For more than 75 years, the Pittsfield, Maine-based Cianbro Companies have delivered major construction projects across the country. What four brothers – Carl, Bud, Ken, and Chuck Cianchette – launched as a small construction company in the 1940s has since grown to more than 4,000 employees spanning multiple divisions and subsidiaries. It is now the fourth-biggest, 100% employee-owned construction company in the country.
Cianbro is a major contributor to America’s energy infrastructure. Through its Power & Energy Market division, the company has provided project services spanning construction, maintenance, restoration, emergency response, and construction management. In Maine, some of its project highlights have included substation construction, lattice tower replacement, and transmission line modifications and relocations. Last year also marked the company’s first 500 kV transmission line, located in North Carolina.
One of the most significant projects, however, has been the redevelopment of a site that was once used by the U.S. Air Force to detect aircraft and missile threats. Western Maine Renewables, a development partnership between Cianbro and Patriot Renewables, bought the 1,400-acre Moscow Over-the-Horizon (OTH) Backscatter Radar Base in 2012, about a decade after it had been deactivated. The Western Maine Renewable Energy Project will be a wind power development with 14 turbines, all of which were fully erected last April and ready to generate 58.8 megawatts of clean energy after commissioning by Vestas. That is enough clean energy for 25,000 Maine homes per year. Plus, the companies renovated an operations and maintenance building on the original site to be fully powered by the wind project.
Video Courtesy The Cianbro Companies
Cianbro has also ventured into energy storage. In 2023, the company entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Peregrine Turbine Technologies to add one of Peregrine’s long-duration thermal energy storage systems to Cianbro’s solar field in Pittsfield. With 40,300 solar panels, it was the largest solar energy facility in Maine at the time, capable of powering up to 6,500 homes. As Peregrine described in a press release, “Peregrine’s less expensive and more efficient storage will make it easier to capture, store, and deploy renewable clean energy for use when energy generation is unavailable or lower than demand.”
Last year, meanwhile, Cianbro’s Western Maine Energy Storage filed for a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to conduct further studies for a 500 MW pumped storage hydropower facility, or a “water battery.” The project would pump and store water between a lower and upper reservoir around Dixfield and Canton, Maine, to meet later energy needs. Tom Brennan, director of public affairs with Western Maine Energy Storage, told the Maine Monitor, “When power is relatively cheap, you pump water up, and then when it gets really expensive, or there’s a lack of juice in the system, you flow it back down.” The Maine Renewable Energy Association’s executive director, Eliza Donoghue, added that such a solution can help address energy affordability problems, elaborating, “There is no doubt that electricity demand across the country and including on our shared grid in ISO New England territory is going to go up significantly.”
Western Maine Energy Storage promises energy reliability, as pumped storage hydropower has a record of over a century of delivering electricity when it is needed, “regardless of time of day or weather conditions,” ultimately enhancing the reliability and stability of the grid. The company added that pumped storage hydropower is “the most cost-effective energy storage system,” with a long service life.
Photo Courtesy Peregrine Turbine Technologies
Through its Building Market division, Cianbro has also provided impactful solutions for all types of buildings. When demolishing the Bangor Auditorium and Civic Center in Bangor in 2013, the company recycled all building materials and donated furniture to the local Boy Scouts, YMCA, and Maine Central Institute. While working on a 12,750-square-foot addition to Alfond W² Ocean Engineering Lab’s Offshore Wind Laboratory, the company created the 9,000-square-foot wave tank basin and an underground electrical power feed. In the process of building Bangor Savings Bank’s headquarters and adjacent parking garage in Bangor, completed in 2019, the company drilled 500-foot-deep wells for geothermal heating and cooling and installed a solar array on the roof that could meet up to 70 percent of the structure’s energy needs. Lastly, its renovation of Maine Central Institute’s Founders Hall in Pittsfield, completed in 2022, replaced a steam heating system with a hot-water radiant system, added energy-efficient lighting, and generally brought the building up to ADA standards, all while preserving the historic building’s exterior.
Cianbro subsidiaries have also adopted important efficiency upgrades of their own, as well, after adopting ‘Lean principles’ in 2016, which required teams to seek ways to improve project efficiency throughout all phases of development. For example, Cianbro’s Fabrication & Coating Corporation last year invested in the Kinetic K5200XMC, which “combines plasma cutting, oxy-fuel cutting, and milling in a single system, eliminating the need for multiple setups or moving between work stations,” the company explained. The all-in-one machine not only boosts efficiency but also enables Cianbro to take on bigger, more complex projects with ease, thanks to its 40-foot cutting table. With the upgrade, Cianbro can keep key operations in-house, reducing costs and improving control over production schedules.
Cianbro also invests in its future workforce through the Cianbro Institute, which offers both in-house educational programs and connections to external ones with 100% tuition reimbursement. A college internship program, meanwhile, gives students the chance to spend the summer working on a project or within a business unit. In 2024, Cianbro and its subsidiaries supported 41 interns from more than 20 colleges. As Pete Vigue, Chairman of The Cianbro Companies, explained in a blog post, “The Cianbro Companies’ growth and success begins and ends with our team members. It boils down to a simple phrase we use here at Cianbro: It’s All About People.”
Video Courtesy The Cianbro Companies
