Parsons Brinckerhoff: The Second Avenue Subway (a)

Abstract

Can a company base a major proposal on its good reputation, history with the client, and a perspective that differs from the client's own? Emphasizing both its engineering capability and 80 years' experience, Parsons Brinckerhoff spends one year and $1 million preparing a proposal to build a $17 billion subway line. Competition from four equally qualified firms is stiff, but PB is sure its history and top-level MTA connections make it a shoe-in. Despite MTA's concerns about the finished line's functionality, PB believes the construction of the tunnel itself is the key to winning the bid. In the A case, the firm awaits the good news. The B and C cases reveal the results and the direction the company then chooses to take. (A teaching note is available to registered faculty members.) Excerpt UVA-M-0793 Rev. Aug. 11, 2011 Parsons Brinckerhoff: The Second Avenue Subway (A) William Barclay Parsons Jr. may have displayed a “humorless rectitude” in his dealings with people, but he sure knew how to build things. Parsons founded a consulting engineering firm in New York City in 1885 that would go on to design some of the largest, most complex, and most intriguing building projects in the world. Parsons himself was a New Yorker, born in 1859, just as the occupation of engineer was reaching its modern definition—a person trained to design and construct roads, bridges, and other structures. Parsons was gifted, if not a genius. By the age of 25 and fresh out of Columbia School of Mines (the precursor to the School of Engineering), he won a job that placed him in charge of repairs at the huge Erie Railroad Co. But Parsons expected bigger things for himself, and on January 1, 1885, he quit his salaried job and hung out his engineering shingle in New York City. His brains and pluck quickly led to a string of engineering projects, including the building of the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railroad and a bridge over the Brazos River in Texas, the first railroad in Jamaica, major water supply systems for the cities of Vicksburg and Natchez in Mississippi, and several hydroelectric plants, including one on the Hudson River. . . .