25 minute read
The push ahead
from CCR Issue 8
Men’s CCR Roundtable ramp up their to-do lists amid the continuing pandemic
More than 18 months into a pandemic that has changed the way each of us do business, commercial construction professionals are still keeping the pedal down. As our podcast series shows, as we move into the end of the year and on into 2022, the industry is in an “all systems go” mode—pandemic be damned.
The podcast, hosted by CCR Publisher David Corson and Editor Michael J. Pallerino, included a diverse set of commercial construction professionals representing the vendor and end-user sides of the business.
Following is an edited look at the July discussion.
Chris Love Project Management Consortium (PMC) Don Harton Cinemark USA
Steve Hekman Kingsmen Projects
Mike Morelli National Sign Team
CCR: Give us a snapshot of what you do? Jim Nowakowski, Accountability Information Management (AIM): We are a lead service and audit company. We monitor projects in the world of data and construction. We monitor information with our other sources for project information as construction flows. We do market research on an ongoing basis.
Don Harton, Cinemark USA: Cinemark is a global theater operator. We have about 320 locations in the US, and theaters in 13 countries across Central and South America. Our Design & Construction group is responsible for new projects in the US as well as for maintenance of all the existing theaters in the US.
Chris Love, Project Management Consortium (PMC): We’re a client representative (outsource), specializing in retail design management and project management services. I have nearly 35 years in the industry and most of our team has 20-plus years of experience.
Steve Hekman, Kingsmen Projects: I started with Kingsmen about 15 years ago building brands overseas, eventually opening an office here in 2014. We work on supplying millwork, FFME, installation, services and do a lot of design build. We also get involved in value engineering, helping people bring down costs of their existing programs. has been a real hot thing as of late for new concepts.
What is the pressing item on your to-do list?
PCM’s Love: We have a constantly running scenario; it’s ever changing. Hot topics are immediate and require immediate attention. I usually set my to-do list the night before and work to get to thru them straight away in the morning before the phone starts ringing. That’s when all the priorities start changing. I try to keep my priorities in front of me as I go throughout the day. We have three-, six- and nine-month goals that we strive to achieve to satisfy our clients. Those are ever changing as well. We stay focused and positive while having a bit of fun.
Kingsmen’s Heckman: My to-do list flows a lot, too. We have priorities that start the day, every day, but a lot of our business is on the East Coast and in the Midwest. So we get up in the morning trying to be on top of all those priorities. The biggest thing
we’re trying to do is be forward thinking. We’re basically making sure that we’re getting things lined up for our customers, lots of preplanning. We have a lot of overseas projects—Singapore, Korea—so I have to plan my days around that. It does make for longer days. But that’s the skinny.
Cinemark’s Harton: The overall function is to keep projects moving forward. Did we hit our budget targets? Did we hit our timing targets? My day might also include working with a project manager in the field to determine how to resolve a concern that has been identified. It might be visiting a theater to look at a particular issue the GM has reported. It is good to get a better understanding of those things. And, of course, with the pandemic, we do most of these visits virtually. We’re always looking at issues on a small-scale and large-scale basis.
National Sign Team’s Morelli: My to-do list spills over like everybody else’s. First thing in the morning, I like to have a team meeting to set goals on what can be accomplished for the day and the week. We like to forecast what we have coming up for installs within the next 30 days and find out if there are any glitches with things like permits or logistics. Every day is ever-evolving. There are all kinds of different challenges that we try to avoid. We don’t want mishaps or miscommunication, so a lot of time is spent emailing and on the phone with clients.
AIM’s Nowakowski: I’m fortunate coming from the agency business where I was trained in that we used a hot sheet. This has all the projects upcoming for the week, which changes instantly. The minute you publish the hot sheet, it changes. It’s all data. I’m surrounded by a team of people who keep us on track. I generally operate now from a distance and just step in for new business or data analysis. My to-do list is to keep everything on track. I work until I go to sleep, and when I get up, I keep working.
— Jim Nowakowski, Accountability Information Management (AIM)
Mike Morelli, National Sign Team: We do national sign programs throughout the US, including a lot of brand rollouts and prototypes. We also do rebranding, which What are some of the lessons learned over the past 18 months?
