Relationship Building Regardless of whether they are building a market-rate apartment or a tax-credit property, Summit executives never forget that they are in the service industry. “We’ve got to service our clients, and that is extremely sacred to us,” says Fleckenstein. “It’s our reputation and our trustworthiness in the marketplace.”
Summit markets itself as an in-house builder, offering everything from preliminary estimates and construction analysis to value engineering–with all work done on an open-book basis. “We are honest with our clients, trying to build trust at all times,” Fleckenstein says. “We don’t hide things from our clients, and that gives them a level of confidence and trust.”
The company’s executives also are extremely accessible, adds Quinton Perry, president of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Perry Development Co., whose building projects have been pursued by several large contractors. But Perry didn’t like the fact that those big contractor owners were unreachable. That’s not the case with the Summit principals, with whom he has worked for years. “Bob and his partner Maylon are just a phone call away,” Perry says.
And the Summit leaders are known for their willingness to fix any problems that arise. “I have known a lot of contractors and dealt with a lot of contractors over years, but I have never ever seen a contractor that will do more or spend more of his own money to correct a situation,” Perry says. “I have seen Bob go back and do work on a job five years after he completed it.”
Keeping clients happy is a top priority, admits Fleckenstein. “It’s building client relationships,” he says. “When clients are loyal to us, we will be loyal to the client. If we just messed up and did something wrong, I don’t care if it’s 20 years [later], I’ll go back and fix it.”
Their customers notice. Seventy-five percent of the company’s clients have done business with Summit before.
Building strong relationships with its employees is just as important to company leaders. “A lot of people look at us and think we are a large company. We think we are a small company that just happens to be doing a lot of work,” says Sowders. “You get that small company feel. People like coming to work here. There are lots of people who have been here forever.”
Sowders isn’t exaggerating. He has worked with Fleckenstein and Boatwright at Summit and Blosam for 18 years; one receptionist has been with the principals for 23 years; another secretary has stayed for 20 years; and the list goes on.
The company didn’t always have such a low turnover rate. In the early years, Summit managers weren’t hiring the right type of people, personality-wise, says Fleckenstein. So seven years ago, the company hired an industrial psychologist. “We never hire anyone now without doing a psychological and intelligence test, and that test is formatted to create a personality envelope that we want our people to be inside,” Fleckenstein says. The retention rate is now close to 99 percent.
Being well-liked by employees means a lot in the Summit interview process. “We have had a lot of people go through here that have a lot of experience, but we just turn them down because they were not going to be liked,” Fleckenstein says. “They were going to cause problems.”
That won’t work at Summit, where no matter how much the company has grown, it continues to retain its close-knit culture. Two years ago, Kathy Garrison, the company’s estimating director, had a serious illness and flew to California several times for treatment. Her fellow employees paid for her airline tickets and hotel stays out of their own pockets. “That’s taking care of your people,” Garrison says.
Perhaps that’s because Summit’s principals set a good example themselves. “Bob and I have been partners a long time, but we are also best of friends,” says Boatwright. With Summit expecting $30 million in revenue, it’s obviously a strategy that works.
Tax Break To some, building a tax-credit project is nothing but a headache, but to Summit Contractors, it’s a business opportunity. Since 1998, the company has dedicated a division to the construction of tax-credit projects, now one of the company’s largest businesses. “Probably 30, 40 percent or our work is tax credit,” says Bob Fleckenstein, the company’s president.
Summit’s experience and expertise is one of its selling points to developer clients. “In tax credit [work] you really have to understand the program so you can help the developer with some of the qualms he has,” Fleckenstein says.
In addition, Summit understands the coordination of the numerous funding sources involved in tax-credit projects and works with a developer from the beginning of the project’s application process, into the design phase, and through construction. Summit’s national scope offers another advantage. Tax-credit developers typically apply in anywhere from four to 10 states, and they don’t know where they will land the award. Because Summit–and its contractors–can travel, the developer can rely on the Florida company and avoid the hassles of finding a new general contractor.
“We already know the project,” says Matt Robinson, senior vice president, executive committee. Plus, Summit’s extensive subcontractor base helps keep costs down in high-cost-labor areas.
Summit Contractors at a Glance
- What: Provides general contracting, construction management, design/build, pre-construction, construct ability analysis, value engineering, and cost module services.
- Leaders: Bob Fleckenstein, president; Maylon Boatwright, executive vice president
- Headquarters: Jacksonville, Fla.
- Markets: National with a large presence in Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, and California
- Founded: 1989
- Employees: 199
- 2004 Revenue: $302 million (projected)
Notable: With the help of its subcontractors, Summit’s principals built a 42,000-square-foot office building and donated it to Dreams Come True, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based non-profit dedicated to fulfilling the dreams of children with life-threatening illnesses.