My impression is that GHD came to the US in 2008-2009 flush with cash resulting from the desalination work they had done during the Australian drought. They purchased several small to mid-size American companies and then went home to Australia. The people left in charge were given orders to hire even though there was little backlog.
GHD's management seemed to believe that because of their reputation in Australia, they could walk into the US market and garner large projects; all they needed was the staff to do the work. Unfortunately, no one in the US knew who GHD was and other than the Oceanside desalination plant, they remain something of an unknown.
Although staff were hired, those in charge were irresponsible and because of GHD's lack of oversight, were held unaccountable. I believe that to their credit, GHD has learned that they must integrate their US operations into the overall company.
I would advise anyone interested in working for GHD to thoroughly research the company. It seems that there is a significant amount of turnover. As one recruiter told me of GHD: It's a place where you can always find a job while you look for the job you really want.
In a 30+ year engineering career I have had the pleasure to work at several well managed firms that offer challenging work and a pleasant work environment. I was surprised that an organization as large and seemingly successful as GHD approached its US operations so cavalierly and with so little responsibility.
