Hughes Associates expands Colorado site

BROOMFIELD, Colo. - Fire protection engineering firm Hughes Associates has expanded its regional office to keep up with demand for its services in the greater Denver and Rocky Mountain region, thanks to a boom here in construction. The expansion of the office, where Hughes simply expanded into the adjoining space in the company’s location, tripled the square footage. The company has also added an additional engineer on staff, for a total of six engineers and marketing and business managers. “We are seeing a fair amount of growth in the Denver area, with new buildings and new construction,” said Dave Tomecek, a senior fire protection  engineer with Hughes. “And we are seeing it not just in the commercial sector, but much more …in the federal government here in the West.” Because several federal agencies use Denver’s Federal Center as the home of their engineering and risk analysis operations, Hughes’ Denver office is now the Baltimore-based company’s central location for its Department of Energy business. The agencies “are feeling the budget crunch and are looking for ways to economize,” Tomecek said. The Denver office is Hughes’ third largest such location, a designation it shares with one of Hughes’ five California offices. In the private sector, Hughes main area of business is servicing fire alarm and sprinkler systems that have reached the end of their lifespan or are in need of upgrades due to codes. “In addition to that we are seeing light manufacturing begin to move in, with a number of existing facilities already set up for that,” Tomecek said. “There is a lot of turnover.” The company has also opened an office in Anchorage, Alaska, and maintains 19 other regional offices in North America and three international offices in Italy, Singapore and Taiwan.