Denis Garriepy : Chief Operating Officer, Landry / French Construction
- Brick + Tides
- Dec 2, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 21, 2025
On a recent morning in Alfred, Denis Garriepy checked the time before stepping into the unfinished York County First Responders Training Center. He had already visited one project earlier that day and had two more scheduled before heading back to the office. Landry / French Construction currently has fifteen active projects across the region, and Garriepy moves among them with a rhythm that is part habit, part necessity. At each site he slips into the same steady routine: observe first, ask questions second, talk quietly with the people doing the work. The title may say executive, but his day still begins in places like this.
For someone with the title Chief Operating Officer, Garriepy fits into a job site with almost casual ease. He moves through the space the way people do when they have spent years in half-built rooms, noticing small things without making a show of it. The executive title never seems to reach his posture. He is simply at home in the work. He spent more than twenty years in Boston overseeing hospitals, research centers, and complex life science facilities.
Coming Home
Although Garriepy, a 1995 graduate of Biddeford High School, lived away for two decades, Maine stayed in his vocabulary. His wife Sarah, is from Saco. “Even when we were in Boston, Sarah and I would say, ‘We are going home for the weekend.’” Home was never the city where their mail arrived. It was the place where both sets of parents still lived and the beaches where their daughters grew up chasing tides.
When Landry / French co-founder Kevin French called about helping run the company, Garriepy did not hear a job offer at first. He heard something closer to a pull. A tug back to a place where the work would feel personal.
Today, he oversees projects from York County to Mount Desert Island. Some days he is in a meeting room lined with glass and steel. Other days he is standing in an unfinished space with wires spilling from the wall, the way he did on this visit, his shoes on taped-down floor protection and drywall dust clinging lightly to the air. His job shifts constantly between executive oversight and the physical world of construction, and he seems comfortable in both.
Before Boston and before returning to Maine, Garriepy studied architecture at the University of Michigan. He attended during the same four years as quarterback Tom Brady. He often laughs about it and says, “That is probably where our career paths diverged.” While working as a project manager in Boston, he furthered his education at Northeastern University with a masters degree in Civil Engineering and Construction Management.
Buildings Are About People
Ask him what a $100 million dollar building feels like to manage and he does not give a technical answer. Instead he recalls a moment from earlier in his career. He helped build a large ambulatory care center in Massachusetts, and two years later, he carried his one-year-old daughter into that same building for a minor surgery. He spent the morning waiting outside an operating room he had helped create, listening to the soft hum of equipment behind the door.
“It connects you,” he says. “You realize the spaces you build become the backdrop for some of the most important moments in people’s lives.”
That sense of responsibility is sharper in Maine. When he talks about a school in Skowhegan or a first responders facility in York County, he describes the towns as if he already knows the people inside. Maybe that connection comes from being raised here. Maybe it comes from knowing he will drive by these buildings for years, long after the ribbon cuttings.
“These buildings are for our neighbors,” he says. “These are the places our families will use.”
Building for Communities, Not Only for Clients
The community piece shows up in ways that never make headlines. Just weeks ago, as the demand for food assistance spiked in southern Maine, someone in the company suggested a donation drive. The idea spread through inboxes and job sites in a way that felt quietly familiar. Workers and vendors dropped off boxes. Someone handed over a bag of goods wrapped in a grocery receipt. A trade partner swung by with a truckload.
Garriepy is proud of projects like medical centers and schools, but this kind of unpolished generosity seems to move him just as much. “Everyone stepped up,” he says. “People gave because it mattered.”
There was no ceremony. No announcement. Just a group of people responding to the needs of their neighbors in the most straightforward Maine fashion possible.
Leadership in the Maine Tradition
Garriepy’s leadership style is easy to miss if you are looking for flamboyance. He is thoughtful and measured and more likely to listen than to fill silence. On construction sites he looks like someone who has spent plenty of time in the field. On office days he looks like someone who could run a board meeting without raising his voice.
Colleagues say he treats the process like a team sport. Architects, engineers, inspectors, laborers, masons, and project managers each bring a piece of the puzzle. When he walks through an unfinished space, he often pauses to study something quietly, like a framing detail or an electrical run. The work still interests him at the level of craft.
He believes in planning and preparation. He believes in making surprises manageable. He believes that humility is as important as skill, because construction will humble you no matter what job title you hold.
The Next Generation of Builders
Maine’s aging infrastructure is not a secret. Many schools and public buildings are older than the people using them. The state needs new builders, new minds, and new energy.
To young people in York County towns who might consider the field, Garriepy gives simple advice.
“You do not need a huge dream on day one,” he says. “You need to enjoy the work. Be passionate about the people and the process. Listen to the people ahead of you. If you work hard and care about what you build, the success will follow.”
He likes the idea that someone in high school could grow into a career that leaves a physical imprint on a community. Something you can drive by years later and say, quietly, “I helped build that.”
Life Back in Southern Maine for Denis Garriepy
On weekends, Garriepy and Sarah pack their dog, Baxter, into the car and head to Gooch’s Beach at sunrise. The air is often cold enough to sting. Baxter barrels into the water anyway. The couple walks the shoreline in the kind of calm that feels earned after twenty two years of city life.
Their oldest daughter is now at Penn State. Their youngest is in high school. Both of their families are nearby again. The distance that once defined them has disappeared.
They are home.
Why It Matters
If you drive past a new school glowing at dismissal time or a police station coming alive with a call or a medical clinic easing someone’s worst day, you may not think about who built the walls or laid out the wiring. That is exactly how Garriepy sees it.
He does not view buildings as monuments. He sees them as tools that enable someone else’s work. They are backgrounds for other people’s courage, skill, pain, hope, or healing.
In a state that raised him and then welcomed him back, that feels like the truest measure of his work. Not the concrete. Not the timetables. Not even the structures themselves.
“What we build is important,” he says. “But it is nothing compared to what happens inside.”
Many thanks to Denis and Landry / French Construction for the access and time.
Learn more about Landry / French : https://landryfrenchconstruction.com
To learn more about the York County First Responders Training Facility.
BRICK+TIDES is a weekly digital magazine based in York County, Maine. We share positive and inspiring stories about local businesses, people, and places that make Southern Maine special. If you'd like to read our free weekly email, we'd love for you to subscribe!
Miss a feature from York County, Maine? Head to our homepage to see our recent features.