Engineering Firm

Moves Downtown

Matt Poirer has an easy view of the progress in Randolph of his engineering company, Sanborn Head & Associates.

From the conference room window of his posh new office suite, which takes up most of the second floor of the new building at 2 South Main, Poirier can look down on Merchant's row. There he can spy the small storefront at the end of the block, where he started the office in 1998.

The Randolph office of Sanborn Head didn't have to be very big in 1998, and it didn't need a conference room. Poirier was its only employee.

Four moves later, however, Sanborn Head now leases an impressive suite of offices at the corner of Merchant's Row and Main Street right on Depot Square. Its last location was at Kingwood Park, next door to another engineering firm that moved downtown—DuBois & King, Inc.

A central space in the new suite is dedicated to a group of the huge copy machines that engineering firms require; that's surrounded by individual offices for a staff of eight engineers plus staff support.

The building, once the home of Brooks Drug Store, was built after the first of the 1991 downtown fires destroyed the 19th century three-story block on that site. The building was purchased a few years ago by Green Mountain Stock Farm owner Jesse Sammis and substantially renovated inside and out.

Poirier is quick to point out the "great fit-up job" that he received as part of his lease package.

The deal also included 12 parking spaces on Back Street for employees and clients.

The 2 South Main quarters give him space to expand, and that's a good thing. Sanboarn Head is one of four locations of a company headquartered in Concord, N.H., and it has grown steadily since Poirier started up the office to help the company serve some Vermont clients.

Prospects are good, he said this week. There's so much work to be had that he doesn't go out looking for it, he said.

Engineer Shortage

In fact, Poirier said, the only thing limiting the company from faster growth is the difficulty of recruiting engineers. The U.S. has a much-publicized shortage of engineers, he confirmed, and firms everywhere are in hot competition for the graduates of good schools—who can get enviable starting salaries.

"Everybody wants that person," he said.

It's hard for the whole industry, but particularly hard to attract young engineering graduates to a rural area, Poirier admitted.

When they're a little older, and starting families rural Vermont starts to seem a lot more attractive as a place to live, he said. That was his own case; he and his wife have raised a family here and he has spent many years on the Randolph School Board.

The firm has been able to take advantage of Vermont Technical College, hiring perhaps five of its graduates since 1998, but those students are also being hotly pursued, too, he said.

The Randolph office of Sanborn Head & Associates, Inc., specializes in engineering for solid waste disposal. That means design and permitting of landfills, throughout New England and New York mostly.

They're designing one landfill in Hawaii, too, Poirier pointed out.

Besides its Concord and Randolph locations, the firm also has offices in Portland, Me., and Akron, Ohio. The firm as a whole does the majority of its work in hydrogeology and the clean-up of contaminated sites.