The head-hunting arm here of Michigan-based Scope Services Inc. says it expects its growing executive-recruitment activities to expand further in coming years due in part to smart-grid initiatives and federal stimulus dollars allocated toward efficiency and environmental improvements in the energy and utility industries.

Those activities will strengthen the company's business niche as a significant number of executives in those industries approach retirement age and their employers recruit successors, says Allison Sherwood, director of recruiting for the head-hunting unit, Scope Services Workforce Solutions West, in Spokane Valley.

Scope Services launched its fledgling executive-recruiting division here in 2005 because Richard Summers, the company's then new chief operating officer, lived in the Spokane area and wanted to stay here, Sherwood says. Scope Services' President Lydia Demski recruited Summers, a former project manager for Itron Inc., the Liberty Lake-based automated meter-reading technology company. Summers also is the Scopes Services' vice president of Western operations.

Scope Services employs five other people here who make up its executive-search team, which is located in 1,500 square feet of space in the Mullan Professional Building, at the northeast corner of Mullan Road and Broadway Avenue. The division has outgrown that office and plans to move three blocks south, pending completion of a lease agreement for 3,000 square feet of office space in a freestanding building at 505 N. Argonne, where it will hire one or two additional recruiters, Sherwood says.

She declines to disclose the division's annual revenues, but says they're on a steep growth track.

New smart-grid and green initiatives will bolster the need for energy and technology advances, raising opportunities for Scope Services to help companies find progressive leaders, she says.

"It's an interesting time to be in the industry because of new technology and stimulus incentives, and consumers are driving it more than before," Sherwood says. "The grid is going to have to change over the next several years."

The smart grid involves applying advanced utility metering and enhanced communication between utilities and their customers to enable utilities to match energy demand with supply, reducing unneeded generation and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Scope Services' clients in Washington state include Seattle-based Puget Sound Energy Inc., Aberdeen-based Grays Harbor PUD, and the city of Richland. It also has clients across the country, including Escondido, Calif.-based enXco Inc., a renewable-energy developer, and Progress Energy, a big energy company based in Raleigh, N.C.

Scope Services recruits for positions that range from senior engineers to corporate vice presidents. It branched into the regulatory field with its current search for a director of utilities and regulatory affairs for the city of New Orleans, Sherwood says. Annual salaries for the positions it seeks to help fill typically range from $80,000 to $200,000, she says.

Scope Services charges a fee of roughly 25 percent of the first year of base salary offered to the recruit. Searches typically take two to four months, and Scope usually handles five to 10 searches here at any one time.

Scope Services' main operations, which are based at its corporate headquarters in Michigan, include construction management and consulting services focusing on the deployment of new metering technology. Its overall work force fluctuates between 700 and 1,500 employees, depending on deployments, she says. Its overall annual revenues are nearly $10 million, and Sherwood says she expects them to double in the next five to 10 years.

Prior to its emphasis on construction management and consulting in advanced metering system installation, the 45-year-old company was a field-staffing agency for technical positions such as lineman and meter readers, so executive recruiting isn't a far reach for the company, Sherwood says.

"We often have to staff up when deploying new technology," she adds.

Sherwood says she expects executive-recruiting opportunities will grow in the foreseeable future.

"A lot of utility company executives are getting ready to retire," she says. "There is a big gap between the level retiring and the level coming up."

When a client retains Scope Services for exclusive searches, recruiters meet with an executive team to define the position, and they search for a recruit who fits in with the client's mission, values, and business philosophy, Sherwood says.

"Understanding what's motivating the recruit and the personality of the (client) company come into play," she says.

Scope Services relies mostly on its own network of industry contacts to pursue potential executive recruits, Sherwood says.

"We live in the industry; we are part of the utility sector," Sherwood says. "It's easy for us to reach out to our internal contacts and say, 'Who do you know?'"

Scope Services manages the recruitment process until after the selected candidate is on board with the client, she says.

The company offers its clients a six-month guarantee on its placements.

"We've never had to refill a position," she says.