Profiles in Resilience: Royal Engineering & Consultants, LLC

By Kaitlin Brown, Environmental Defense Fund

“We look at coastal restoration as the future of our company.” — Dwayne Bernal, CEO, Royal Engineering

Dwayne Bernal, CEO, Royal Engineering.

Royal Engineering & Consultants, LLC (Royal), a New Orleans-based engineering and consulting firm, is one of the many innovative businesses committed to rebuilding the Gulf Coast after the 2010 Gulf oil disaster. Led by CEO Dwayne Bernal, Royal is dedicated to serving the public in a way that focuses not only on individual projects, but also on rebuilding strong local communities. The company’s 75 employees work in a variety of areas, including civil engineering, construction management, program/project management, environmental services, energy services and coastal engineering. Passage of last year’s RESTORE Act is expected to provide significant new funding for coastal restoration. This infusion will in turn benefit local companies like Royal and provide opportunities for them to grow.

“The RESTORE Act provides a catalytic opportunity for our nation to create and protect jobs, not only along the Gulf Coast, but in communities across the country that will provide materials, technologies and services for ecosystem restoration,” says Dwayne. “We look at coastal restoration as the future of our company.”

Royal’s coastal engineering services include but are not limited to: planning and design of ecosystem restoration projects, hydraulic and hydrodynamic modeling, shoreline protection, beneficial use of dredged material, marsh creation design and barrier island restoration. As coastal restoration funding is allocated to the Gulf Coast states as directed through the RESTORE Act, more projects like these will be approved, creating job and business growth opportunities for companies like Royal Engineering.

Royal Engineering’s office in New Orleans.

Bernal, who was born and raised in New Orleans, formed Royal in 2005, after witnessing the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina on his hometown. “I worked in the engineering field for several local companies and then Hurricane Katrina hit, and I saw that basically as an opportunity to take that entrepreneurial spirit that I had within me and start my own organization,” said Dwayne. One week after Hurricane Katrina, with 15 employees, Dwayne created Royal Engineering. Initially, the company assisted with hurricane cleanup, working on debris removal and quality assurance. But as time went by, Dwayne diversified Royal and added additional services and areas of expertise.

Following the devastation of Katrina, Dwayne realized that restoration of the Gulf was going to take more time and effort than anyone had predicted, and that everyone would need to play a role in order to restore the region and create a more sustainable environment for the future. Like so many other people throughout the Gulf Coast, Dwayne recognizes that the future of his beloved city and the Mississippi River Delta depends on the restoration efforts of companies like Royal Engineering. And Royal isn’t planning on leaving New Orleans or the business of coastal restoration any time soon.