Thirty years after it was founded in Mt. Lebanon, Hayes Design Group has changed its name and its leadership. Now known as HDG Architects, the firm’s leaders are principals Mark Duane, Andrew Campanaro and Rob Rensi. Campanaro and founder Kevin Hayes both live in Mt. Lebanon.

Hayes, Piper Drive, is a lifelong resident. After earning his architecture degree at Notre Dame, he worked at several Pittsburgh architectural firms and then decided to open his own in 1992.

The company began as a one-person operation in an office on Washington Road. “I wanted to see if I could start a firm based on certain principles, certain ways of treating the client,” said Hayes, “plus I wanted to do really good design.”

While Hayes will remain a principal and assist in mentoring the new leadership team, he will eventually head toward retirement. The firm, now headquartered in Robinson Township, has about 20 employees.

Campanaro, of Carleton Drive, has been with HDG for 13 years. After training at Arizona State University and starting his working life in Phoenix, he connected with Hayes in 2010 and moved to Mt. Lebanon.

“Although we are transitioning to new leadership, it’s mostly the same people here,” he said. “We have the same philosophy, the same attitudes about our clients and relationships, and that’s primarily why we do so much repeat work. We’ve worked with some of the school districts for 10 or 20 years.”

Campanaro attributes much of the firm’s success to Hayes. “He’s a fantastic mentor. He took all three of us under his wing, helped us understand how to run things, how to go out and market, so we can continue to thrive as a business.”

In order to reflect the shift in personnel, it was decided to re-brand the company as HDG Architects. “The name change acknowledges that the company is not really centered on one person,” according to Hayes. “And it represents what people actually call us in the industry.”