Tell me your favorite client success story.
“When I first came to Houston, I went work for one of the Southeast’s premier steel erection contractors. When I started in 2008, they already knew how to make money and lots of it. For over six years, they took me to school on how money can be made in a construction business. I will always be grateful for the privilege and experience of working with these businessmen.
When I left in 2013, I went to work for a small underwater construction company in the Pacific Northwest. While interviewing for the role, I told the owners quite frankly that they had a great business model; but they had little money. With only a few hundred thousand dollars in working capital, they were already well over the skis.
I offered to work with them to recapitalize their business and help them expand the company across the country. Over the course of the next four years, we worked with a private equity firm in Dallas, Texas to raise the capital and to line up a suitable buyer for all or part of the company.
While working on the buyout, I applied many of the lessons learned while at the Houston company. We retooled virtually every aspect of the business, especially estimating and contracting. We also shored up deficiencies in operations, accounting, safety, and so on. We allowed no sacred cows while creating a data-driven management team. For four years, we organically grew working capital from a few hundred thousand to over four million dollars – no small feat in any construction company.
To the credit of many advisors, we closed the sale in the summer of 2018. I happily turned the reigns over to a new Controller and returned to our home in Houston.”
— Dana Jensen, CCIFP EA
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