More staff planned for Stantec in Syracuse

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Apr 23, 2004 by Rombel, Adam

SYRACUSE - Sear-Brown Group, Inc. - a Rochester-based engineering firm with 30 employees in its Syracuse - area office - has begun life as part of Stantec Inc., a publicly traded, Edmonton, Alberta-based engineenng and design firm with $460 million in annual revenue. On April 6, Stantec completed its acquisition of Sear-Brown and its 10 offices and 400 employees, mostly in New York State.

The change in ownership could be a boon to the Syracuse branch.

"What it's going to bring to the area is more resources," says Thomas Dussing, Syracuse branch manager for Stantec at its office at 5794 Widewaters Parkway in DeWitt. He held the same post for Sear-Brown.

Dussing, who had been with SearBrown for five years, says he expects to hire an additional five employees (engineers, architects, or design professionals) in the next year. In fact, he was preparing two employment advertisements as he spoke. The hires are made possible by the new corporate parent's resources and ambitions. Stantec wants to become a top 10 global-design firm.

Stantec's experience in airport design, health-care and educational-facility design, infrastructure management, and pavement engineering will offer the Syracuse branch more opportunities to pursue projects in those disciplines. "It expands our resume locally," says Dussing.

In turn, the acquisition opens up a new geographic market for Stantec in upstate New York and a new practice area in the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

"What Sear-Brown does for us is provide the geographic presence we were looking for in Central and Western New York," Anthony Franceschim, president and CEO of the 4,400 employee-firm tells The Central New York Business Journal. "And it provides us entry into the bio-pharmaceutical market that we're not currently strong in."

Stantec, which has been profitable each one of its 50 years in business, previously had a Buffalo office but never had a presence in Syracuse, Rochester, and Albany. It now does. The company's number of employees in New York State increases from 30 to 400, Franceschim says.

He visited his new Syracuse branch office the week of April 5. "I was there last week visiting with our new employees. They're all on board and ready to go," he says.

Since opening a Syracuse area office in 1994, Sear-Brown provided engineering design and construction services for municipalities, agencies, school districts, and businesses. The office's capital projects in the region included: improvements to the East Syracuse - Minoa Schools and Waterloo Central Schools, bridge-rehabilitation design of the Interstate 81/690 viaduct through the city of Syracuse, design of the Northeast Medical Center in Fayetteville, and site civil design for TriState Auto Auction, Inc.