BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — McFarland Johnson, Inc. recently announced some leadership changes, but those are not the only exciting initiatives at the growing employee-owned company. “We have grown by double digits every year for the last five years,” President Chad Nixon says of the engineering firm. With that growth comes change, especially with the retirement of […]
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — McFarland Johnson, Inc. recently announced some leadership changes, but those are not the only exciting initiatives at the growing employee-owned company.
“We have grown by double digits every year for the last five years,” President Chad Nixon says of the engineering firm. With that growth comes change, especially with the retirement of McFarland Johnson’s CEO of engineering, James M. Festa on Jan. 31.
The company kicked off February with a new CEO of engineering, Thomas Kendrick, and a slew of other promotions. McFarland Johnson named Erik Atkins director of transportation, appointed Chris Kopec as director of facilities, named Ruthanne Bulman VP and director of human resources, and appointed Jason Shevrin VP and director of technology.
But the growth and change doesn’t stop there, Nixon says.
“We are hiring like crazy in Upstate New York,” he notes. McFarland Johnson has close to 250 employees and continues to seek out top engineering talent around the state.
McFarland Johnson currently has four locations in New York — Binghamton, Buffalo, Pittsford, and Saratoga Springs — with plans to open a Syracuse location later this year.
“We see Syracuse as a growth opportunity for our company,” Nixon says. The firm already has a number of employees in the Syracuse area and hopes to attract even more to serve both the Central New York market as well as the North Country.
“We are actively looking at office space right now,” Nixon says, adding he hopes the office will open sometime in the second or third quarter of this year.
McFarland Johnson, which has some remote employees, also has a presence in Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, as it continues to grow.
When he started at the firm a few decades ago, projects were maybe
$50 million in value, Nixon recalls. Now, projects are regularly in the $500 million to $1 billion range, he says, and located beyond New York’s borders. “We’re doing work in Alaska,” he says. “We’re doing work in the Cayman Islands.”
McFarland Johnson’s work has also expanded in terms of what services it provides. It still focuses on planning, engineering, environmental, technology, and construction services in the aviation, transportation, civil/facilities, and environmental fields, but the complexity of projects has pushed the firm into new disciplines like software development, Nixon says. McFarland Johnson even developed and patented a platform for airport management called AVIAS.
While growth is important, Nixon notes, it only makes sense if it benefits the company, including its employee owners, as well as clients. Success is where employees, clients, and projects align; where the work is meaningful; and employees feel valued and enjoy the work, he says.
