Houston Business Journal - by Tanya Rutledge
When the economy started
to falter, Nelson Alvarado came up with a plan to keep his commercial roofing
business chugging along: More free lunches.
Craig Hartley/HBJ
Nelson Alvarado
(left) and Sidhartha Sen of Integris: Bringing in a new owner with fresh
perspective to adjust to changes in the industry.
|
Conference participants
— including architects, small business owners and other industry professionals
— come for what Alvarado says is free advice, usually centered around green and
energy-efficient development projects. Attendees have come from as far as San
Antonio, Fort Worth and even California.
Alvarado says hosting
the regular conferences is definitely money well-spent.
“We do spend a lot to do
these, but it’s smart money,” he says. “You always have to keep a fish on the
grill, or they will forget about you. And they may not need you now, but they
will think about you first when they do need you.”
Marketing has been a
cornerstone of Integris’ business strategy, even when Alvarado first started
the company in 1983. His wife and three daughters would often help answer
phones and type up bids, with the youngest daughter, who was a child at the
time, helping to stuff envelopes for marketing mailers. That daughter, now 23,
plans to eventually join Alvarado in the business as part of his succession
plan.
Alvarado says he is
always open to listening to fresh ideas and new perspectives, whether from his
family members or someone else, which is one reason he brought on Sidhartha
“Sid” Sen as company CEO in May 2009. Sen, who at 35 is 10 years younger than
Alvarado, was formerly with Nexant Inc., where he was responsible for managing
the firm’s renewable energy practice within the petrochemical sector.
Now a 50 percent owner
in Integris, Sen has taken the company into new lines of business that have
kept it relevant during the green movement, including solar roofing, energy
efficiency projects and consulting.
Alvarado, a
fourth-generation roofer who started out in the business doing manual labor,
admits it was a difficult decision to bring a new owner into a company that he
had run as a closely held family business for so many years. But he realized
the need to usher in a new way of thinking.
“He has really taught me
that there is a different generation of thinking and that we have to adjust to
what’s happening in the marketplace,” Alvarado says of Sen, who has lectured on
renewable energy at Rice University, Yale University and Duke University.
“I did have that feeling
of when you have a baby that you have grown and nurtured, and then it becomes
time to leave it with a babysitter. It was hard, but I knew it was the right
thing.”
Derron Cook, area sales
manager for roofing product manufacturer Carlisle SynTec Inc., which chose
Integris as a certified installer about a year ago, says Alvarado was smart to
bring Sen in as his green energy expert, rather than trying to educate himself
on the fast-changing industry from scratch.
“He has taken someone
who is essentially at the professor level of knowledge on renewable energy and
brought him into the roofing industry,” Cook says. “It puts Integris on top of
it without having to create a new approach.”
Indeed, Sen has helped
steer Integris into the emerging arena of green roofing practices. That has
taken the company — located in a downtown industrial area on Roberts Street —
deeper into the government sector with green rehabilitation and rehab work to
bring commercial and multifamily roofing up to new energy-efficient standards.
Alvarado says about 30
percent of Integris’ business is government related, while the other 70 percent
is generated from the private sector. Commercial clients include universities,
large retailers, industrial manufacturers and the petrochemical industry.
Government work includes the Catalina Apartments in Houston, a U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development complex that is getting 2.4 million square
feet of upgraded roofing.
While Integris’ body of
work is centered on the Houston area, the firm works throughout Texas and
sometimes in other parts of the country, including California and a recent
federal project in New Mexico.
The strategy has served
the company well, helping Integris grow from a little more than $800,000 in
revenue in 2008 to $1 million in 2009. With $2 million already on the books in
2010, Alvarado expects a surge to some $6 million this year.
Part of that increase is
attributed to Integris’ recent certification under the federal government’s
8(a) program, which will give the company access to new government contracts
and other services as a small disadvantaged business. It took eight months and various applications
the size of two telephone books to receive the certification, but Alvarado
believes it will open up all kinds of new business avenues. In fact, he expects
the nine-year 8(a) program to yield maximum revenue opportunities near $168
million in the first five years and potentially more than $280 million over the
life of the certification.
Alvarado is a firm
believer in business certifications, spending much of his time making sure
Integris is in compliance with rules that will gain it acceptance by all sorts
of different industry standards. In addition to the 8(a) program, Integris is
certified as a Small Business Enterprise and a Minority Business Enterprise by
several local and regional entities, as well as being approved by the federal
government for disaster recovery work.
IRONS IN THE FIRE
Alvarado says he also
made sure that all of Integris’ 50 employees — 10 in the corporate office and
40 field workers — can legally work in the U.S., which takes extra time and
money to achieve, but is a priority.
“We are aware that a lot
of companies in this industry don’t have good reputations, and we battle with
that, but we have made it a rule not to cut corners,” he says. “We work hard to
wave our flag so everyone understands that we are doing it right. There is a
benefit to playing by the book.”
Roofing manufacturer
Cook agrees, pointing out that Integris’ squeaky-clean approach to executing
jobs creates a tangible advantage when it comes to bidding on projects.
“They bring a level of
professionalism to the industry that you see applied more by financial-sector
firms or investment firms than you do by roofing companies,” Cook says. “It
gives them a competitive edge.”
Because typical Integris
jobs range in size between $250,000 and $1 million and are considered small or
medium-sized commercial projects, Alvarado says the company did not experience
a major impact from the recession, at least not in the way it affected some
larger commercial contractors when real estate development came to a slow
crawl.
“Small projects
continued to get done, and that was really our area,” he says.
The fact that Integris
planted several irons in the fire has helped carry it through the economic
downturn. Alvarado says new government standards for energy efficiency have
created more work in the rehabilitation market, especially in the multifamily
arena, a market segment that Integris formally entered earlier this year.
And Alvarado says the
company is also positioning itself to take advantage as federal funds begin to
trickle in to help pay for other types of green construction and rehabilitation
projects. For example, Integris recently launched a new energy consulting
division, Integris Energy Partners, to help clients maximize energy efficiency.
“It’s so new that
everyone is still trying to understand it, but it’s real — and it’s coming,”
Alvarado says of the burgeoning green movement. “We have positioned ourselves
to be ready for it.”
Integris Roofing Services LLC
FOUNDED:
1999
BUSINESS: Commercial roofing design, building and repair.
EMPLOYEES: 50
OWNERS: Nelson Alvarado (founder), Sidhartha Sen.
2008 REVENUE: $800,000
2009 REVENUE: $1 million
WEB SITE: www.integrisroofingservices.com
BUSINESS: Commercial roofing design, building and repair.
EMPLOYEES: 50
OWNERS: Nelson Alvarado (founder), Sidhartha Sen.
2008 REVENUE: $800,000
2009 REVENUE: $1 million
WEB SITE: www.integrisroofingservices.com
No comments:
Post a Comment