Klohn Crippen Berger Celebrates 70 Years

The story of Klohn Crippen Berger began in 1950, when a company called Pitt Polder Ltd. was founded by Dutch immigrant Jan Blom in Pitt Meadows, a few kilometres east of Vancouver in British Columbia. The busy dyking and flood-control operation became Canadian-British Associates Ltd. in 1956, and shortly after was renamed C.B.A. Engineering Ltd. Klohn Leonoff Consultants Ltd. began life as Ripley and Associates in 1951 in Vancouver, founded by a young man from the Canadian prairies named Charles Ripley.

On the other side of the continent, Dr. Louis Berger created consulting firm Louis Berger Inc. in Pennsylvania in 1953.  Back in Vancouver, Iowan engineer Glenn Crippen founded Crippen Wright Engineering Ltd. with Henry Wright, a British engineer, in 1954. Crippen eventually took over C.B.A. Engineering, and later merged with Klohn Leonoff to become Klohn Crippen Consultants Ltd. in 1993. Klohn Crippen then merged with the Berger Group in 1999 to become the company known worldwide in 2020 as Klohn Crippen Berger, or KCB.

Over the seventy years of its existence to 2020, KCB has experienced many challenges but also many successes; achieved a global reputation for technical excellence; and built a roll call of engineers and scientists that includes some of the world’s pre-eminent professionals in their fields. The modern company is the result of the vision, commitment, talent and sheer hard work of not only the four original founders, but also the hundreds of individuals who helped create its legacy over the years.

KCB Company Timeline