How It All Started

 Past, Present, and Future

My affinity for electricity started with my grandfather, Wilbur Gardener Boucher (“Bush” to those who knew him), who enlisted as an electrical engineer for the United States Navy in World War II.  After completing his duty, he returned to Lebanon, NH, contributed to the baby boom and began his professional career.  He eventually became president of the Frank T. Cody Company, with his son Jay Boucher as one of his electricians.   

Not long into his tenure as president, arthritis hospitalized him, and his family and friends feared for his life.  The Frank T. Cody company also feared he would pass and unempathetically began closed-door proceedings to remove him from his position as president.  

The mistreatment was too much; my father could not continue to work for the same company that did this to his father.  In 1978, as a master electrician, he quit, beginning his journey into electrical contracting.  “I went to register the business, and they said I needed a business name, so I went across the street to the town library, opened up a dictionary, and there it was, the first word I saw…DEFIANCE,” and that is how Defiance Electric was born.  

My grandfather went into remission and came to work with my father.  He was an invaluable resource with his extensive experience running an electrical contracting company.  To this day, we still use his estimation metrics. 

In 2021, 43 years after Defiance Electric was born, my father officially passed the reigns to me and now we are celebrating 45 years in business…and that is our story.   

See What We Do to learn about our future…

I entered the picture in 1984.  From age 15-22, I spent summers working alongside Defiance’s electricians who were lucky enough to get “the boss’ kid” (they were lucky).  Meanwhile, in 2002, I enrolled in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire.  

However, towards the end of the first semester, something told me I needed a new path.  That path led me to a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 2006.