1.)Anyone know anything about Espire's (Herndon)enormous growth, plummeting stock and whether they would be a solid (min 1yr) employer?
2.) Anyone know the same about ServInt (McLean)privately held, recent layoffs...Selling or folding?

Cool, another Northern Virginian :).

Servint is in the worse trouble of the two. They have filed for Chapter 11, you can find the gory details here:

http://www.vaeb.uscourts.gov/home/SearchNM.html

Just enter their name. There is a brief Washington Post article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16200-2001Feb1.html

In short, now is a bad time to go work for them, although my understanding is that they have been a great company, the people running it were just too young, and weren't sure how to deal with tough times.

e.spire is obviously in better shape, but their stock almost got delisted and has been hovering in the $1 range, so don't take any stock options :). They are a prime acquistion target...unfortunately, most of the companies out there that would acquire them are in just as bad shape :).

They have a solid backbone, but they do not have the capital for continued expansion, and they have invested heavily in DSL offerings, which is generally frowned upon by investors at this time. As to whether or not to work for them, it depends on what you will be doing...sales, marketing, and tech support are always the first to go, if you are working more on the engineering side, they'll hold onto you as long as they can.

More on e.Spire:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010212/va_e_spire.html

Apparently only enough money to last them through mid-March.