Ken Dalton, chief executive Faber Maunsell
At the time of this interview, Ken Dalton is about to oversee major changes to a well established, trusted international brand while simultaneously amalgamating three engineering consultancies into one – Maunsell Europe, Metcalf & Eddy UK and Oscar Faber officially became Faber Maunsell in early March. One might expect to find him stressed, faced with such a major rebranding. But if he is, he's not letting it show.

The secret to his relaxed composure seems to be complete faith in his employees. This isn't simply the corporate line from a man who has learned fluent management-speak. Oscar Faber (as it was then) was the only engineering company to appear in the 2001 Sunday Times list of Top Fifty UK Companies to Work For. Dalton values his staff, and they evidently like working with him.

This isn't the first time that Dalton has faced challenging times. "The company performed well in the 1980s, like everybody in the industry. We had a good tranche of work to see us through the early 1990s. But we faced harder times in the mid 90s."

As managing director, Dalton's response to the challenge was typically people-oriented. "I felt at that time that we had lost the focus of Oscar Faber's core business. We had a lot of talented people with excellent technical and professional expertise.

"We wanted to focus on getting that within a modern setting – we needed more of the same and more from the same; to be more profitable." Dalton feels that the staff played a large part in turning Oscar Faber round. "They got right behind this and we had a tremendous response from all the management. We got rid of our debts, and last year saw just over £4.5 million profit" and were included in the Sunday Times PriceWaterhouseCoopers Profit Track 100.

He says: "The successful management of a forward looking organisation depends on understanding the needs of all stakeholders and striving to achieve a balance between them.

"As well as providing a stimulating and rewarding working environment for employees, this approach has proven in the past to be effective in delivering strong organic growth and bottom-line profitability".

With a combined workforce of nearly 1900 and a revenue of over £80m, Faber Maunsell also draws strength from its parent company, AECOM Technology Corporation, one of the world's largest providers of professional technical services, with annual revenues of $1.5bn.

"With this merger, we are suddenly into a whole new area of true global engineering. Engineering consultants have to take their seat at the top table with the clients and principal decision makers.

"Having a certain critical mass makes that easier particularly in some of the very large infrastructure projects." Dalton states that the "globalisation of the business and the opportunity to offer a wider range of services from the four divisions, building engineering, transportation planning, transportation infrastructure and infrastructure and environment, is the best way to maintain strong growth for the future."

Dalton's view of the merger is that there is a shared vision within the three businesses now joined together as Faber Maunsell, and he is characteristically optimistic.

"The integration process has been an inclusive experience and everyone is behind the new venture and has positive feelings about the future," he comments, in typically relaxed manner.