Kingsmen’s Hekman: Last year was a tough year. We got a little PPP money, but honestly, we were in the shields business. Six months out of the year, all my projects slid. All the jobs slid into the fall. So we went out and got some orders to satisfy those shield needs. Things have come full circle. We finished the jobs that slid and now we have more work. There is more work out there than the supply chain can hold. There was a shortage of work last year, but this year it has protracted because there are eight- and 10-week lead times, where we normally
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work off four- to six-week lead times. We’re having a hard time getting material. I have four to five shops and they all have labor issues right now. Nobody wants to work in the factory, so it’s a problem. Just like a restaurant, we cannot get enough staff—places like Sacramento, Fort Wayne (Indiana) and even in Montreal. There are no workers. But we do have the work. We’re even having to turn down some projects because we just cannot place them into the mix. So it went from having nothing to having too much. With lag times on supply side—it’s taking about 10 to 12 weeks, we’re not even bringing anything over. We’re just focused on things made here. The hardest thing for us, opportunity-wise, is the amount of work out there. There’s so much work being bid right now and re-bid. I think the opportunities are for some of our existing customers trying to value engineer some of their existing programs. It’s much different than two years ago. We’re just trying to find a niche—a balance.
Cinemark’s Harton: When the pandemic hit, we closed all our theaters and began to imagine what to do. What would we have to do to reopen? We learned about the difference between disinfecting and sanitizing. We learned about the EPA List N, which I didn’t even know existed. As the CDC began to shift battling the virus from surface to airborne transmission, we learned about mitigation strategies and air purification. There was so much to learn—an enormous amount of technology for eliminating airborne or surface viruses. Lots and lots of people entered the game and are still sort of playing in it—trying to push different products in those areas. One of the things we realized is that we needed to differentiate how we deliver. There are so many product lines and product ideas. We’re looking at where we can engage with our guests and bring them something new and exciting—something that makes them want to leave the safety of their homes again. We offered private watch parties, where people could reserve the theater for movies with their friends. We charged $100 to get the whole auditorium— people you quarantined with. We will keep that moving forward.
PMC’s Love: We started PMC a little over a year ago. The lessons we learned from the pandemic are how to function and start a business in a pandemic. As a client representative in the retail industry, which was devastated as we all know, our thought process was to imagine what the industry will look like when everything reopens. How can we position ourselves to be a differentiator in making those things happen for our clients?
We thought about what happened to the industry when the markets crashed in 2008. The same thing is occurring now, as many companies have furloughed staff and closed stores. When the market started to return in 2010, everything picked back up quickly. Many retailers outsourced people and responsibilities in order to catch up with the demand. We thought about a business model where PMC could be a flexible resource for clients having that objective. PMC provides white glove management service while adding value. We spent 2020 positioning ourselves for the 2021-22 influx of projects. We looked for the right people who are seasoned professionals and have a love for servicing clients. Our business model is more cost effective than larger companies, as we do not have all the overhead as we are virtual. Thus, we pass those savings on to our clients. That’s another way of doing business that’s different than it was 18 months ago. Our internal business model is focused on maintaining our people. What’s the incentive to keep them excited? The work and the money of which the majority is shared among the people working on a project and or client. This way, their focus and attention are on that client and their project outcomes. Our team earns more money than if working for a traditional firm and it’s a win-win, as the client pays less and each person on that account has more of the fee. Again, PMC needs to be a differentiator in this industry. The pandemic has allowed this new business model to flourish for PMC where 18 months ago it would be unheard of. Firms must be flexible in this ever-changing industry and thus far, it’s working for us. We’re a little over a year old and have more than a dozen amazing clients and counting.
Kingsmen’s Hekman: Like Chris said about over-servicing the client and servicing, I have built stores for five years. I was a director of construction for a small chain and I built a couple hundred units. I didn’t get paid a lot back then. I used to put in 80hour work weeks. It was a lot. In essence, I basically just took all that knowledge and started working on the supply side—using it to service some of our clients. Not long ago, I had a contractor walk off the job on a client in Canada. The contractor was in San Marcos (California). He took the keys with him. Gone. I got a truck on the road. There was no panic in our client because he knew we would put the things in motion. It is what we take pride in. We know how to solve problems related to our business. And we work on both coasts and overseas. We’re still up working when a lot of people have already signed off. You have to work ahead of the clock.
