Bridgers & Paxton

Bridgers & Paxton is an Albuquerque MEP engineering firm that mechanical engineers Frank Bridgers and Don Paxton started in a garage in 1951. It’s grown to more than 130 employees in three offices, including Colorado Springs, and it’s worked for Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories for over 70 years. The firm’s 1950s Simms Building used a geothermal heat pump system and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s also signed the MEP 2040 Challenge on embodied carbon. B&P did its first University of New Mexico job in 1954. On UNM’s new $130.5 million Humanities & Social Sciences Building, it’s covering plumbing, fire protection and technology, with Bradbury Stamm building.

A microgrid at Kirtland, and 45 years of ice

Bridgers & Paxton is an MEP engineering firm in Albuquerque, and its portfolio is more specific than most consulting engineers put on a homepage. The one it leads with is the Kirtland Air Force Base MicroGrid Resiliency Project, which the firm describes as a first-of-its-kind research and development collaboration between US Department of Energy and Department of Defense sites. It installed an advanced renewable energy microgrid powering several base buildings and gave Sandia National Laboratories a platform for energy, cybersecurity and power protection testing.

The firm quantifies its specialisms rather than listing them. Four million square feet designed using ground source heat pump and geothermal systems. More than 45 years designing thermal energy storage systems using ice and chilled water, a technology that shifts cooling load off peak and is now being revisited for grid reasons. And, back in 1956 in Albuquerque, the world’s first solar heated and cooled office building.

Disciplines in-house cover mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering, plus instrumentation and controls, building information modeling, technology consulting, and energy and sustainability work. Project types the firm cites span healthcare, federal and government work, education and commercial buildings, with the firm noting its hospital project count as the question clients ask first.

On the sustainability side, the commitment is contractual rather than aspirational: B&P has signed the MEP 2040 Challenge, a pledge specific to MEP firms to work toward net zero operational carbon by 2030 and net zero embodied carbon in their building systems designs by 2040.

For federal procurement, the firm describes itself as a Federal Small Business with large business experience, which matters for set-aside eligibility and teaming on larger contracts.

Three offices cover the Southwest: the headquarters at 4600 C Montgomery Blvd NE in Albuquerque, a Colorado Springs office on Garden of the Gods Road, and a Mesa, Arizona office on South Alma School Road. Each lists its own marketing and business development contact. Published hours are Monday to Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Friday 7:30 a.m. to noon. Sources: bpce.com homepage and Contact page.