SUNDERLAND — Five decades ago, Andy Sinauer gave up a life of martini lunches at a New York City publishing house and moved to Connecticut, setting up a company of his own.
The business — which just celebrated its 50-year milestone — was called Sinauer Associates, and he and two other employees worked in a small office at 20 Second St. in Stamford, Conn.
Today, the company is located on a quiet street in Sunderland, though it is now an imprint of Oxford University Press. After owning the company for 48 years, Sinauer made the sale the year before he retired in 2018.
‘“I’m going to be 80,’” Sinauer said, recounting a conversation he had with a colleague at the time.
The decision to sell his small company did not come easily, Sinauer said, following about 15 years of offers, discussions and meetings. He considered offering it to employees, but realized they may not have the resources to buy an $8 or $9 million company. While it was ultimately successful, he said, the acquisition came at a cost: five sales employees lost their jobs after services were outsourced to Oxford’s headquarters.
President Dean Scudder, who was hired in 1985 as marketing coordinator, said it was difficult to see longtime colleagues lose their jobs.
“Hard thing to happen for a little company,” Scudder said. “We lost friends, lost employees.”
And while the acquisition has had its challenges, Scudder said it was necessary to “stay viable in the publishing world.” The company is adjusting.
“Always when there’s a purchase, there’s a transition. It can’t be easy,” Scudder said.
Scudder came to Sinauer from a large publishing house, seeking a smaller company offering more meaningful work.
“In a company of hundreds of people, you sort of get lost in the shuffle,” Scudder said. “Individual books weren’t anywhere near as important as they were here. Everything you did was more important. It was a challenge, sometimes scary. But that’s what being part of a small company can be. A small, successful company.”
Sinauer’sââ specialty, which has not changed much since its founding, is higher education science textbooks — first biology, and eventually psychology and neuroscience.
While the business ultimately succeeded, the first decade presented many challenges, Sinauer said.
“I’d say we struggled,” Sinauer said. In the first few years, the company would go to the bank “pleading our case” when it was necessary.
“It’s expensive to bring a book to market,” Sinauer continued. “It’s a long process, it takes a lot of people.”
A couple of significant books in the early 1970s helped the company along, including “Life on Earth,” which is now producing its 12th edition.
“That’s been a very important part of the growth of the company,” Sinauer said. “It never became a bestseller, but the market kept growing.”
In some cases, Sinauer Associates’ textbooks led to the creation of new disciplines in higher education. One example is conservation biology, Sinauer said, which became a course after the company published a book on the subject in 1986, “Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity.”
The company expanded from three to 30 employees, as it currently stands, in its 50-year tenure. The growth has been gradual, though, Sinauer noted, saying he wanted to keep its culture and spirit, as well as its leafy Sunderland headquarters.
Sinauer’s offices are nestled on Plumtree Road in a space built for the company in 1993. The office resembles a home, with a massage table in one room, a spacious kitchen and a patio area out back. Every employee has an office, and every office has a window — a non-negotiable requirement of Sinauer’s âââafter spending too much time in a cubicle in New York City.
“The most important people sat on the outside with windows, and everybody else sat in a little cubby, looking at nothing,” Sinauer.
Considering his company’s 50-year legacy from retirement, Sinauer said he misses his coworkers most of all.
“I miss the camaraderie,” Sinauer said. “I’m proud of what we all did together. I like that it’s still happening.”
Reach Grace Bird at gbird@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 280.