PMC’s Love: One of our major clients is based in London; we have calls very early in the morning and late at night as our team is
— Chris Love, Project Management Consortium (PMC)
spread over three time zones. It is never a problem. It’s all relative, as at the end of the day, the client put their trust in PMC to deliver.
What type of opportunities do you see moving forward?
PMC’s Love: Our concept was based on what the industry is looking for. We positioned and established our business based on providing great service while adding value. We think a virtual office is one of the options, as there’s a lot of technology catering to this new way of doing business. so why add that expense to your overhead. Pass the saving on to the client. Retail brands main concern coming out of the pandemic are cost, speed to market, while maintain quality. Firms should act upon this as their business mantra and focus on delivering to client expectations.
National Sign Team’s Morelli: I’ve been in the sign industry since 1986. I was with the same company for a really long time—a great family-owned sign company. A lot of our focus was retail—probably 60%. We had it broken up between entertainment and restaurants, QSR being the other 40%. When this pandemic hit, retail hit a brick wall. Everything just stopped and there was a signage graveyard. But after working in the industry for so long, you know how to deliver your goods, how to exceed expectations and how to listen to what your clients’ needs are instead of just building the widget and slapping it on the wall. When COVID started, we were just really zeroing in on our project management team. We were looking at what would really make our company successful. You have to communicate with your clients. My old company unfortunately couldn’t keep me on anymore. I was one of several who had to take a leave. So I was able to zero my game a little bit. It got to the point where I still had clients and people I talked with. The opportunity came up with a client who acquired a restaurant out of bankruptcy and wanted me to do a rebrand throughout the country. But I had no home. So after some back and forth conversations, I started National Sign Team last August. It catapulted me off the ground and back into the sign business. We don’t fabricate in house. We don’t have 100 installers all over the country. We have great project managers who vest our partners all over the country so we could deliver a quality product. What I found was that everybody can build the widget. You have to be able to transform what you offer and deliver it. Quality
standards must be met, but that’s what spec pages are for. And we’ve zeroed it in to some great partners around the country.
Kingsmen’s Hekman: We’re in similar shoes. We know how the product should be made in a shop; we know what the specifications are, and how it should be delivered. So we’re really thinking ahead and preparing. We’re making our suppliers better because some of them may not know how to package something for a particular site or for a union delivery, or things like that. It’s the same thing. If you’re going on to that site, you’ve already anticipated those things. We’re providing that extra customer service.
— Steve Hekman, Kingsmen Projects
AIM’s Nowakowski: What I am learning is that what you all did during COVID was to migrate into an agency-like model. Agencies were born many years ago to help companies do their communications because they didn’t want to do it in house. Now that’s reversed. But advertising agencies were basically an outsource for all the communications, whether it was ads, direct mail (etc.). What I’m hearing is that you’re migrating into that service business. Part of our service, nothing has changed in 30 years, is to answer the phone in two rings. I always ask, “What do you need?” When COVID hit, we did the same thing we always do. We adapt, change or we knew we would disappear. We took the PPP to try to keep people employed, but the business today is very different. It is about adapting, changing or disappearing. What we learned in COVID is the same thing we’ve been practicing in our prior experience, and that is to keep moving forward and try different things. Never stop moving.
Tell us a little about your story.
National Sign Team’s Morelli: I grew up in Upstate New York, a town called Rochester, which is famous for Kodak and Xerox. I had my first child when I was 20 and had to go to work. I ended up working at a sign shop back in 1986. Over the years, I have watched this whole industry morph into what it is today. It has been pretty cool watching how signs were made in the ‘80s versus how they are made today. I started a sign company after a while and had it for 11 years in New York. After I went through a divorce in 2005, I went to work for a company in Orange County, California. I built relationships with a lot of retailers and restaurants over the years. I really enjoyed it. We all became great friends. I was at that company until COVID hit. Everything came to a screeching halt. That’s when I decided to take the leap and make National Sign Team happen. When you come from nothing and build your whole career up, then have it pulled out from under you, everything is up to you. I work hard every single day. It’s 24 hours. That’s my drive.
