AUGUSTA, Ga. – CRANSTON, a civil and structural engineering, landscape architecture, surveying, and planning firm serving Southeast communities since 1967, has appointed CRANSTON engineering veteran and principal Mitchell Murchison, PE, MBA, as its new president and CEO.

Murchison, who joined CRANSTON in 2006 and most recently served as vice president and director of civil engineering for the firm, succeeds Dennis Welch, Sr., PE, MBA, a 32-year veteran of CRANSTON who is stepping back to serve as the firm’s strategic growth officer. The leadership change, according to Welch, is part of a succession plan enacted in 2022, when Welch first took on the role of president of the Augusta-based infrastructure design firm. Welch, a civil engineer who has served with the firm since 1993, had succeeded Scott Williams, P.E., who had accepted a new role as vice president of operations for The HFW Companies (HFW), a St. Louis-based firm with which CRANSTON formed a strategic partnership in 2022. “The timing is right for him to take over as I focus on developing new growth markets, helping Mitchell expand our legacy brand across the Southeast, and mentoring other leaders at the firm,” Welch said of the succession plan.

Murchison, a native of Augusta, has diverse engineering experience with CRANSTON, including projects relating to land development, municipal infrastructure, water resources management, and transportation. Moreover, his leadership experience includes working with multi-disciplined infrastructure design teams comprised of architects, environmental experts, surveyors, structural engineers, traffic engineers, and other specialists.

Murchison earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Mercer University and his Master of Business Administration degree from the University of South Carolina. “I’m looking forward to carrying on the strong corporate legacy built by Dennis and his predecessors at CRANSTON and creating even greater momentum as we continue to expand our coastal South Carolina and Georgia markets,” Murchison said. “With Dennis, we’ll work hard to chart new growth and expansion throughout our Southeastern footprint, while continuing to empower the communities we serve to thrive.”

CRANSTON, which includes offices in Augusta, Aiken, S.C., Charleston, S.C., and Hilton Head, S.C., today is part of a growing national network of infrastructure design firms, led by St. Louis-based The HFW Companies (HFW), that leverage their shared expertise, best practices, and collaborative project opportunities to accelerate their growth. Collectively, HFW and its partner firms – including CRANSTON — last year ranked 242nd in industry trade publication Engineering News Record’s annual ranking of the top 500 infrastructure design firms in the United States based on revenue and number of employees.

For more information about CRANSTON or The HFW Companies, contact Daniel Bates at
412.310.3167 or at daniel.bates@hfwcompanies.com.