Acquisition will continue to fuel Top 200 firms' move into new markets and geographies. Says Bill Siegel, Kleinfelder CEO, "Our international business is growing as we expand into Australia and Canada, particularly within the energy markets." He says the firm's purchase in Australia "brings both resources to deliver on existing projects as well as a new set of clients for Kleinfelder." Noting the acquisition of Top 200 firm Shaw Group on July 30 by energy firm CB&I, Wall Street analyst Avi Fisher said he "wouldn't be terribly surprised" if the new parent sold Shaw's environmental and infrastructure business unit

Neno Duplan, CEO of Locus Technologies, has seen revenue grow from firms' use of a cloud computing software format his firm developed for managing environmental data. The firm just won contracts from Dupont Co. to manage data from more than 200 of its facilities and from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply for water-quality and -supply data.

"Firms have been missing an opportunity to take a holistic view of their portfolios and benefit from data they originally collected for only one purpose: compliance," says Duplan. "By studying data for trends and using the results to change their processes, companies would be more likely to avoid making the same mistakes again and would perhaps reduce or eliminate the need to collect data in the first place."

Looking ahead, Top 200 firms worry about the continuing commoditization of environmental services, the drive of firms to differentiate themselves from their competitors and the need to boost value.

Others see impacts from a continuing global economic slowdown. Robert Levitt, president of Hudspeth & Associates, wonders whether the private sector can "replace" government spending in the environmental arena.

AMEC's Mahmoud wonders about firms' ability to withstand a "prolonged" period of uncertainty. "Thus far, most firms have been able to take measures to sustain growth and profitability through overhead reductions, labor cost control and acquisitions," he says. "However, there is a limit to the effectiveness of these strategies if the external market stays flat or declines across multiple geographies and multiple market sectors for an extended period of time."

Data management by Fran Sweeney,Andrea Pinyan and Mev Barton