Business expands with new strategy

By diversifying, a local company has taken on jobs throughout the country.
By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
LIBERTY -- Once a company with a single focus, Valley Electrical Consolidated Inc. has grown to include several divisions.
When Rex Ferry acquired the business in 1990, the company was an industrial contractor, mostly for automotive companies.
Ferry, who now is company president, said he didn't like the pressure of being tied so tightly to the automotive industry.
"Primarily, General Motors was our biggest customer. That's all it focused on, the automotive -- and rightly so. We did very well at it," Ferry said. "But one of the things that always frustrated me with the automotive was the demanding customer."
The number of employees he needed at any given time fluctuated, meaning he never had a consistent management team.
Diversifying
He decided it was time to diversify.
Now, the company has four divisions: electrical installation, gas and oil compressor station building and servicing, data, and residential and commercial electrical service.
Diversifying allowed Ferry to work on jobs throughout the country, bringing in more consistent jobs and revenue.
The data division, for example, is doing a lot of work for schools -- putting in smart boards, high definition televisions and security cameras.
The company also is working at government refueling stations, such as Langley Air Force Base in Langley, Va.
The diversification strategy worked, Ferry said. When he bought the company, it was doing an average of 4 million to 6 million in sales annually. This year he expects the company to do just over 30 million in sales.
Managers hired
To keep the various parts of the company working smoothly, Ferry hired division managers.
"What I've tried to do is set everybody up as if they're running their own company," he said. "They're responsible for getting the sales, managing the sales, invoicing the sales and making sure the money's collected."
Valley Electrical was founded by Mike Russell in 1975. Ferry worked for the company on and off for 10 years, beginning in 1976. He came back to the company in 1987 as a project manager/superintendent, eventually becoming a stockholder.
In 1990, he bought the partners out and became the sole owner.
Since he started working in the industry, much has changed, Ferry said. Communication is different now, he noted. When he worked in the field, trying to get an answer to a problem often created delays on the job.
Now, though, each foreman on a job site has a cell phone, Ferry said. Most sites have a laptop computer and digital cameras.
If there's a problem at a site, workers take a picture and e-mail it to the office. Ferry projects the image on a large screen in the company's conference room and the problem is quickly worked out.
Another difference is the company's prefabrication shop. Some projects once built at a job site are now put together at the company's headquarters on Tibbetts-Wick Road.
Ferry sees a lot of potential growth with the gas and oil compressor station division and the data division but is moving ahead carefully.
"We ballooned here in the last four years, and now we're going to step back a notch, re-evaluate what we're doing and get ready for the next step to go forward," he said.
The company wasn't ready for the big jump in sales they experienced during those years, Ferry said.
"We thought we had all the tools in place," he said. "Management tools, accounting, management out in the field. We didn't have that in place."
Now, he said, they do.
The next step for the company is to set up a sales and teaching center on the property adjacent to the Valley Electrical building, he said.
Valley Electrical employs 35 in-house and an additional 200 throughout the country.