Core values Investing in key people, staying ahead of the curve are base for company’s success

Core values
Investing in key people, staying ahead of the curve are base for company’s success
By BOB ROZYCKI

Jimmy Smith, president of Advance Testing in Campbell Hall, holds two test asphalt cores created in the company's laboratory.

Jimmy Smith, his shock of white hair highlighted by a tan he picked up at an industry meeting in the Caribbean, has a bounce to his step as he strides through his company’s headquarters off a two-lane road in rural Campbell Hall.

The president of Advance Testing is riding high after finishing 2006 with 30 percent growth, 5 percent higher than the goal he set for the company he started out of the trunk of his car in 1984.

From the Big Dig in Boston to the Bronx Zoo, the company performs testing on construction materials from roadways to buildings and nearly everything in between.

The company grew 15 to 20 percent each year until 2000, when Smith applied the brakes.

Using building-centric terminology, he said he wanted to make sure the company’s foundation could handle more load for a taller building as well as more business.

After five years of stalling the company, he couldn’t figure out where the profits were going. “I was shaking my head; we cut costs, we’re mean and lean, we’re streamlined, we got state-of-the-art equipment.”

The bottom line? “You have to grow to survive.”

“That 4 percent, 5 percent inflation just caught up with us after five years. So our goal for 2006 was 25 percent growth and we ended up with 30 percent growth. We put our nose to the grindstone; stayed focused on our responsibilities.”

The result? The company “ran smoother at 30 percent growth than we did at staying flat.”

Now his goal is to double the size in four years. “We have all the resources from personnel to equipment to a business plan to bring the company to the next level.”

And for those employees who might not want to go to the next level, all Smith asks them to do is “don’t block the elevator for people who want to go to the second floor.”

Esprit de corps

Those who have believed in Smith and stayed with him since 1984 are: Mark Clark, vice president of operations; Kevin Patton, director of engineering services; Susan Young, office administrator; and Richard Hamilton, development manager of Atech Center.

“A solid core of employees … that’s what success is about. It’s about the individuals you empower,” Smith said. “If you’re a one-man firm, then the success is about yourself. You’re only as good as the people you have working for you.”

Much care has to be taken to maintain staff, he said, which has grown to 80. To that end, Smith started a company 10 years ago called Atech Center Inc., the training arm of Advance Testing. During the slow season, which generally means winter, there are some 15 people in a class. They learn new procedures and go over old procedures and are tested afterward.

“You have to invest in the employees. The more valuable they are to us, the more valuable they are to our clients. It’s about value-added services. You have to be one step ahead of the curve at all given times in running the business. It’s not just based on what you tell them; it’s based on your performance.”

And in turn with such an investment in his workers, Smith expects them to respect the company with a three-month notice should they decide to leave.

Smith himself, fresh out of college, gave Yonkers Contracting a five-year notice. When he interviewed with them in September 1979, he said that come 1984 he would be starting his own consulting business.

“A year and half prior to my leaving, they hired someone to take my place. And he’s still with them today … smooth transition.”

Analyze this

As to what is the core business of Advance Testing, which also has offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, it’s cores and analysis and testing and a whole lot more.

“We are what the medical labs are to doctors and hospitals. If they have a product that needs to be analyzed, if they need an autopsy on a particular project, we give them the results and they draw their own conclusions based on our analysis,” Smith said.

“We evaluate a failure in the field. We want to be preventive medicine, so autopsies and operations aren’t needed.”

The company has a lab that performs a variety of tests on everything from soil to asphalt to concrete.

Right now, the company is at the Big Dig, the major tunnel project in Boston testing all the new bolts being re-installed for the huge ceiling panels. A woman was crushed to death last summer when a panel fell on the car she was riding in.

The tests involve hooking up hydraulic equipment and then exerting a certain amount of pull on each bolt to ensure that they don’t come loose.

Advance Testing has projects currently in 12 states.

“Eighty percent of our work is probably 100 miles away or farther.”

The company will also be doing construction inspection at the Freedom Tower in downtown Manhattan on behalf of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Since the company has some 2,000 pieces of equipment that need to be certified and calibrated, Smith and his staff created a master scheduling program.

When a piece of equipment is bought, the serial number and purchase price is entered into the computer. Then an employee goes through the owner’s manual and inputs the maintenance and calibration schedules. Twenty days before that piece of equipment needs to be serviced or calibrated it comes up on the schedule. It will pop up on the screen every day until it is calibrated.

Growing the business

Smith has tried to keep his company ahead of the curve.

He was one of the first to offer smoothness testing for highways, raceways and airport runways. The vehicles are equipped with laser units that take a reading every half-inch to provide a profile of the road or runway. Smith was the first to have high-speed units, which can read a road at 70 mph.

“We go for the specialty work.”

And instead of having to break through concrete to make sure a contractor has spaced the metal retaining bars correctly, Smith has ground-penetrating radar that can find bolts or objects embedded in concrete. It’s the same type of units that were used in Iraq to find underground containment centers.

“We try to be ahead of the curve. Learn early on what’s going to come, what the client needs,” Smith said. “It’s all about attitude.”

The company is working on a secret project that if all goes according to plan will put it five years ahead of the competition, he said.

One think he keeps in mind is, “You’re only as good as your last at bat when you work someplace.”

His business philosophy in regard to employees? “If there’s a problem and you know there’s a problem, don’t call me until you have four or five solutions. Because I don’t want to spend time at the meeting going over what the problem is.”

“I’ve been really blessed with a good core of people, if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be here right now.”

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