School of Steel

School of Steel

LEADERSHIP by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

Ralph George transferred his military-trained mind to his business. The result is a textbook-like training ground for building from within.

Ralph George makes sure to eat last at the occasional company-wide lunches at All-Steel Consultants, the Palmetto-based, 65-employee steel fabrication firm he owns.

It's a subtle leadership technique George learned from his 15-plus years in various military outlets, from ROTC grunt roles in college, to serving as a captain in the U.S. Army, which included Ranger and Airborne school, to two stints commanding a Sarasota-based Florida National Guard company. No matter the battlefield, the leader always eats last - just in case the unit runs out of food.

And since buying All Steel in 1998, George has incorporated several other leadership mantras into the steel company, from accountability for mistakes to keeping a promise. When George bought the business it had five employees, less than $500,000 in annual sales and virtually no assets - the previous owner kept the company afloat primarily so it could meet certain long-term operating bidding requirements.

Now after about a decade under George's guidance, All Steel is hovering just under $10 million in annual revenues, on the verge of building a new corporate headquarters and one of the top steel fabricators on the Gulf Coast, with a roster of construction company-clients from Tampa to Port Charlotte.

But the four-star leadership practice George, 52, has incorporated into his steel company really revolves around training. The company has several on-going training, education and development programs running at once and has set up just as many benchmarks for each employee to meet in terms of advancing their current skills or learning new ones.

The company even requires that every employee, from managers on down, accomplish one big goal a year in terms of bettering themselves in an area outside their respective forte. That could be earning a commercial drivers license, taking classes toward obtaining a GED or even learning Spanish (or English). The company pays for all the classes outside of work and also pays bonuses for many of its in-house programs.

"Training is everything," says George. "It keeps your people there, it improves morale and it allows employees a chance to move up. No construction company in Southwest Florida I've ever heard off spends as much time on training as we do."

While George, in a curmudgeonly, military general sort of way, often laments how the company can do much better in training and is well short of his perfect-day vision, the company's programs - and results - are indeed rare in the construction industry.

And it shows in the field, according to some area construction executives that have worked with All Steel. Dave Sessions, president of Willis A. Smith Construction, the lead contractor in the ongoing improvements of the Sarasota Opera House - of which All Steel crews are doing the steel component.

"We are very happy with All Steel," says Sessions. "They are doing great work for us."

'Fix-it' pay

It all stems from what could be called Steel Fabrication University.

Both George and his wife, All Steel's human resources manager Debi George, envision a day where All Steel is simultaneously running a trim school, a welding school and even a blueprint reading class, so its employees can be cross-trained in several areas.

On welding, the company's niche, it's already there: Just this year, for instance, 38 employees - more than half of the company - have earned certification in the discipline from a national welding agency in classes taught by a company employee. And, says Debi George, "with each certification you get a little bump in salary."

All of this training obviously isn't cheap, although both Georges say it's so important to the prosperity of the company they are hesitant to put a minimum or a maximum on what they'll spend. Debi George says she'll skip on things like buying new office furniture to pay for a new class or to give a bonus to an employee who passes a welding class.

"It's more of a mental budget," says Debi George, "then a financial buget."

And the All Steel training train motors past mere Saturday classes and annual goal reviews.

For example, Ralph George and All Steel's production manager, Gary Bergstrom, took a field trip this past summer to steel fabrication plants in South Carolina and Georgia run by Charlotte, N.C-based steel firm NuCor. George was blown away with the teamwork and efficiency he witnessed.

And like any admiring general, George is utilizing some of the best parts he saw on his trip with the All Steel troops. Take the fabrication-team approach utilized by NuCor crews: A group of 10-15 employees will spend all week, if not more, on one project. If they meet expectations in both quality and speed, they all get a sizeable bonus in that week's paycheck, as much as $13 an hour more than their standard $6.50.

The rub is if the crew makes a mistake that requires starting over or replacing materials. Then they'll do the project over at the minimum rate.

George and Bergstrom watched in awe as crews labored over their work with precision and care, knowing that each person's paycheck depended on the other. One crew even forced an underperforming co-worker to quit when he showed up hung-over for work.

George implemented a similar "fix-it" pay system at All Steel, as the all-in-this-together philosophy struck a nerve in his military heart. All Steel crews are now in line to receive bonuses on top work, but will see their pay drop from at least $14 or $16 an hour to a flat $8 an hour rate for mistakes.

A mouse maze

While company-wide training is the ultimate end game at All Steel, Ralph George realizes the company faces several other challenges.

First off, there's the 20,000-square-foot building and plant the company currently calls home. George says the zigzag shaped building is fit more for a mouse maze then a steel plant. And that inefficiency is significant: All Steel losses about $5,000 and 40-man hours a month due to dropped and damaged steel, says George, a direct byproduct of the building layout.

What the company needs, says George, is a spread out, long and narrow facility, where steel can easily move along the line. That might come sooner than later, as George says he's about to get going on building a new headquarters for the company on 10 acres he owns on 17th Street East in Palmetto, a few miles from the current plant.

A new company headquarters is a long way from the late 1990s, when the Georges first set out to grow All Steel. Back then, both husband and wife passed their potential salaries back to the company, to pay for equipment and employees.

One bonus toward growing the business was that Ralph George had already worked in the area for 20 years, both for his own firm that brokered construction projects and other steel firms. Those contacts were a big help in landing jobs with some of the A-listers of Gulf Coast construction, including Willis Smith, Kraft and W. G. Mills.

Ralph George grew the business methodically the first few years, until the building boom earlier this decade led to faster expansion, including a three-year average annual growth rate of 24% from 2004 to 2006. All Steel had as many as 90 employees as recently as two years ago, but it has scaled back its numbers to be in-step with the scaled back construction market. Says Debi George: "We don't want to outgrow ourselves."

Besides, like any good leader, Ralph George knows how to find a positive in the negative, so he looks at the market slump as an opportunity to fine-tune the company's training regimen. "We are trying to create a place," George says, "where employees know we are the best."

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Train 'til it hurts

Ralph George, owner of Palmetto-based All Steel Consultants, has spent a lot of time thinking, talking and tinkering with training programs at his 65-employee company, even when it had 90 workers at the peek of the Gulf Coast building boom. He's often asked about the wisdom of putting so much effort into training in a field such as sub-contracting for construction, where line employees tend to show little loyalty.

In other words, does George worry he'll spend money and time on training employees who will then take that training and move on to other companies?

Not exactly. "What you should worry about," says George, "is that you don't train them and then they don't leave."

BY THE NUMBERS

All Steel Consultants

Year Revenue Growth

2004 $5.56 million

2005 $7.05 million 27%

2006 $8.46 million 20%

2007 $9.5 million 12% (projected)

REVIEW SUMMARY

Industry. Construction

Who. All-Steel Consultants,

Palmetto

Key. The company values training above just about everything else, calling it the foundation of its success.