Company Profile
Bureau Veritas North America, Inc.
Company Overview
Company Overview:
About Bureau Veritas
For nearly 180 years, BV’s passion is providing comprehensive consulting solutions to ensure the quality, health, safety, and environmental responsibility of organizations around the world. Through these services, we help our clients efficiently manage their operations and protect their brand.
With over 700 offices in 140 countries worldwide, Bureau Veritas has the resources to serve in virtually any geographical region.
In the U.S., Bureau Veritas is the nation’s leading provider of Building Safety and Construction Code Compliance Services. With more than 500 trained professionals, Bureau Veritas provides services to ensure safe and durable built environments.
Our talented staff provides Plan Review, Inspections, Building Department Administration and staff augmentation, Civil Plan Review and Inspections, Third Party Plan Review and Inspections, Fire Plan Review and Disaster Recovery Programs.
Our Energy Division provides code compliance review of power generating facilities. The type of facilities vary from complex combined-cycle natural gas power plants, to state of the art renewable power plants, such as wind turbine and solar.
Additionally, we provide a variety of consulting services including Public Works Engineering, Program and Construction Management, Asset Management, Construction Materials Testing and Environmental services.
Our clients know that with BV on their side, nothing is left to chance.
Company History
Company History
The Birth of the Company, 1828
In the winter of 1821, violent storms raged across Europe causing some 2,000 shipwrecks and 20,000 deaths. The situation was disastrous for insurance companies. Most of them went bankrupt, and for those that survived the competition in coming years from newcomers in the market was particularly fierce. It was during this critical period that two underwriters, Alexandre Delehaye and Louis van den Broek, and an insurance broker, Auguste Morel, established the Bureau de Renseignements pour les Assurances Maritimes (Information Office for Maritime Insurance).
Founded in Antwerp (Belgium) in June 1828, the company had a simple mission: to keep underwriters up to date with the various premiums in use at different commercial centers and to provide all the necessary information for determining the level of confidence in ships and equipment.
But what set the company apart from the competition was its new methodology.
As well as indicating the type of navigation a vessel could undertake, a note of risk (3/3, 2/3, 1/3) was ascribed to each vessel. This figure was arrived at by considering a vessel's structural design, quality of materials, strength of scantlings, age, previous accidents, and state of maintenance of hull and rigging.
In 1829, the company was renamed Bureau Veritas, the first Register was edited - which included 10,000 ships - and an emblem for Truth was adopted as the company insignia.
The Truth and the Testimony
The original insignia (logo) of 1829 was designed by Achille Deveria and engraved by Jacques-Jean Barre. It represented the female figure of Truth emerging naked from a well. The founders explained their reasoning in a letter that was distributed with each Register. Their aim was clearly stated: “to seek the truth and tell it without fear or favor.”
Worldwide Expansion
Without doubt the best testimony to the vitality of Bureau Veritas was its increasing worldwide expansion - first throughout Europe, then to the Americas and finally to all the main ports of the other continents.
With the expansion of the Industrial Revolution, Bureau Veritas broadened its range of services. The introduction of iron and steel into ship building had made materials inspection at production sites crucial. In 1910 a new service was created, "Control of Materials". Its purpose was to examine all the materials used in everything from industrial equipment, to diesel motors, locomotives and the like, as well as the very factories themselves.
Then in 1922, the French government entrusted Bureau Veritas with the official control of airworthiness certificates for civil aircrafts. (The company's substantial experience acquired in the maritime field had already proved most valuable.) The new Aeronautical Service established thorough procedures based on periodical surveys with reference to specific rules.
Similarly, requests from insurance companies for periodical technical surveys of buses, coaches and trucks in France led to the creation of the Automobile Service in 1927.
With the increasing number of accidents during the construction boom that followed the First World War, insurers realized they could no longer cover the risks unless there were pre-existing controls in place. Again Bureau Veritas responded to the market, and in 1929 it established the "Control Service for Buildings & Civil Engineering".
By 1932 Bureau Veritas had established its own laboratories at Levallois-Perret near Paris for metallurgical and chemical analysis, and the testing of building materials.
Building Solid Growth, 2000 onwards
In the past few years, Bureau Veritas has streamlined its organization to enable a better market focus and keep a strong growth momentum. The Group is now structured along 8 global businesses :
- Marine
- Industry
- Inspection and In-Service Verification
- Health, Safety and Environment (HSE)
- Construction
- Certification
- Consumer Product Services
- Government Services and International Trade
The United States of America:
After the integration of US Laboratories in 2003, the Group further strengthened its presence in the US in early 2004 with the acquisition of Berryman & Henigar and Graham Marcus, whose services include code compliance, program and construction management, asset management and environmental services. The Group also acquired, in early 2005 Linhart Petersen Powers Associates (LP2A), specializing in services to US municipalities, particularly for construction code compliance. Later, the acquisition of OneCIS, the inspection division of the OneBeacon insurance group, gave Bureau Veritas access to inspection and assessment of pressure equipment to ASME standards in the country. And in 2005, the acquisition of Clayton and NATLSCO reinforced Bureau Veritas QHSE capabilities.
Leading the way
A strong organic growth and more than 50 acquisitions in the past ten years have pushed us into a leadership on our market and given us a broad and unrivalled expertise.
Benefits
Benefits
A comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, vision, life, disability insurance, an employee assistance program, PTO, paid holidays and a great employer-match 401k plan. We also offer voluntary benefits such as legal assistance, a critical-care plan and consumer discounts
Great local working environments with a small-company feel, exceptional co-workers and the most appreciative clients ever!
It's more than a job...it's a community of people just like you who are passionate about ensuring a safer world