Jon Williams established Williams & Associates nearly two decades ago in downtown Watkinsville, GA, with the idea of creating an all-encompassing design firm in Northeast Georgia to serve its growing communities. Since then, the company has grown into a national civil engineering firm working in more than 45 of the United States and acting as the on-call civil engineers and economic development consultants for more than 40 Georgia communities.

“Over the years, our company has made a commitment to the Athens area, and to the State of Georgia, that we would be fully engaged in economic and industrial development, and we have made a commitment to our employees that we would continue to expand our footprint and provide them with professional growth opportunities. Our projects range from a one-acre commercial site to the $200M Caterpillar plant, which was one of the largest economic development projects in the State of Georgia in the past decade,” says Williams. W&A’s work on the Caterpillar project involved not only developing an 830,000 square foot industrial manufacturing plant but also helping solve the decades-long issue of how to develop a piece of property that spans multiple municipalities, Athens-Clarke, Oconee, and the city of Bogart. Other recent projects include Presbyterian Homes Continued Care Retirement Community, Creature Comforts Brewing Company’s expansion, and three new hotels in downtown Athens, plus over 35 multi-family projects in 17 states for Landmark Development.

Because of the company’s growth over the years and the importance of his current team, Williams decided, as of November 1, 2017, to rename the company to W&A Engineering to better reflect its mission: W&A Engineering improves communities with innovative design, effective and efficient engineering, and professional service. Building better communities,
one client at a time.

Since its inception, the company has grown from a one-person operation into a thriving firm of more than thirty talented professionals and support staff. The company operates across six main departments: Civil Engineering, Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Traffic Engineering, and Economic Development, and the recently created Soil and Environmental Consulting.

On the company name change, Williams says, “Over the years, the W&A team has helped me define who we are as a company. It is abundantly clear that the company has outgrown any appearance of being a sole proprietorship. We’ve matured well beyond the land-planning firm that we were eighteen years ago and evolved into the diverse civil engineering and design firm that we are today. So it made sense to rename the company from Williams & Associates to W&A Engineering.”

Williams and his team remain committed to giving back to the community. W&A facilitated over $800,000 worth of in-kind gifts, including over $100,000 worth of engineering fees to its nonprofit of choice, Extra Special People, to help with the construction of their new home in Watkinsville and to assist in the planning of their Camp Hooray project. Most recently, W&A made a $50,000 commitment of engineering and consulting services to the Firefly Trail, a 39-mile multi-use rail-trail which will connect three of W&A’s partner communities in economic development: Athens-Clarke, Oglethorpe and Greene counties. W&A designed and oversaw the construction of the gateway plaza through The Mark in downtown Athens to the Firefly Trail last year, and looks forward to helping conceive and implement other parts of the trail.