CONTRACTOR PROFILE // RMW ELECTRICAL COMPANY: RMW Electrical BASED: Shrewsbury FOUNDED: 1981 MAJOR PROJECTS: Shrewsbury Music Hall, Telford Shopping Centre STAFF NUMBERS: 25
Niche thinking Shrewsbury contractor RMW Electrical has picked itself up again after almost going out of business a decade ago. Now, with a diverse customer base and a couple of specialist areas, it’s facing the future with confidence By Nick Martindale
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ack in 2006, Shrewsbury Town Football Club was in the process of building its new stadium, now called the New Meadow. It was a good time for local tradespeople, and would have been for RMW Electrical had it not coincided with one of the darkest periods in its 34-year history. “We had secured the electrical contract for the new stadium but realised that financially it was not going to be possible to honour it, so we had to pull out,” says managing director Christine Whitrick. “At that point we realised we were weeks away from declaring bankruptcy. We’d hit an all-time low and had to break the news to our staff that the business was in dire straits. Accountants were appointed to assist us and we asked them for a chance to pull it back, and slowly but surely that’s what we’ve done.” At the time, the business was coming out of a prolonged period of uncertainty brought about when one of the founders – Ron Whitrick, Christine’s stepdad – retired. Ron’s son Malcolm took over, but ownership eventually passed to Christine, who by then had worked with the family firm for over a decade. “I joined in 1993 from an insurance background with no knowledge of the industry, but the business needed help so I 26
took redundancy,” she recalls. “I came into an administrative role and it grew from there.” Fire starter Ron originally set the business up with Malcolm in 1981, largely on the back of fire alarm installations. “Ron had worked for a company that did a lot of work with fire alarms, and he and his son thought they could do it better themselves,” recalls Pat Harte, project manager and estimator, who has been with the firm for 31 years. “We were pretty much the only company in this area that would undertake fire alarm work, other than the nationals, but over the years others caught up. When I joined, the spread of the business was about 80 per cent fire alarms and 20 per cent electrical, but now that has changed around.” Fire alarms remain a significant part of the company’s focus, he adds, largely in commercial premises such as
‘We’d hit an all-time low and had to break the news to our staff that the business was in dire straits’
Summer 2015 Connections
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