ENGINEERING'S BEST: REDDING COMPANY LANDS A TOP HONOR IN INDUSTRY PUBLICATION
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October 17, 2007

Photo by Lucas Mobley / Record Searchlight FUN AT WORK: Sam Heier, left, Scott Magrini, Kristen Regan, Robert Lambert and Tony Magdaleno take a break in the Lava Lounge at Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer Inc. in Redding. Magrini gives Magdaleno a high-five after a shuffleboard game. CE News named Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer the best small engineering firm to work for in the nation.

October 2007 will be remembered as a historic month for Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer Inc.

Not only did the longtime Redding land development firm move into a new 17,000-square- foot office off Airport Road, but CE News named it the top small civil engineering firm in the nation to work for.

What's more, Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer ranked third among large and small firms after Kimley-Horn and Associates in Cary, N.C., and Wolverton & Associates in Duluth, Ga. Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer (SDS) was among five California companies to make the top 10.

"It speaks for itself," SDS Survey Manager Dave Eggen said of the honor. Eggen has been with the firm for 34 years.

"We have a diverse group here, and I think Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer has made an environment that's attractive for people to come and stay," he said.

CE News, a monthly publication with 50,000 circulation, considered 145 firms for its 2007 survey. Firms had to apply to the magazine to be considered. The participating firms ranged in size from eight employees to more than 5,000.

There were 20 companies with 100 or fewer employees judged by CE News in its small-firm category.

"We have been doing a lot of things related to employee satisfaction, and I guess it's all come together," SDS Chief Executive Officer Greg Dunbar said.

CE News took into account employee testimonials and surveys from management. The top three firms were then judged by a four-person panel.

Teamwork, family atmosphere, flexibility, respect, technology, integrity and support of individual desires were among the criteria considered.

Established in 1965, Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer has 41 employees. The firm provides residential and commercial site design, including landscape, architecture, land surveying and land use planning.

In the CE News article, judge Tim Cooper noted that Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer maintains "a team environment, which provides a caring and family atmosphere combined."

Shawna Manha, human resource manager for the firm, said employees banded together this year to raise money for a colleague's child who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Workers also chipped in personal time off they had accumulated so their co-worker could take two months off, Manha said.

About half of Sharrah Dunlap Sawyers' employees are people who grew up in Shasta County and went to college out of the area before coming back home.

"My drive to come back here was to be closer to my family," said landscape architect Erick Carlson, who graduated from Enterprise High School in 1991 and went to the University of Idaho.

Carlson said the firm was able to offer him a salary and benefits package that matched what larger firms in larger cities offered.

Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer's new headquarters on Lockheed Drive, just north of Redding Municipal Airport, is more than twice as big as the firm's old office on Bechelli Lane, where it had been since the mid-1980s. The new office is designed to take advantage of natural light, even on a cloudy day.

"It looks like an engineering structure. You can see the structure," Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer President Frank Sawyer boasted.

Reporter David Benda can be reached at 225-8219 or at dbenda@redding.com.

Source: Record Searchlight | Redding.com