Halff is an infrastructure consulting firm based in Richardson, Texas. Dr. Albert H. Halff opened it as a one-man shop in Dallas in 1950, and it built an early name in hydraulics, hydrology and floodplain management. Today it covers transportation, land development and planning, water and environment, coastal engineering, surveying, energy and construction services from more than 30 offices across Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia and Arizona. Its own history calls it one of the largest independently owned consulting firms in Texas, and that’s no stretch. On today’s slate it’s the civil engineer for 35 Eagle Phase IV, a 755,793-square-foot speculative industrial expansion near Alliance Airport in north Fort Worth.
Halff’s founding story has a figure attached to it. Dr. Albert H. Halff started as a one-person consulting practice in Dallas in 1950. In 1953 he and partner Allen Hundley each put in $1,000 to form Hundley and Halff. He separated in 1960 and formed Albert H. Halff Associates. Dr. Halff was named Texas Engineer of the Year by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers in 1981 and received the ASCE Texas Section Award of Honor in 1984.
The firm marked its 75th anniversary in 2025 and states it roughly doubled in size over the preceding eight years. Its contact page now lists 32 offices, fifteen of them in Texas: Austin, Austin South, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Fort Worth, Frisco, Houston, Lubbock, McAllen, Midland, Richardson, San Antonio, The Woodlands and Tyler. Outside Texas it runs Bentonville, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Little Rock and North Little Rock in Arkansas; Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Tallahassee, Crestview, Panama City Beach and Tavares in Florida; Baton Rouge and Shreveport in Louisiana; Oklahoma City; Phoenix and Mesa, Arizona; and Atlanta and Duluth, Georgia.
Work is organized into three solution groups — Mobility, Places and Communities, and Water and Environment — spanning roughly 27 disciplines. Beyond the core civil services, the list includes coastal engineering, federal work, right of way, intelligent transportation systems, MEP engineering, funding resources and infrastructure management. That last pair is notable: a client who needs help identifying and pursuing funding for a project can get it from the same firm doing the design.
Employee ownership here is funded differently from most ESOPs in the industry. Halff contributes 3% of each employee’s total compensation to their ESOP account annually, with automatic enrollment after one year of employment and no employee contribution required. More than 450 individuals hold stock, and the largest single employee shareholder holds under 3% of shares. Employees can buy additional shares each year through a low-rate four-year financing plan, and a yearly stock bonus program awards shares to senior leaders and high performers. Ownership that diffuse is a deliberate choice about who controls the firm.
Named practice leaders and managers include Lenny Hughes as Planning and Landscape Architecture Practice Leader, Leigh Hollis and Duane Booth as Operations Managers, and Marcus Taylor, who received the ASCE Louisiana Section Outstanding Civil Engineer Award. A current featured project addresses completing a regional trail and roadway connection in Lewisville, Texas.
The Richardson office is at 2380 Performance Drive, Building C, Suite 150, Richardson, TX 75082.
