Forty years ago, Jeff Harrington started Harrington Group, Inc. (“HGI”) in his basement with a conviction about how a firm should operate. Not a business plan. Not a brand strategy. A conviction about serving clients well, doing honest work, and building something worth building.
Over the decades that followed, that conviction took shape in six core values: service, competence, quality, honesty, integrity, and respect. They were not invented. They were recognized. Pulled from the way HGI was already operating and put into writing so the core values could be passed on. This year, as we mark 40 years in fire protection engineering consulting, we have been reflecting on what each of those values actually means in practice. Not as words on a wall, but as a standard we return to every day.
Service
At HGI, service has always meant something more specific than responsiveness or turnaround time. It means understanding what a client is actually trying to accomplish, their broader goals, their constraints, their definition of success, and delivering the best total solution based on those needs. Ben Randle, who has spent decades building long-term client partnerships at HGI, describes it as client intimacy: showing up consistently, adapting when things change, and remaining willing to solve problems that do not yet have clear answers. The client relationships that have lasted the longest at HGI were not built on convenience. They were built on that standard of service.
Competence
Fire protection engineering is a specialized field, and competence in this discipline does not happen by accident. It is built through mentorship, through hands-on project experience, through the deliberate transfer of knowledge from one generation of engineers to the next. Daniel Lampke, Director of Engineering, has watched HGI grow from a small founder-led organization into a firm with a broad and experienced leadership team. He points to two things as the foundation of that growth: strong values and quality people. Competence, in his view, is not just technical knowledge. It is the willingness to keep learning, to develop others, and to ensure that expertise does not walk out the door when someone retires.
Quality
Quality is the newest addition to HGI’s six core values, formally recognized in 2025. But as Matt Connolly, Assistant Director of Engineering, Quality and Training, puts it, the commitment was always there. Quality is the care behind the work. The diligence no one sees. The willingness to slow down, ask questions, and do things the right way even when it is easier not to. It shows up in how projects are reviewed, how teams collaborate, and how HGI approaches the role of connecting technical code requirements to the real-world realities of a client’s facility. At its heart, quality is personal. It is a standard each person on the team holds themselves to, not because someone is watching, but because it matters.
Honesty
In a technical field, there are moments when the honest answer is not the easy one. A preferred design approach may not meet code. A project may be more complex than originally anticipated. A proposed solution may present risks worth discussing before moving forward. At HGI, the expectation has always been to be direct about those things early, clearly, and without softening the message in ways that leave clients with an incomplete picture. Being honest with a client, even when the conversation is uncomfortable, in itself is a form of respect. After 40 years, that standard has shaped every client relationship we have built.
Integrity
If honesty is about what you say, integrity is about what you do, especially when no one is watching. It is the decision to flag a concern when it would be easier to stay quiet. To stand behind an assessment regardless of what outcome someone was hoping for. To show up the same way on every project, for every client, regardless of size or complexity. Integrity is not a value you perform. It either shows up in the work or it doesn’t. Over four decades, it has been the quiet constant behind the track record HGI has built — the reason clients come back, and the reason the firm has lasted.
Respect
Respect is the value that connects everything else. It shows up in how our fire protection engineers approach a client’s problem in ways like listening before proposing a solution or taking the specific situation seriously rather than applying a generic answer. And it shows up in how we try to work with each other every day. At HGI, we want every person on the team, regardless of title or tenure, to feel genuinely valued. That is something we work at, not something we take for granted. After 40 years, that standard has not changed.
What forty years looks like
Six values. Four decades. One firm that has tried, consistently, to live up to all of them.
None of these values exist in isolation. Service without competence is just good intentions. Quality without honesty is a polished surface over a shaky foundation. Integrity without respect is compliance without care. They work together, each one reinforcing the others, and together they describe the kind of firm HGI has always tried to be.
As we look ahead to the next 40 years, these values are not something we plan to revisit or refine. They are the foundation. And foundations are not something you change. They are something you build on.