Boston Consulting Firm Opens First Texas Office, Taps Texas A&M Prof as Leader

COLLEGE STATION, TX-Boston-based Charles River Associates Inc. is tapping Dr. Steven N. Wiggins from Texas A&M University as a senior consultant for its first Texas office.

Wiggins will head up the College Station office, one of three expansions for the provider of economic and financial consulting services. Wiggins has served as the George and Mary Jordan professor of economics and public policy and university scholar at Texas A&M. Charles River also is setting up an office in Salt Lake City.

In line with office openings, Charles River has acquired an Oakland-Berkley, CA-based consulting business owned by a University of California-Berkley professor. The acquisition adds three senior academic consultants, vice president and consultants in other areas as Charles River continues to secure pacts with other staff members.

“This acquisition is a strategic complement to our existing core practice areas,” says Phil Cooper, CRA’s vice president of corporate development. The strategy is setting the stage to “aggressively pursue additional growth opportunities in the West and Midwest,” says Cooper.The firm’s westward expansion comes two months after Charles River had opened a London office, staffed by 18 consultants.

Charles River Associates, founded in 1965, provides economic and financial consulting services, expert testimony and litigation support, and business consulting. The firm’s areas of expertise include auctions, antitrust, mergers and acquisitions, policy impact assessments, corporate finance, strategy and business operations, and regulatory economics. Other offices are located in Los Angeles, Palo Alto, CA, Washington, D.C., Mexico City and Toronto.