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St. Petersburg’s Griner Engineering acquired by OHM Advisors

Peter Wahlberg

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As St. Petersburg rebuilds from the triple-whammy of summer storms and Hurricanes Helene and Milton, one of the region’s most prominent engineering firms is joining forces with a new partner and adding new resources and capacity – all this from just up I-75.

This week, St. Petersburg’s Griner Engineering announced its acquisition by Michigan’s OHM Advisors. Founded in 1968, Griner Engineering expanded from its beginnings as an electrical engineering firm to providing resources for green building, fire protection, and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) engineering services to 30 states and internationally, working as far afield as Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan for the US State Department.

Now, Griner will become part of OHM Advisors, with all personnel joining OHM with immediate effect. OHM will take over Griner’s contracts, including continuing contracts serving both the Cities of St. Petersburg and Tampa.

OHM Advisors CEO Jon Kramer noted that as a “community advancement” firm, adding Griner’s team to theirs advances their strategic goals, doubling “their bench of engineering experts,” in addition to giving them a presence in six states. Griner’s team also brings expertise in fire prevention engineering that OHM previously lacked.

Conversely, OHM will bring Griner’s team additional capacity on infrastructure engineering, especially as relates to critical storm-hardening and resiliency efforts that will be required across Florida in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Indeed, it was that presence in Florida that sealed the deal – Griner’s deep community connections would give OHM a foot in the door with businesses and governments across the state. “The beauty with Joe is that as a lifelong St. Petersburg resident, he has all those relationships,” Kramer explains.

Griner Engineering’s former CEO Joe Griner’s father joined the firm not long after it was founded by a school friend. Griner himself joined the firm after college and, in 1997, purchased it outright from the other partners. He’s run it ever since – and will continue to, becoming  Director of OHM’s St. Petersburg and Sevierville, TN offices.

“I’m a lifelong St. Pete resident,” Griner explained. “I was born here, my father was born here; my great-grandparents came here after the Civil War. We’ve lived here for more than a hundred years.”

A graduate of Gibbs High School and the University of Florida, Griner served as President of the St. Petersburg Museum of History and a member of the City’s Development Review Commission. With such deep community connections, it was critical for him that any acquisition provide additional opportunities – not just for himself but for his team and for the community as a whole.

“I see just tremendous opportunities… I feel very blessed now to be part of OHM Advisors. With the increased potential, I’m re-energized.”

For OHM the deal was an obvious one, especially in view of Griner’s area connections. “We’re looking for areas that have one of two things – growth and/or a tremendous amount of infrastructure,” noted Kramer. “Florida has both.”

“In addition… We’re finding that millennials and Gen Z want to live where they want to live, and then they’ll worry about where to work. When I started at this firm 31 years ago, we only had one office in Livonia, Michigan.

“Now, we have 23 offices across six states. It’s really neat now that if you have a staff member who wants to move … they now have that option.”

These alignments of vision resulted in a deal that moved at breakneck pace. The two firms discussed joining forces early in 2024 before sealing the deal in a visit earlier this month – despite the chaos wrought by two hurricanes in a row.

“Even just how it happened was pretty amazing,” said Kramer. “I flew down after Hurricane Helene and before Hurricane Milton, and … everyone pulled together and made it happen.

“People’s homes were flooded … but somehow we got it all done.”

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