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OCEAN TOWNSHIP -- Growing up in Maryland, Walter Hopkin was always interested in how things worked and had an affinity for engineering. And as an adult, he successfully channeled those skills into his launch of WJH Engineering, a leading civil engineering firm in the Oakhurst section of Ocean Township that’s currently celebrating its 20th anniversary.
“As a kid, I had an inquisitive mind, enjoyed tinkering with and fixing things, and always did well in math and science,” recalled Hopkin, 54, a Red Bank resident. “Aptitude tests always indicated that I’d be an engineer, and in high school I took a class in mechanical drawing and thought it was pretty cool.”
Hopkin followed that star by majoring in civil engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia and interning at an engineering firm along the way. Following his graduation in 1993, he took a job with Schoor DePalma, a large engineering company in Manalapan, and moved to the Jersey Shore area.
“Rather than starting my career behind a desk like many other young engineers, my supervisors had me out doing inspections for construction sites, which turned out to be great experience for me because it helped me talk to developers and contractors and understand how things are done in the field,” said Hopkin, who worked his way up the ladder over the next few years.
Hopkin ultimately left Schoor DePalma in 2000 to work at a smaller firm, but by 2005 his entrepreneurial streak prevailed.
“I’d always wanted to own my own business, though I’m not sure I understood exactly what that meant when I was in college,” Hopkin said of launching WJH Engineering (after his initials) from an office in Jackson. “In 2005, the economy was a little slow, the great recession was about to happen, and I knew it was going to be just me handling decent-sized projects in my own firm.”
Over time, however, Hopkin’s vision for his firm changed.
“Though I wasn’t planning to have employees, it became difficult to service clients when I took a vacation, so I started out by hiring engineering co-op students/interns from Drexel, then one employee,” he said. “Then in 2014, I acquired a larger firm — Truhan Associates in Wall — which employed seven people, so we grew to almost 10 associates immediately.
"It was a pivotal moment for our firm because it gave us the critical mass to handle every aspect of a project,” Hopkin said of WJH Engineering, which moved to Wall in 2014 and relocated to its current, 3,500-square-foot office in Oakhurst in January 2020.
Surveying and more
Today, with a total of 14 team members, Hopkin said that his firm’s engineering projects — which support landowners or developers in changing the appearance of their land — typically begin with land-surveying services.
“We’ll take digital images of the land, including such information as elevations and the boundary of the property with buildings and structures on it,” he explained. “Our clients might be developers who want to build 50 new homes on a farm field or a homeowner who wants to put a pool in their backyard and needs to know where the water will run off so that it doesn’t impact their neighbors or anything in between.
"We plan roads and sewers for storm water and do a lot of environmental assessments overall to ensure that settings like streams, wetlands and protected areas aren’t negatively impacted,” Hopkin said.
Working throughout the Garden State, “we’ve provided surveying services to everyone from local homeowners who were putting a new deck on their home to Shore-area municipalities upgrading the town’s water lines and publicly traded building firms constructing several hundred-unit mixed-use developments,” Hopkin said.
“We work for several national builders that have a heavy presence in the Shore area, as well as local Monmouth County builders like Roger Mumford Homes and Denholtz Properties in Red Bank,” he said.
In terms of costs, “fees for our services could start at a couple thousand dollars for clients who, for example, are building an addition onto their home and need our help evaluating any impact the addition could have on their neighbors, identifying where the roof leaders should go, and ensuring that the addition complies with their town’s rules and requirements,” Hopkin said.
“On the higher end, fees can be several hundred thousand dollars for our full surveying of a 50- to 200-acre residential or commercial site, planning of the new development, permitting with the municipality, county, state and Department of Environmental Protection, and then translating our plan back in the field by helping to determine where the new structures should go and at what elevations,” he said.
To complete their work, he continued, “we leverage the most cutting-edge technology, including AutoCAD computer-aided design software for drawings and calculations, survey equipment with satellites, and more, and we update all of these each year.”
'Customer service is key'
Among industry trends, Hopkin said that new commercial, industrial and retail construction has slowed down in recent years, largely in response to the growth of online sales powerhouses like Amazon, and that building regulations have increased, which has added to the project costs clients must bear.
“Costs to build homes and commercial properties have risen over time due to increases in material prices, heightened regulations and the amount of time it takes for things to get approved,” Hopkin said of industry challenges they face. “Many other engineers complain about all of the rules we have to follow; our approach is that we don’t make the rules, but we’re here to identify them and help clients comply.”
Toward that end, Hopkin attributes much of WJH Engineering’s success to their commitment to exceptional customer service.
“Clients absolutely want high-quality, accurate plans, but they also want their questions and concerns to be addressed quickly, thoroughly and correctly,” he said. “Customer service is key and, all other things being equal when evaluating between engineering firms, the team with the best bedside manner will win. Clients love that we’re very responsive and customer-oriented and that we explain technical things in layman’s terms, help them understand the project, and keep them in the loop.”
Hopkin said that employees enjoy the positive culture that’s been fostered inside the firm as well.
“While there’s a nationwide shortage of engineers and getting good people remains a challenge in our industry, we try to meet that concern by not only marketing ourselves to clients but by marketing ourselves to industry talent as well,” he said.
“We appeal to prospective candidates by offering a strong work-life balance, flexible work policies, a generous $10,000 employee referral bonus and great opportunities to make a difference in the community through our firm’s support of local charities and causes, including Habitat for Humanity,” Hopkin said.
“But while we offer employees the ability to work from home when they need to,” Hopkin noted, “we’ve created a great work environment on our premises that our employees enjoy coming to and we encourage them to be in the office because that’s how they learn and build a team.”
As WJH Engineering celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, “our growth has been organic and we hope to continue growing at a sustainable pace,” said Hopkin, who spends his days focused on business development, financial and marketing activities but remains involved in every project and regularly meets with and counsels clients and employees alike.
“My favorite parts of the job are the small wins that we work so hard for, like successfully securing approvals from planning or zoning boards on our projects,” Hopkin confirmed. “There’s always some anxiety going to those meetings, but it feels great to celebrate those victories at the end of the process and know that we’ve done a good job for our clients.”
WJH Engineering
Location: 257 Monmouth Road, Building A, Suite 7, Ocean Township
Phone: 732-223-1313
Owner: Walter Hopkin
Founded: 2005
Website: wjhengineering.com