The Vareberg Family

(Left to right) Morgan, Emmy, Troy and Adam

At the heart of every great business is a founder, or in this case two, who worked tirelessly to turn vision into reality. At Vareberg Engineering, the founding story looks a little different than most.

A Company is Born

Emmy and Troy Vareberg developed a friendship when Emmy was in high school and Troy, who is two years older, was attending North Dakota State University for Electrical Electronics Engineering. It just so happened that Emmy would go on to study Industrial Engineering and Management at NDSU. Their relationship only grew from there.

The couple married shortly after Emmy graduated and moved to Iowa where Troy worked for the Department of Energy at Iowa State University as a Facilities Engineer and Emmy worked for a couple of health systems as a Management Engineer.

Then, they had their first child, Adam.

“It was just time for us to come back,” Emmy said. “Fargo is a great place to raise a family. There is nothing like Fargo. We both have family here that we wanted to be closer to.”

Not only was it a great place to raise a family, but the area was also ripe for opportunities in the engineering field and Emmy and Troy began wondering if it might be best for their business careers to work together.

At the same time, Troy was exploring a number of employment options at firms in the area before a former client of his asked, “Why would you work for someone else? You have the experience. Just go out on your own. I’ll give you your first job.”

Shortly after that conversation, Emmy and Troy realized that things would work best if Emmy could do the management side of things and Troy could do the engineering and design side of things.

From there, Vareberg Engineering was born.

Services provided by Vareberg Engineering

Power Distribution

Distribution Design
Rate Analysis
UPS Systems
Emergency Power Generation
Short Circuit Analysis
Flash Hazard Analysis

Building Systems

Telephone & Data Cabling
Telecommunications Room Design
Fire Detection Systems
Security/Access Systems
Nurse Call Systems
Intercom/Clock Systems
Sound Reinforcement Systems

Lighting

Conceptual Studies
Lighting System Design
Energy Analysis
Theatrical Lighting
Lighting Control Systems
Exterior Lighting

“We really only go after projects we’re interested in pursuing. We don’t go after everything. We go after things we’re passionate about. We also do a lot of work with past clients we enjoy working with. We don’t do a lot of marketing or sales pitches.”

Provided by Vareberg Engineering

“It hasn’t happened for a while. But maybe five, six years ago, I had some potential clients that still thought I worked out of my home,” Troy said.

By not pushing to get its name out there and by not going after every project available, Vareberg Engineering stands out from the pack in two distinct ways:

1. They Are Available

Because Vareberg Engineering doesn’t take on every single project, they have the opportunity to jump at things that pique their interest.

“We like to provide excellent customer service and a high-quality product for our clients,” Emmy said. “We have an amazing staff that prides themselves on quality work. We try to balance the workload so we are able to get our projects done in a timely fashion”.

2. They Do Quality Work

Working on projects like the SCHEELS store, the Fargodome, First Community Credit Union and countless other high-level projects, Vareberg Engineering’s quality of work speaks for itself.

But that quality isn’t the product of happenstance, it’s the product of 25 years of quality work which started with building design and has since expanded into industrial as well as oil and gas services.

The Vareberg Engineering team, which currently consists of eight engineers and additional support staff, has completed projects in 42 states and territories, including Hawaii and American Samoa.

The Importance of Family

We all know entrepreneurship can be busy, however, the Varebergs believe that their entrepreneurial pursuits have actually made them into a stronger couple.

“When we started, the biggest thing was that we wanted to have control over our own destiny,” Troy said. “Plus we were just starting a family and you hear all these horror stories about parents that work themselves to the bone and don’t have time for family.

We pretty much promised ourselves when we started this that we were not going to let owning a business interfere with having a reasonable family life. Our kids were both multi-sport kids and also involved in other activities. And I can count on one hand the number of times we missed their activities. That was really important to us.”

And they’ve tried to pass that same privilege on to the rest of their team.

“We want our staff to maintain a healthy work/family balance and think we manage to do that so they can participate in family activities, go to their kids’ school programs and events, etc.,” Emmy said. That doesn’t mean the Varebergs didn’t have to make sacrifices along the way.

“Yes, we would take the time to go to those family things, but once the kids went to bed at eight o’clock, we would start working again,” Troy said. “There was actually a point where I was getting close to burnout. And that’s another great thing about having each other in the same office. I can see when she’s getting stressed and it’s time to backup. And she can see when I’m getting stressed. That allows us to help each other. We know when we need to be a cheerleader for each other and we know when we need to be the coach that says, ‘let’s take a step back so we don’t overdo it.’ “

“For over 20 years, Scheels has been utilizing the electrical engineering expertise of Vareberg Engineering. Their ability to design complex systems that are user-friendly and solve the ongoing challenges in today’s construction industry is a true testament to their high-caliber team. We can always count on Troy and his team to help enhance the Scheels Customer Experience.” -Jason Loney, VP of Store Development, SCHEELS

What’s Next?

“I would like to increase our size a little bit,” Troy said. “I’d like to maybe have multiple offices to help serve our out-of-state clients. Right now, we’re strictly electrical, but we’ve talked about getting into the mechanical side of things. We’ve held off on that for now.”