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LATHAM - Chris Quereau is known to have one of the coolest office spaces in the area.

As he looks at the flexible layout he created, he feels proud remembering that 20 years ago his advertising agency, Vibrant Brands, was launched out of a small spare room in an apartment.

The Loudon Road office has a warm glow that whispers musings of comfort and creativity. Multi-colored wood panels and local art line the walls while tufted couches float about over the soft carpet. 

Quereau was an upstate New York newcomer when he opened the agency and knew almost no one. He started the business in his Oneonta apartment, mustering up a couple of clients until he could take a leap and move into an incubator space where he paid $200 a month. 

In two decades, Vibrant Brands has undergone a variety of facelifts, its office evolving with every growth spurt the business had.  Quereau moved Vibrant Brands to Albany five years ago after running into some issues with hiring and having to travel long distances to meet clients. He opted to move the operation to a more central location near the Thruway and an airport.

“It's obviously been a wild ride,” he said. 

In 2019, he bought the Loudon Road building and gutted it. With the company’s 20-year anniversary approaching, he wanted Vibrant Brands’ new home to reflect the culture he spent so long cultivating. 

“We've always thought it was really important to make an environment that the staff is really proud to be at and comfortable at,” Quereau said.

“It's beautiful on the inside and outside, and it's definitely a really awesome sense of accomplishment for myself and for the team,” he added.

Vibrant Brands’ office is one where employees don’t sit in the same place every day. They drift between the building’s indoor and outdoor workspaces. Quereau described it as a collaborative and “fluid” workplace.

It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a slate of restaurants and shops within walking distance as well.

Talia Cass, a copywriter at Vibrant Brands, can sometimes be found in the basement lounging on a couch while she diligently writes through a blog post or on other days, bouncing ideas off of her co-workers at a high-top table.

Whether she needs a quiet place to zone in or a room to collaborate in, she feels she has access to it all.

“I find that this is probably one of the only jobs I've had where I really do want to be in the office because I just really enjoy the environment,” Cass said.

She believes the space mirrors the overall workplace culture, one that fully embodies the spirit of working hard and playing hard. When employees need to take the time to run to an appointment or work from home, they have that flexibility.

But when it’s time to get down to business, everyone is hard at work, she explained. Though even then, there are always light-hearted moments where Cass and her colleagues can be heard cracking jokes or Quereau thinking about where they’ll go next for the annual company trip.

Past trips have included Florida.

This year he’s thinking they’ll make their way over to Las Vegas. It’s an integral part of his business strategy.

“The access to the employees and the clients, I think it's really going to help fuel growth,” he said.

Shayla Colon is a Native New Yorker who previously worked for Hearst CT Media. She now covers business news for the Times Union in Albany, N.Y. When she's not reporting, find her working out or tucked away in a corner with a book, preferably Hemingway or Fitzgerald.