Smith & Company Engineers are celebrating a man of vision this year, as they mark their 50th anniversary helping build communities across Southeast Missouri.
Founder Sam Smith opened his one-man shop in 1968 with survey work.
His first big project was the design of a water tank for the town of Fremont. It had to be filled the first time with a garden hose, according to a story he shared over the years with young engineers.
Today, a staff of nearly 50 people provides engineering services for projects like the $75 million Eight Points shopping center and a $17 million upgrade for the Poplar Bluff sewer treatment plant.
"We learn, grow and become better when we surround ourselves with people who are smarter than us," said company President Bob MacDonald.
The company has expanded to include geologists and biologists, as well as surveyors and engineers, said MacDonald.
It has doubled and tripled its office space in Poplar Bluff since moving to Vine Street, and recently opened the doors to another location in Jonesboro, Ark.
Smith was the type of man who could see what was to come, according to MacDonald.
He could envision an industrial park for Poplar Bluff's largest employers in a 1970s era survey he did of rural farmland along Highway 142, and Smith saw how his company could give employees a stake in their own futures.
Upon Smith's retirement, the company he built became an employee-owned trust. Employees earn interest in the trust, investing in themselves as they invest in the company, MacDonald said.
"Sam told me, (I) want to give the folks that have helped me build this an opportunity to feel like they have some ownership," MacDonald recalled of the decision to form the trust. "That was just the way Sam thought."
Smith was a Poplar Bluff native who graduated from high school here and went on to earn a business degree before joining the Army. He came home and earned another degree, in engineering, before opening his company.
His workers have spent the past five decades designing many of the water and sewer plants, roads and bridges that make area communities work everyday.
Smith died in 2016.
"To me, the 50th anniversary means a lot, not just to the people who are working here," said MacDonald. "To me, it just means Sam Smith. I wish he was here to see it. He's the reason we're all here."
Many of the company workers are people who grew up in the Southeast Missouri, MacDonald said, coming from towns like Neelyville, Ellsinore, Poplar Bluff and Bloomfield.
It's the family connection that makes Smith & Company a good place to work, said Chief Operating Officer Steve Hicks.
"We all know each other, we all grew up around this area," he said.
The family oriented nature of the company is important, agreed Bill Robison, who handles communications and client relations.
The company wants to thank all of its clients for the past 50 years, and hopes to continue serving them for the next 50 years, Hicks and Robison said.