One of the truest measures of a company’s success is its repeat business rate. So, when we happen upon a company with a repeat business rate as high as 80%, naturally we want to know more. In the case of Sylvan Inc, this repeat business rate was the result of successful business practices—the pillars upon which the company has been built. Collaboration, for instance, with customers, suppliers, subcontract partners, and in-house teammates is one such pillar. Another is Sylvan’s commitment to telling the truth and walking the talk, never leaving customers in the dark. And to achieve a perpetual state of innovation, Sylvan is dedicated to thinking differently. Of course, maintaining the highest standards in all that Sylvan does is a given. These four pillars reveal themselves throughout my conversation with President and CEO, Rob Metz, as he takes me through Sylvan’s longstanding tenure in the North American construction industry.
Rob Metz joined Sylvan as an equity holder, minority shareholder, and Chief Operating Officer back in 2008. He has been witness to the company’s significant expansion in service offerings, the industries Sylvan serves, and the geographical areas of operation. Sylvan began as an industrial piping contractor in Michigan. The company experienced quick growth, focusing on the New Jersey oil and gas industry, the Tennessee higher-education space, and the Michigan automotive industry. “We’ve moved into new geographies and ventured into new services to the point where today we are a multi-trade solutions provider in Canada, the US and Mexico,” says Metz. In more recent years, and with an average growth rate of 30%, Sylvan has also branched out into government work, becoming one of the company’s top four industries.
Under Metz’s leadership, the company has also established an extremely high customer retention rate, which it maintains to this day. Many of Sylvan’s customers are in the Fortune 500 list of highest revenue-generating companies in the United States. “Our client base continues to grow in the Fortune 500 space and in other industries, primarily in the chip sector within data centers,” Metz says. Another of Sylvan’s growth sectors that falls under the automotive umbrella is battery manufacturing plants. “These clients are not building and then moving on to a different project. These are companies that have operating facilities and need ongoing support, and they look to us for that support at a maintenance level, a small capital expenditure level, and a large capital expenditure level. Whatever their needs are, we focus on providing those solutions.”
“These clients are not building and then moving on to a different project. These are companies that have operating facilities and need ongoing support, and they look to us for that support at a maintenance level, a small capital expenditure level, and a large capital expenditure level.”
Because of the nature of the projects they work on, Sylvan is in a perpetual state of collaboration, innovation, and problem solving. “Many of the projects we work on are new, so we confront problems that have not been confronted before. This requires us to use all our resources, all our collaboration and thinking to find a solution for the client. There’s often a lot of pressure, certainly in maintenance or small cap situations where they’re not producing at the rate they want, or at all. They look to us to get them back up to speed.”
Sylvan emphasizes collaboration across the board, both inside and outside the company. Two-way collaboration is enforced from the outset of a project and especially with new clients. “We work together with clients to learn the geography, learn the service, and build up a partnership with them.” At the helm of this collaboration is respect and transparency. “We keep our word, we tell the truth respectfully,” says Metz. “We have to make sure the client understands what’s going on in their facility and what it takes to resolve that situation. We’re very transparent about our challenges and our successes, and that works. Together we focus on the solution and not the blame—a saying we use a lot on all of our projects.” This approach allows Sylvan to anticipate realistic challenges so that when they present themselves, which they inevitably do, we can deal with them in a way that is proactive, assertive, as well as time and cost efficient.
Repeat business does not come without customer satisfaction in the services provided. The services that Sylvan offers are diverse in range and extensive in scope, but Metz breaks them down into three categories. First there’s the process side, which covers processed piping installation and all forms of mechanical fittings, including orbital welding, MIG welding and TIG welding. “We provide electrical support and equipment setting to the machines that make the products our clients are selling,”
Metz adds. “We have millwrights, iron workers, and rigging professionals to set that equipment and position it so it can be powered and piped. We also provide sheet metal services to those plants—so heating and cooling services, stairs, and steel supports for the equipment. That’s all on the process side.”
