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After the Layoffs

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The Springfield architectural community felt another blow in late January, as a dozen employees from two firms were laid off. While the industry continues to struggle with dwindling construction projects, leaders are questioning what unintended consequences the steady stream of layoffs will bring. 

Butler, Rosenbury & Partners Inc. laid off nine employees, while GHN Architects and Engineers let three go, the firms’ principals confirmed last week.

Already, local firms were feeling a loss. Based on the Springfield Business Journal’s lists of the area’s largest architectural firms, the total employee headcount between 2009 and 2010 dropped by nearly 20 percent, down to 190, among the 17 largest firms as of Jan. 5. With many firms facing a lack of projects, firm principals are unsure when, if ever, they’ll be able to rehire their former talent.

“Our biggest fear is that they won’t be available anymore. A lot of them are probably going to leave the community,” said Geoffrey Butler, CEO at Butler, Rosenbury & Partners Inc.

Butler said he met with employees Jan. 28 to tell them of the cutbacks. He said the layoffs, which reduced staffing to 28 from 37, were across the board, including administration.

GHN Architects and Engineers laid off an interior designer, an architectural intern and a construction documents technologist, cutting its work force to nine from 12, said Charles Hill, GHN president. It was the firm’s first layoff in 20 years.

Butler said the employees were not surprised by the news.

“They know how much work we have,” said Butler, whose firm employed more than 60 earlier in the decade. “These are not people oblivious to business conditions.”

The decisions came just days after the Springfield Public Schools Board of Education approved the selection of an Omaha, Neb.-based architecture firm to work on one of three school projects funded by $50-million in school bonds approved by voters in November.

While Butler didn’t tie the layoff decision directly to the school project, the state of the industry compelled Butler to speak out against the board’s decision.
Area architects voiced their concerns in the days leading up to the school board vote.

“The guy who screams the loudest is the last one that’s going to get a job. But someone has to scream,” he said, adding that he hadn’t pinned his hopes on his firm getting any business from the bond projects. “If it had gone to another local firm, some of my people could have had a chance of working there.”
Job opportunities are scarce for those laid off.

After unsuccessful job searches following their layoffs from Creative Ink in October, architects Nathan Rapp and Eric Albers decided to start their own firm.

“It’s really an effort for us to make the best out of the situation,” Rapp said of Insight Design Architects, which is in early startup stages. Still in the works are a functional Web site and marketing materials.  

For now, Rapp and Albers, who have 20 years of combined experience, will work out of their homes to keep costs down, Rapp said.

At least one architectural veteran – Rapp’s former boss – is thinking about the effects startups might have on the industry.

“(Small startups) can offer their services at greatly reduced fees. We’re struggling to make payroll and overhead as it is,” said Bob Stockdale, president of Creative Ink, whose Galloway Village office building, 4064 S. Lone Pine Ave., is up for sale or lease.

Creative Ink now employs five, far fewer than the 20 personnel the office was renovated to accommodate in 2006. Wilhoit Properties has listed the building for $775,000, while the lease rate is $175.26 per square foot.

Intern architect Russell Moffett said he is among the lucky ones in Springfield. Moffett was working at JPS & Associates Inc. and jumped at a chance to join the larger Butler, Rosenbury & Partners, only to have his BRP position cut in June. His former employer, JPS, learned that he had been let go and invited Moffett back to work the very next day.

“For the most part, the people that I know that have found jobs have had to move away,” he said. “I can think of eight off the top of my head.”

Brad Parke, who worked as director of marketing and business development at Pellham-Phillips Architects & Engineers Inc., made it through two rounds of layoffs at his company before he decided to take a project manager job at Pinnacle Sign Group Inc.

“(Pellham-Phillips) was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. It was a marriage of everything I wanted to do,” Parke said.

But Parke realized that prospective clients were having trouble lining up financing, he said, and when he had the opportunity to go back into the sign business – the type of work that put him through college – he thought he would be one less guy dragging down Pellham-Phillips’ payroll.

“I just think this is the door God opened for me,” he added. “He gave me a real sign that this is what I should do.”
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