DECCO Helps to Lay the Groundwork for Life Sciences in NH

A nearly century-old business is using cutting-edge technology to empower the life sciences in New Hampshire. From its start making coal-handling systems to today’s projects building high-purity water systems for major biotech companies, DECCO’s evolution shows how the booming life sciences sector has ripple effects across industries.

DECCO was founded in 1934 in Massachusetts as Donovan Engineering and Construction Co. and focused on coal handling. The business designed and built specialized industrial piping projects. As industrial facilities largely moved away from coal in the 1980s, the company pivoted to semiconductor piping. Then, in the tech boom of the early 1990s, it explored a technology called orbital welding, a computerized process. Working for companies, including Intel, DECCO completed ultra-clean environments required for microelectronic manufacturing.

When semiconductor fabrication moved overseas, DECCO pivoted once more, harnessing its knowledge of clean welds to work in the biopharma industry, creating sterile piping systems for high-purity environments.

“It was a short putt for us to go from clean welding for microelectronics in a clean environment to clean welding for biopharmaceuticals,” said Kyle Reagan, president of DECCO. “In the microelectronics world, you're worried about specks of dust getting into the piping system, and in biopharmaceuticals, you're worried about water growing microbes or becoming polluted. Their water systems are called ‘water for injection,’ which means it's clean enough you could put it in your body.”

GROWING ALONGSIDE THE LIFE SCIENCES

The company employs about 300 people. It operates a corporate office and a separate equipment and high-purity processing facility in Nashua, plus a fabrication shop called DECCO Fab, a craft training center for its federal apprenticeship program and its weld school in Brookline.

“Our first biopharmaceutical piping project in New Hampshire was for a company called Celltech in Portsmouth. Celltech is now Lonza,” Reagan said. “That was in 1996. We've never left. That facility started as a small, little building. If you've ever been out in Portsmouth and seen the Lonza facility, now it's massive. In fact, we're just starting. They have another building going up right now, and we're on that project.”

DECCO also worked with Novo Nordisk in West Lebanon.

“We've completed now, to date, just over 20,000 FDA-validated piping projects,” Reagan said. “That's from $35 million piping projects to $35,000 piping projects. That's kind of the scope and scale.”

Reagan says even in the past 20 years, there have been big shifts from helping a few recent-grad researchers set up R&D incubators leading to major manufacturing plant construction, then manufacturing overseas, to manufacturing, at least somewhat, returning post-COVID.

“We saw a big push for contract manufacturing, and that's sort of where we're at today,” Reagan said.

FORMING CONNECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

DECCO was among the first businesses to join NH Life Sciences, the statewide life sciences association, as an associate member. These are organizations that support and collaborate with the life sciences industry.

Being connected to NHLS helps DECCO ensure that it has early knowledge of what’s happening in the industry. Networking with life sciences companies helps it to know what future needs might be and what projects could be coming.

“We see the opportunity that life sciences -- whether it's biotech, biopharma or everything else -- bring to a local economy,” Reagan said. “And we want to be part of that because we know those careers can provide for our folks, as well as everybody else that's required to support an industry like that.”

DECCO puts a lot of effort into the training of young people for careers in construction through its apprenticeship program and welding school. Reagan hoped DECCO can showcase that construction doesn’t have to be seasonal, dirty or lacking in advancement opportunities.

“We work hard to change the mentality from a construction ‘job’ to a career in construction,” he said. “We just want to make sure that people are aware that there is a great career path out there and they should explore it.”

Reagan believes New Hampshire’s life sciences sector has the opportunity and ability to be a hub on par with North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park.

“It should be huge. It should be massive,” Reagan said. “New Hampshire has a real opportunity: We’ve got the intellectual capital; we’ve got the infrastructure… A lot of great things are in alignment.”

Organizations interested in becoming a NHLS member and joining the network of people growing the industry in New Hampshire can learn more or join online.