In 1955 Dan Barge Jr., Bill Waggoner and Billy Sumner risked all they had to start a Nashville-based engineering business. This is the story of how that small venture survived, thrived, and grew into a 400-person professional services firm called Barge Waggoner Sumner & Cannon, with twelve offices spread across the eastern half of the U.S. and clients such as Tennessee Eastman, Bridgestone, the U.S. Department of Energy, Gaylord and Jack Daniel's. It gives the story behind the partnership, explains the origins of its culture, and tells countless anecdotes about persistence and resourcefulness that, in the end, made the firm one of the most respected in its field in the South. It explains how BWSC became a major player in areas such as environmental compliance, corrections and urban planning. It tells how BWSC underwent a merger with Wainwright Engineering, an Alabama-based firm whose principal business was designing and building airports. In addition, the firm's history is tied in with many events in the changing South: the rise and fall of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway; the impact of urban renewal; the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville; Nashville's 1955 recruitment of the Ford Glass Plant; the creation of Kentucky Lake, and many others.