PMC’s Love: I grew up in Queens a borough of NYC. My first year of college, I was a fine arts major, and then transferred over to architecture. I started in the retail design
business working for Walker Group CNI in 1986 as a junior draftsman. At the time, they were the largest retail design firm in the world with the focus on large department stores and shopping centers. Brands were just beginning to emerge as shop in shops in these locations. I went into business with my father in Miami from the late ‘80s to the late ‘90s. Our retail design firm was called CLDA, which specialized in national department store chains and shopping center, including the Caribbean and South America. That was a fantastic experience on how to run, market and manage a business at a young age Back to New York in the late ‘90s for Calvin Klein as international director of store planning, responsible for design/project management of retail stores and showrooms globally. Next, I was VP of project management for Robin Kramer in NYC, soon followed as they were the in-house design and project management firm for Donna Karen, and many other brands. A business development opportunity came about with a GC specializing in luxury retail, which gave me great insight on how the other side of the business operates— many of lessons I still apply for my clients today. California called with women’s fashion house, BCBG Max Azria Group, where I was the VP of architecture, construction and procurement for nearly 13 years. We managed the design and construction of thousands of retail locations, showrooms, shop in shops, and offices globally. Before starting PMC in 2020, I was with JLL as VP of retail multi-site for nearly three years assisting national brands with their retail growth until the pandemic. I am very fortunate to have been in this industry for nearly 35 years. I’ve worked with so many wonderful people and I’ve had amazing tutors over the years. As hard as the struggle was to climb the ladder, there was always someone pulling me up. For that I am very grateful. Today at PMC, we are focusing a lot of attention on clients new to the industry and need help with their retail expansion. At the end of the day, where can PMC add value? I’d love to have McDonald’s as a client and be awarded a 5,000-store rollout to project manage. But what value would we add? A lot of these new companies either online or cannabis brands opening brick and mortar locations today need our kind of experience and guidance. This is where I feel PMC is the lovingly elder statesmen—the passionate ones who can add value to the process and assist these brands through their journey. Spending time mentoring people I have worked with over the years is my ongoing passion. It is important to give back and develop new leadership. I think the future of our industry is on the verge of a culture shock with regards to how people interact and understand relationships. All of this white glove service that we’re talking about is not taught in school. I wonder about the next wave of executives as the roll is very conflicting.
Today, you must be a compassionate A-type personality, a fantastic listener, have a great vendor connection, and master a clear understanding of how this industry works and how to maneuver through it on behalf of your clients. If not, this business will swallow you whole, and fast.
Cinemark’s Harton: I was born in Dallas; my father took a job with one of the subcontractors for the space program so we moved to Florida. I lived near the Space Center in the Cape Canaveral area. My dad was involved in building those large satellite tracking systems down through the Caribbean. He would go to the Caribbean and bring back slideshows and we’d watch how they lived on those exotic islands. He came back to Texas as the manned space program was developed and was involved in developing navigation systems for the space shuttle. I went to high school in Clear Lake, just south of Houston. I went to Texas A&M for an undergraduate program and received a Bachelor of Environmental Design. I worked for a couple of years for a large architectural firm doing programming in Houston, and then went to Oregon for a graduate degree in architecture—a Master’s in Architecture. I came back to Dallas again because my wife got a financial degree and wanted to work for a bank. There was a large bank that had just laid off a bunch of workers in Seattle, so back to Texas it was. I went to work for a small architecture firm before going to work for another architecture firm for a number of years. I started working on movie theaters in 1986,
designing a variety of them. After working largely for Cinemark doing projects for a number of years, they invited me to work inhouse. That was 1996, and I have been here for 25 years in various roles, but always in design and construction. I now have five grandkids, so we’re enjoying that aspect of life as well.
