listed capability is worth noting; it is the piece that decides whether a chiller replacement in an occupied building is a single contract or three.

The facility service group is run as a separate business with its own scopes, including service engineering, plumbing service, chiller service, energy management, equipment repairs, mechanical retrofits, preventive maintenance and strategic accounts. A 24/7 service line at 800.598.2226 routes requests to the nearest office, with a stated 24-hour response target on general enquiries.

The origin story explains the name. Ira Prentiss Fulmor founded the business in 1934 as Air Conditioning Company, a proprietorship at 1005 Santa Fe Street in Los Angeles, choosing a literal name because few people then knew what air conditioning was. The company moved from downtown Los Angeles to Glendale in 1949 and became an independent corporation, shifting from distribution to contracting. It is now employee-owned through an ESOP and describes itself as the largest environmental firm in the Western United States and among the top three nationally.

Named projects show where the mission-critical and healthcare work sits: SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the CoreSite LA3 data center in Los Angeles, Project Eyrie in Redmond, the Kraken Community Iceplex in Seattle, Bellevue Station, the CommonSpirit Health clinic in Kirkland, US Coast Guard temporary facilities in Seattle, Alexza Pharmaceuticals in Fremont and the Brisbane community pool. Sunbelt Controls operates as a related subsidiary.