By Tom Donaldson

Atlantic News, December 5, 1996

[The following article is courtesy of Atlantic News.]

HAMPTON — At a time when Hampton needs all of the business tax revenue it can muster, a group of engineers has decided to headquarter here in a unique new business. As of November 13, Erin Engineering has been certified in the state to practice professional engineering and has been approved by the Internal Revenue Service as an S Corporation.

David O’Connor, who is president of the successful Travel Connection, in Hampton, is a retired engineering technologist who worked 12 years for the US Department of Defense (DOD) at the Portsmouth Naval Yard. O’Connor had been “kicking around” an idea for several years and is now bringing it to fruition.

David has an interesting story to tell. He retired from the DOD five years ago and following the tragic loss of an only son, needed to have something to do “to keep my sanity,” he said. At that time the travel agency business had been on his mind and he took his former retiring boss from the Navy Yard, Raymond Nash, a registered engineer, with him and formed The Travel Connection. They have been together ever since in a successful business.

Engineering had never left his mind, and this past spring, when he and a fellow church friend and choir member, Bill McDill, were out in McDill’s boat on Lake Winnapasaukee, they looked at the beautiful properties along the lake shore and decided they should be doing better than they were at the time. David laid out his unique business idea to McDill, a corporate controller with an MBA and 25 years of accounting experience.

McDill ran with the idea and developed a business plan for an engineering consulting firm that would supply top quality engineers to companies that need temporary staff to do a project or to engineer development of a product. O’Connor and McDill talked to Ray Nash who was delighted to get back to engineering. The process was underway and following the many steps to starting a business, Erin Engineering Associates, Inc. was formed.

For quite a few years, David had coached a softball team made up primarily of bright young engineers of every discipline. Dave, who is fondly known as “Coach,” found all of them willing to tackle a part-time foray into an exciting new venture. The new firm will be able to provide mechanical, electrical, civil and even architectural engineers as needed to any industry. The firm has the people, the technology in CAD-based drafting and the computer network needed already in place.

With three certified engineers on staff the firm is focusing on specific projects rather than continuing engineering services. Erin will offer its clients top quality professional engineering services without the cost to those clients of maintaining an engineer or an engineering staff.

It is a new and exciting concept in the state and certainly the type of clean industry Hampton needs. David O’Connor is President and CEO, Raymond Nash, Vice President, and William McDill, MBA, is Corporate Comptroller. The firm, located at 387 Lafayette Road, in Hampton, can be I reached at 926-1591.