Kingsmen’ Hekman: I grew up in Riverside, California, about an hour and 45 minutes from the beach. We were kind of inland for the California people. I attended Cal State San Bernardino, where I was a student body president. I only ran for office because they were changing the beer prices in the student union. I got a job right out of college and moved to Boston, working as a tenant coordinator on the Burlington Mall. I was basically thrown into it. It was where they
— Don Harton, Cinemark USA
had raised the second level—probably the third mall in the country where they cut the roof and put a mall on top of a mall. I did that for a few years. My wife—my girlfriend at the time— was with me. We moved back in two years after I completed those projects. I tried to get a job on the tenant side, but ended up building stores for a company called Three Day Blinds. We built about 250 stores. But I didn’t have all the tools they have today. We had a sky pager, if you are old enough to remember that. I had the contractors call me on a 1-800 number because they didn’t want to call until the end of the day when they returned from their jobs. Cellphones were very expensive. I’ve
been in the business since 1988—since I started—but I went from the landlord side to the tenant side, and ended up working on the supply side. That is where I got a job working for a fixture company in Mexico called Associated Wood Products. One of my first customers was Rubio’s Restaurants. I just started out working on projects that weren’t very complicated—tabletops and bars, things like that. I started Hekman Company, and just started getting one customer after another. As you build that base, your customers take you with them. I landed at Skechers in ‘97, where they started signing leases here and overseas. They wanted us to build their stores overseas, so we hired a company in London. That took me overseas. Consequently, I did a number of projects in Europe. In 2007, the market tanked. It tanked in Europe in ‘08/’09 and everybody wanted to go to Asia. It was quiet here. I ended up building Kingsmen around ‘07 or ‘08. Abercrombie was another client I was fortunate enough to have. They were stopping construction here and wanted to build their first stores in China. I spent four or five years just building Abercrombie stores. I had a handful of clients I was working with. That’s what led me to Asia, where I was doing stores for them—general construction and the like. It was really a learning experience for the client for them to take us over there. In 2014, we opened this office so we wouldn’t have to fly so much. I own part of this office. They have been a good partner, good supplier for as long as I’ve worked for them. I have learned a lot with these brands. I love working for brands I love. And I love to learn about them and to be a part of their
stories. As you evolve with a brand, it can take you different places. We are working with a brand now coming here from Australia. They want to open 200 stores and I’ve never heard of them before. But they’re big in Australia. It is the kind of things that energize us.
AIM’s Nowakowski: I was born in Chicago, and went to college at Lewis and DePaul University. My degrees are in English. I was a teacher for 10 years. I have an authority complex and was fired for defending a student. I transitioned to advertising, breaking in for $500 a month as a copywriter. I had great mentors. I studied under Bill Robinson, who traveled with Jack Dempsey across the United States. He was the former director of DeVry Advertising. I learned a lot. Keep learning every day is what keeps me young. I was fired a couple more times. The third time I was a creative director at the eighth largest direct response agency in the country, which is now defunct. I said, “Okay, I can try this on my own.” And my wife said, “Whatever.” She is my great support and couldn’t have done this without her. We have been married a long time and she is the love of my life. When we started this service, I was a problem solver. One of my clients called me a provider. I was fabricating metal plates in China for a client. I only had four clients. And then ‘09 hit. Everything just stopped. I had to do something. I had 25 people. So we reinvented ourselves and started expanding into the areas of our expertise. We now have a menu of services. We started soliciting new business. That was a major learning thing for me. I didn’t want new business because I had this fiduciary interest with these four clients, but when everything collapsed, it was winner take all or whatever. So I went and looked at the competitors, which I never did. One of my competitors ended up asking me where the hell I had been. I started the business in 1990, and after five years, I had to make a decision. I had a New York client coming to Chicago and I was working out of my house. I couldn’t invite him to the living room, so I started renting an office. I meet people who cannot make up their mind every day. And if you can’t make up your mind in business, inevitably, it’s a tragedy. So like Hamlet, and everything else I’ve studied as an English teacher, really plays philosophically into the movement of business today. Once you have realized the worst thing that can happen to you is you can lose your business, there is nothing else. You have to figure out how to keep it going. I’m very blessed. I’m very grateful. I’ve met a lot of different people and learned from each of them. Our ability to adapt, change or disappear is really the Alexander the Great strategy. Anticipate, react, and then adapt. You know as well as I do, you have to write a great lesson plan. So, I’d write a great lesson plan and then you get in front of the 20 underachievers and they haven’t read the lesson plan, you world collapses. But it makes you stronger, and you realize a lesson plan is good, but experience is better. CCR
— Steve Hekman, Kingsmen Projects
