Krakow calling
By : Jeffrey Sparshott
Plugged in: Keith Hetherington, CH2Ms telecom design director in Poland.
As project consulting and management firms go, CH2M (http://www.ch2m.com)sounds more like a nasty chemical compound than a company set to help solve environmental headaches.
Based in Krakow, CH2M Hill (to give the company its full title) is an employee-owned Colorado-based outfit that has worked on environment, water and wastewater engineering projects in Poland during the past 10 years.
In mid-July, the company inaugurated a telecom design center for Europe in Poland's second city with the aim of investing $3 million in its new facility as well as hiring some 90-100 full-time employees by first-quarter 2002.
"We came here because we had a small office anyway," said Keith Hetherington, CH2M's telecom design director for Poland. "We realized we could expand, (what with) the potential of the graduates from the local universities and the fact that it's a good ground for further expansion into the rest of Europe," he said.
The company's design center is now focused on working with one U.S. client that is expanding a telecom and cable TV network in Germany, exporting the skills and services of 55 Poles and three expatriates who work in the Krakow office. Hetherington said other immediate plans include landing some Polish clients while long term the company wants to turn the Krakow office into a telecom design base for most of Europe much to the delight of local officials.
"CH2M Hill's commitment proves that Krakow is a good location for businesses that want to operate not only in the city but throughout the region," said Krakow Deputy Mayor Tomasz Szczypinski, who spoke at the center's inauguration. "It is an engineering company and it fits well with our strategy to use the intellectual potential that we have in Krakow in the field of technology."
Though many telecom companies have suffered from a slowing economy this year, CH2M believes the potential for landing clients is significant.
"The telecom network in this country is definitely in need of improvement," he said. "We've seen that already. Over the past couple of months, myself and a couple of the other managers have gotten additional funding from (regional headquarters in) London for us to look into business development in Poland. Hopefully by the end of the year, but certainly in the first couple of months of the next year, we'll have a Polish client."
The company has held preliminary talks with Poland's main telecom operator, Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA), the country's largest alternative telecom firm Netia and cell-phone operator Polkomtel.
"It's too early to tell on the corporate side what is going to develop," Hetherington said. But with just the one client the company is set to have a "healthy balance" by the end of 2001, with about E5 million in revenue for the center's first year.
The scope of each project varies, but the company is confident that it can deliver the services from Krakow to build, upgrade or revamp telecom services throughout the region. Hetherington said the firm is especially interested in Russia.
"It's a slightly tricky market," he said. "Until fairly recently it's been a closed market and they didn't really want any kind of Western influence. Now they're looking at the Western influence because they realize they have got to expand. If they're going to keep up with rest of the world, they've got to be connected with the rest of the world."
Gazprom's telecom operations are especially exciting, he said. A gas pipeline from Siberia to Germany is slated to pass through Poland, and though the Russian concern has run into regulatory barriers, it is considering running a fiber-optic cable along the planned route.
"The possibilities for us there are immense because we are an environmental and utilities and telecoms company," he said. "We could in effect do a hell of a lot with that project, possibly from this office, though I would have to expand (staff)."
To date, the company has been involved in several Polish projects, including planning and design work for wastewater treatment facilities in Jelenia Gora and Bielsko-Biala. The telecom design facility is CH2M's second in Europe, after Madrid, and Hetherington hopes it will lead the company's efforts throughout most of the continent while the Madrid office focuses on the Iberian market.
CH2M is building its staff through a cooperative program with Jagiellonian University, with the company and the school looking to fine-tune a curriculum and turn out students with the skills necessary to work at the design center.
"Krakow's got a great resource students leaving the universities," Hetherington said. "We want to tap some of that knowledge."
