Town of Genesee-based
Generac Power Systems has established an office in Massachusetts as the manufacturer seeks to bolster its emerging clean energy business with talent not readily available locally, Generac president and CEO Aaron Jagdfeld told BizTimes Tuesday.
The new office, located in Bedford, marks Generac’s first presence in Massachusetts. The manufacturer expects to hire up to 50 employees for technology-related positions at the new location, which joins Generac’s growing list of satellite offices around the country that house employees in its clean energy business.
Although Jagdfeld says Generac does have software engineers and other employees with tech-related skills working out of its Town of Genesee headquarters, the company has had to look beyond southeastern Wisconsin as part of its talent acquisition strategy.
“We really have to go where the talent is,” Jagdfeld said. “Boston has a really nice network and a very robust university scene there when it comes to engineers around software, firmware, hardware and electronics. You’ve got MIT and number of really high-grade university systems in that area of the country.”
Most satellite offices have between 25 and 50 employees, a size that has allowed Generac to source local talent and management remote teams effectively, Jagdfeld said. Many of these employees will likely work remote with the option to connect in the office for meetings, he said, adding that Generac has embraced flexible work arrangements since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We want to have these satellite offices to give people the opportunity to group together and really be innovative and develop new products,” Jagdfeld said.
Generac will follow a similar strategy with workers moving to its new Pewaukee facility, a 75,000 square foot building
it acquired from American Family Insurance last month. Generac plans to house more than 300 employees at the new facility, some of whom already moved into the building in the middle of August.
“The one thing the pandemic I think taught all of us is that you have to be a lot more flexible with your workforce,” Jagdfeld said. “We have a combination of everything from hoteling to a hybridization of schedules.”
