Page 21 - BusinessWest June 17, 2024

“One of the things I think is so great about engineering — particularly about civil engineering or the environmental engineering thatwedo—is that we make
our community better.”
ing to insurance: retirements outpacing the number of young people coming on board.
“We’ve had a lot of retirements; as quick as I hire, we have people retire or leave the industry,” Sullivan said. “We’re trying to grow, we’re trying to hire, and we make progress one year, and then a few months later, we might fall back. We’re trying to hire about five more by the end of the year, but, just like with everybody else, it’s been very challenging.
“Previously, being a smaller, local firm, we didn’t necessarily compete with the larger firms or state agencies because if somebody liked a small firm, they liked a small firm, versus a larger firm. Now we’re finding we’re going
up against those agencies and larger firms,” she went on. “I’m not sure if that’s because of the hybrid or remote potential. We’ve really focused on the ones that want to work near where they live, but now it’s getting hard to do that. There are also a lot of competitive sala- ries out there, so we’ve had to adjust to that. It’s definitely a challenge.”
Westfield-based Tighe & Bond is at the other end of the hiring spectrum, boasting about 600 employees at 17 locations across the Northeast. The firm is growing significantly at a time when a surge of federal funding — from the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 to the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act of 2022 — is creating plenty of opportunity for civil-engineering firms.
“They’re requiring technical talent throughout the country to do all the work that’s coming,” President and CEO Bob Belitz said, not- ing that the firm has more employees dedicated to recruiting and
Bob Belitz says work opportunities for engineering firms are high right now, and so is the need to attract new talent.
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onboarding than in the past. “We’ve made an investment in that function because it’s such a big part of our business.”
He added that the firm’s broad footprint across the Northeast makes it easier to recruit and retain talent. “Before, if somebody was working for us and got married and moved to New Hamp- shire, Maine, or New York, they might have to leave us to go work
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