2020 marks the 65th anniversary for Siegfried! What started as a civil engineering firm with four employees has grown into a multi-disciplinary firm with over 40 employees, and over $3.0 billion in design-build projects. Siegfried provides civil engineering, structural engineering, landscape architecture, surveying, planning, and athletic facility design, but it was not always that way…Siegfried has its start like most companies: with one person.
Robert Siegfried, who founded the company, was born in Kirkland Washington, and graduated from Washington State University. During World War II he was in the Navy and contracted malaria while fighting on the Pacific front. To avoid a medical discharge, he was reassigned to be the head project engineer building Rough and Ready Island at the Port of Stockton as a naval supply and communications center.
After leaving the Navy in 1955, he founded the firm of R.W. Siegfried & Associates, bringing on Arnold R. Schamber and James F. Yost, and surveyor Theron (Javy) Javette. Yost would go on to take over as President when Robert Siegfried retired in 1992 after 37 years as the President. Yost serves as President until 1995. Following Yost as President was Wayne West, who started with Siegfried in 1967 (1996-1999), and Lex Corrales (2000-2009), who also started work with the firm in 1967. In 2010, Anthony Lopes was named President and served in that role until his retirement in 2019.
The original Siegfried office located at 2132 El Dorado St shared space with Ernst & Lloyd Architects and Walter Hachman Construction. In 1967, Siegfried and the team built their office at 4045 Coronado Avenue and remained in that space until 2008, when the firm moved operations to Brookside. In 2019, Siegfried purchased a building at 3428 Brookside Road. This renovated space allowed the entire Siegfried team to work in a collaborative environment filled with natural light and provides space to expand in the future.
In 2020, Siegfried’s Board of Directors named Paul J. Schneider, P.E. as the firm’s 6th President in its history. Paul has been with the company since 1999 and a partner since 2006. During his time with Siegfried, Paul has overseen the expansion of the firm’s education, healthcare, and infrastructure markets, as well as firm revenue, and the addition of landscape architecture in 2004. His expansion of the firm’s project portfolio into junior college campuses, multiple UC campus projects, roadway improvements, and major healthcare facilities including the $500 million California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in Stockton and the $1.2 billion UC Davis Health Hospital in Sacramento will ensure the legacy of Siegfried continues for generations.