Next up is the facility side of the business, which encapsulates all the services necessary for heating and cooling. This includes roof drains, plumbing, and all the industrial services that are necessary to operate the facility. “We have a service group in our Dearborn location. We’ll be replicating that group throughout the US, probably Canada as well, possibly Mexico. That group provides ongoing maintenance to commercial office buildings and industrial facilities, primarily for heating and cooling.” Last up is the material side of Sylvan’s service offering. “We have a material handling group that does all the engineering, fabrication, manufacturing and installation of material handling systems.” This service operates primarily in the automotive and food industries, as well as some airport baggage handling work. “That’s a relatively new business unit for us in the last three years that’s been very successful,” says Metz. “We recently made an add-on acquisition to support the manufacturing portion of the business.”
Having provided insight into Sylvan’s services and the four pillars of success applied to them, Metz moves on to the company’s proven track record out on the field. That is, a small selection of Sylvan’s many standout projects from over the years. “Princeton University is going through an extensive process of heating and cooling their entire campus through a geothermal system and Sylvan performed three major projects,” Metz says. “We were part of building the Tiger Plant that pumps hot water, chilled water, and geothermal water throughout the campus. The Thermal Piping Project to transport hot water and chilled water to specific buildings. The Geothermal Mains Project to move the geothermal water from the well fields to the TIGER Plant.” The projects were high-profile, the deadlines were tight, and close coordination with the university and other trades was critical throughout. Despite the challenges, not least of which was a sizable application of a relatively new technology, it was a sweeping success. “It came in on time and on budget,” says Metz. “I think this project fits as an example of our client approach and how we achieve an 80% repeat business rate. This was a challenging project. I’m not sure there’s ever been a geothermal project this big. We’re very proud of it and I know Princeton is as well.”
Stellantis, a leading global automaker with a constellation of fourteen iconic automotive brands, including Chrysler and Peugeot, is the client behind Sylvan’s next standout project. When the Stellantis facility in Windsor was gearing up for a new product launch, Sylvan was responsible for the activity in the paint shop, body shop, and general assembly. “The facility was retooling the plant and reconfiguring the systems to provide two new products, the Stellantis Minivan and New Dodge Challenger.
It was a significant amount of planning leading up to the project, probably 10 months prior to the project on the engineering side. The pre-construction planning and the actual bulk of the construction was performed in a ten-week period where we had close to 1000 trades people performing the work. When you’re mobilizing that many trades people and there’s that much equipment coming together, there are challenges. Launch dates are very important to Stellantis and we met all of them, which allowed them to have a plant ready to build the vehicle they announced to their investors. That was another success story and one with lots of challenges along the way, lots of issues to overcome, and much needed collaboration.”
Next up is JW Marriott, a large, multi-level hotel in Detroit. “JW Marriott is a project we’ve been working on for a number of months in the budgeting phase, the estimating phase, and now in the pre-construction phase. We’ll be starting work this fall, but the preplanning, preconstruction, and drawing of the project is very crucial. We’re doing all the HVAC and plumbing in the hotel, so there’s a lot of construction activity we have to work within. The pre-construction phase and working with the other contractors are critical to success when we actually start in the field with boots on the ground. This is a project that the city of Detroit is very excited about—the city itself, its residents, and those in the surrounding community. I believe it will sit at the former Joe Lewis Arena where the Detroit Red Wings played—a great concert hall and entertainment venue that will now be home to the hotel looking out over the river and towards Canada. I’m sure it’s going to be a great facility for the city of Detroit.”
Looking into the future, Sylvan’s sights are set on continued growth across the company’s US footprint, as well as in Mexico where projects are on the rise. Growing its HVAC and electrical services is on the horizon too, as is expanding into the chip industry where opportunity is abundant. But such growth does not come without first taking care of existing business and maintaining the reputation Sylvan has built over the years. “We continue to work at our existing business and making it better using new technology and training our people both on the business side and the technical side,” says Metz. “We’ve opened an office in Arizona which is underway, while data centers and government work in the Southwest will be supported by our operations in Dallas-Fort Worth, which are currently in development.” Whether Sylvan is operating in prospective or existing markets, or with new or old clients, those pillars of success will remain integral to its approach. The plan, as Metz puts it, is to “find different ways to collaborate and push the boundaries, to think outside the box so we can provide better solutions for our clients, to focus on how we make our business better, and to solicit candid feedback from clients if we’re falling short. And, of course, to stay humble, because we can always be better.”
