“This is the most robust market for talent we’ve ever had,” said M&S CEO Tim Schauer, reflecting on the success of his Vancouver-based civil engineering firm during the past year. “To sit back and say this is all because of the decisions we made is not being honest with ourselves. We’re lucky to have an employee market that we would never have had access to before.”
In 2011, M&S added 12 new hires to its staff, the majority of them at the firm’s Vancouver office. But the company’s workforce wasn’t the only area where M&S made investments.
In total, the firm invested $535,000 during 2011 in new and updated infrastructure and assets. This included a reconfiguration of M&S’s Vancouver headquarters and a complete outfitting of a new office in Federal Way. The company also signed a lease for a new, larger space for its branch in Kennewick.
“The questions before the last 18 months were: how do we find the work, how do we stay lean, how do we stay successful and pay our debt off?” explained Schauer. “Now that we’ve moved through that phase, our greatest asset is going to be our talent pool and figuring out how to keep them. As we begin to make investments that need to pay off over the next several years, you know you’re going to have to have the horsepower to produce the work.”
Heading into 2011, Schauer said his firm didn’t try to predict one future of the market, instead planning for a number of possible outcomes.
“You have to swallow your own pride and say, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ That fundamentally changes how you look at your future,” said Schauer. “Our first business plan, in the middle of our rebound, we had a plan for what we wanted to have happen, but we also created several plan B’s. It was really a contingency plan as opposed to ‘here is our plan and we’re doing that.’”
That sort of strategic planning paid off for M&S. The company’s net income in 2011 increased 184% over 2010. Revenue also spiked, up 37% compared to the previous year.
“Our previous CEO Al Schauer is an old basketball fan,” noted Schauer, on the subject of planning ahead. “He said its like deciding that you’re going to draw up a game plan of exactly the type of shot you’re going to take regardless of what the defense does. That’s not usually successful. You have a plan, but then you have to react to what’s happening around you.”
For more coverage of our Business Growth Awards finalists, check out today’s print edition of the Vancouver Business Journal.
