For most of its history, Sharonville-based
PEDCO was content to be the "quiet company" among full-service engineering and architectural consulting firms.
No longer. Renewed attention to its future, development of a strategic plan and a new emphasis on cross-disciplinary, cross-generational interaction has led to growth in a sluggish industry, says Bill Giesler, PEDCO's president.
The company, which celebrated its 30
th birthday in August, enjoyed revenue growth of 20 percent last year, is on track for more of the same in 2011, and is hiring.
"We're bucking the trend," Giesler says.
He says the catalyst for the company's renewed energy came seven years ago.
"2004 was a lousy year," he explains. "It made us look internally at who are we, what do we want to be?"
With the help of a national consultant, began laying the groundwork in 2006. One result was an increased reliance on technically trained people in business development, Giesler says.
"Engineers and architects have no formal training in business development and marketing," he explains. The company needed an approach whereby technical people understood how to leverage relationships to build more business, he explains.
Developing a strategic plan was a key to the company's turnaround, Giesler says. In 2006 and 2007, PEDCO formulated its first roadmap, one that was renewed earlier this year. While the first plan relied on the input of senior management, the second plan included a cross-functional array of PEDCO employees and a representative from every functional area.
As the company noticed results, more attention was placed on attracting and advancing younger employees -- a critical task at a time when the number of engineering grads going into the consulting field was dropping, says Jerry Doerger, VP operations.
"Millennials want flexibility, time to be with their families. We started to recognize that. Also, Millennials were multi-taskers, sometimes working with an iPod in their ears. We needed to be able to allow multi-tasking and understand and accept Millennials for what they were."
Existing employees, too, expressed a desire to know more about how the business was run and how to contribute to its success, he says. Today, every new employee is assigned a mentor to school them in the "PEDCO Way." It's not only an opportunity to learn, but "it's an avenue for feedback and ideas."
PEDCO employees 84, mostly in Ohio (the company also has an office in Fort Wayne, Ind.), with 18 hired since October. Giesler says the company is currently looking to fill an additional seven or eight positions.
Sources: Bill Giesler and Jerry Doerger, PEDCO
Writer: Gene Monteith