A Brief History of a Generational Company
As told by Rich Hangen, founder and first president, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.
Since VHB's beginnings in 1979, the company has stayed true to the original vision of the founders… even as our own understanding of that vision evolved and our company grew. This is my story of that vision and growth.
The original founders, Bob Vanasse, Bill Roache, John Kennedy and I, worked at a firm together in the 1970s. When that company was acquired, we decided to start our own business. We each believed there was a better approach to running a business, so in July 1978, I resigned and set up shop in the basement of my house as a sole proprietor.
But it didn’t remain a solo operation for long. Over the next few months Kennedy, Vanasse, and Roache joined me, and in January of 1979 we opened our doors at 184 High Street in downtown Boston. Together we formed our own unique philosophy of how to run a company. This was the root of what we call today our Generational Company. At the time, however, we just knew we wanted a balance between financial aspects and human aspects. The generational company started the day we opened the doors, and is still evolving to this day.
From Traffic-Focused to Multidisciplinary Approach
In the beginning, Vanasse/Hangen Associates, as it was known, was a single-focus traffic firm: We saw ourselves as a boutique. At the time, no one involved with VHB ever thought much about the future, let alone imagined the 800-person, 18-office operation that exists today. In the early days, we thought of the here and now. But we were always confident we’d be successful.
Enter Bob Brustlin. We soon realized that we had a great opportunity to expand our traffic work by adding civil engineering services and Bob was our guy. Bob helped us build a very solid engineering practice that served as a firm foundation for the VHB of today. Our practice grew over time to allow us to think about geographical expansion and we opened our Orlando office and soon after Rhode Island and New Hampshire. As our space and people grew so did the breadth of our knowledge and our reputation in the marketplace. We added field survey to our list of offerings. We began working with the development community on high-profile New England projects. Rhode Island brought the beginning of the firm’s environmental practice. Those first 10 years, for us, were all about seizing the opportunity. In 1989 — a big year in VHB’s history — we started to establish ourselves in Virginia. Then we moved the corporate headquarters to our current space at 101 Walnut Street in Watertown.
A Defining Moment, National Recognition
By 1991 we decided the firm needed a brochure that really told our story and sold our services. The consultant we hired did some research. His report: “I don’t know what you guys do, and neither does anyone else here.” For the first time, we knew we needed to create a vision that would define us. The process of this visioning took us from being a group that simply reacted to the market, and transformed us into proactive managers of our future. That’s the root of why we’re here today. It was the single-most defining moment in our history. That vision articulated our unique offering to the marketplace: integrated services delivered in light of the context of any given project.
Since that time, the firm has experienced tremendous business growth. Running parallel with that growth has been the development of the generational company model, and the development of the staff and the firm’s reputation for serving our clients exceptionally well. The mid-1990s saw the firm as the target of industry acquisitions, but the founders determined that selling out wasn’t right. We then set about finding a way to reward current owners of the firm without selling out to a larger company. The result: the first form of ownership transition was established. We also put together an economic model that was to guide the firm in the transition process, and we established a program to give ownership to staff, the associate and senior associate program. This provided significant opportunities to our employees.
The firm’s rankings in industry publications grew, bringing VHB to the top 100 in the ENR list of design firms. VHB was also consistently named a “Best Place to Work” by many national and local groups, among them CE News magazine and the Society for Human Resources Management. It was clear the generational company concept was succeeding and that both business and personal needs were being fulfilled.
Transition to the Next Generation
In 1999, after 20 years at the helm of VHB, I decided to transition the firm’s presidency to Bob Brustlin. What Bob has done since taking over is tremendous, and my hat’s off to him and the others who are running the company now. They are moving this firm forward in ways we never imagined so many years ago. I’m proud of VHB and the part I played. Now it’s time for the next generation to take the firm even farther. That is extremely gratifying for me.
