Bloomington-based industrial engineering and architecture firm TKDA today announced it has acquired CNA Consulting Engineers, a Minneapolis-based firm specializing in underground and geotechnical engineering. The deal formalizes a working relationship the two Minnesota companies have had for 15 years, and allows TKDA to offer more services, CEO Jeff Lipovetz said. The sale closed on Friday.

CNA specializes in tunnel design and geotech engineering. Lipovetz says it’s a service TKDA coveted, but didn’t have in-house.

Now with CNA’s team of nine officially TKDA employees (and employee owners via the company’s ESOP plan), Lipovetz hopes to expand TKDA’s geographical footprint.

“People do their geotechnical analysis and this kind of underground work very early in projects,” Lipovetz said. “So it’s important for us to have a skill-set in house to be able to chase jobs from the very beginning all the way through construction.”

With offices in Minnesota, Illinois, California, Washington, and Wisconsin, TKDA is an employee-owned business with 460 engineers, architects, planners, and specialists dating to 1910. CNA, founded in 1979, regards itself as the leading underground construction engineering firm in Minnesota.

The two companies have a long history of working together successfully, having served clients such as the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, and Metropolitan Council Environmental Services.