As far as looking for properties to buy, Timochenko says he’ll expand outside of the Reading area, pushing toward western Pennsylvania and maybe even into Maryland. In all, his goal is to see as many properties as possible. “The more you see, the more choices you have,” he says.
Since he looks at each property he buys and does the due diligence for each deal personally, he’ll have to be away more. That will be difficult for Timochenko, who built the business by showing units, getting leases signed, and hiring and training whatever help he needed. He gained an intimate knowledge of his business. Now he relies on employees to do many of these tasks, and he admits he misses the hands-on aspect. “The larger I get, the further I get from coaching and teaching,” he says. “You want to coach the people who report to you, but it doesn’t always work.”
Timochenko has delegated some of his former areas of responsibility. He brought in Deb Houck as director of operations, whose job was to standardize the operation, hire employees, and increase sales. “I’m the one taking this company and making it more standard,” she says. “Everyone was on an island doing their own little thing, but Kevin got bigger and couldn’t continue doing it that way.”
Even after hiring Houck, Timochenko says that he struggles with how active to be in the business and how much to back off. For instance, he may walk around a property and see a leasing agent doing something wrong. Instead of just pointing out the mistake on the spot, he forces himself to go back to the office, tell Houck, and let the message spread through the chain of command. His close friend and supplier, Mike Fromm, owner and president of Fromm Electric Supply in Reading, has watched the executive’s evolution. “On one hand, he wakes up with the compulsion to do whatever his instincts tell him to do,” Fromm says. “On the other hand, he is smart enough to know that he needs to drive stability in the organization. Those are competing motives.”
While Timochenko seeks balance, his desire “for the thrill of the deal,” as he calls it, will keep him searching for new places to buy while Houck standardizes the operations. And that’s the way it has to be for MMG’s structure to be able to take on the more than 2,000 units Timochenko would like to add. “As a company gets larger, the owner can’t be as hands on,” he says. “You have to put the standards in place and make sure everything is done right.”
