Strong Leadership Key to Consistent Growth for Repeat Winners of Corporate Report 100
The Zeno’s paradox of the agricultural world goes something like this: If a farmer can easily pick up a newborn calf, he surely can pick it up the next day and day after that and the day after that. How then does there come a day when he can no longer pick it up at all?
The star players on our Corporate Report 100 honor roll call to mind that newborn calf. In the beginning, they are small, slight and insignificant. The next year, one sees them growing and getting bigger, and then, before you know it, they have emerged as a full-blown, market-busting bull.
What follows are profiles of some of our Blue Ribbon stock. We have chosen to acknowledge those organizations that have claimed their position on Ingram’s Corporate Report 100 for 10 or more of the 20 years of the program.
The Cerner Corporation began life as Patterson, Gorup, Illig & Associates in 1979. Having grown up on his family farm near Manchester, Okla., Neal Patterson understands something of strong, steady growth. When he and his two other young colleagues from Arthur Anderson & Co. decided to launch their own enterprise, they looked down the road to a field with long-term growth potential: healthcare automation. Today, Patterson is the Chairman and CEO of Cerner; Cliff Illig is the Vice Chairman, and Paul Gorup, after a 12-year sabbatical, is the Vice President of Knowledge and Discovery.
Cerner first surfaced on our Corporate Report 100 radar screen in 1987. That year the company recorded $17 million and change worth of business. Cerner has appeared on our list a record 15 times in all. Like the calf, Cerner has never stopping growing, and after a while, it all kind of adds up. In 2004, the company recorded a gross revenue of more than $926 million. Even if one accounts for inflation, this represents nearly a 3,200 percent growth in just 17 years.
Growth like this, especially in so volatile and competitive a field, does not happen by accident. It takes planning and nerve. At the heart of Cerner’s success has been its willingness to invest in the kind of bold technological innovations that keep lesser executives awake at night second-guessing their judgment.
In 1993, for instance, Cerner decided to rewrite all of its software. The result was Cerner Millennium™. No other unified healthcare information architecture can do what Cerner Millennium can—namely, retrieve and disseminate clinical and financial information to and from every salient station in a given healthcare system. Dramatic gambits like this one have paid big divi-dends for Cerner, literally and figuratively.
The Lockton Companies have given Cerner a run for its money in the Corporate Report 100 rodeo. The Plaza-based insurance firm has appeared on the list 14 times in the last 20 years.
Although the company started earlier than Cerner by 13 years, it also started more humbly. Jack Lockton, who passed away just last year, launched the company with his parents’ assistance in the basement of their home in 1966. He was not yet 25 at the time.
For the first 10 years of its existence, Lockton focused on the construction industry. Although the company would expand its horizons, it developed its core values during this period. Construction is a demanding business. Strong personal relationships, an innovative spirit and no-nonsense problem-solving abilities matter absolutely. These values served Lockton well as it continued to grow.
When the firm surfaced on the initial Corporate Report 100 in 1986, it boasted of gross revenues of nearly $7 million, a performance that had long-since transcended the basement. By 2004, the gross revenue numbers would swell to $344 million, a real dollar growth over those 18 years of nearly 2,800 percent.
Today, Lockton works in a wide range of business sectors. These include construction of course, but also transportation, foodservice, telecommunications, energy, healthcare and professional employer organizations. For its client companies throughout the world, Lockton offers an impressive array of resources, including just about every imaginable variety of insurance, surety and risk-management services. Today, in fact, Lockton is the largest independently owned insurance broker in the nation and the ninth largest retail broker overall.
Despite the growth, Lockton prides itself on its flat organizational structure and short lines of communication. Under the leadership of Chairman David Lockton, the company has done an excellent job of keeping its focus on the client.
SKC Communications Products does not have the size of a Cerner or the visibility of a Lockton, but it has been quietly plugging away at its Shawnee, Kan., location and has made the Corporate Report 100 13 times in the last 14 years. Over those years, the growth has been remarkably consistent.
Paul Ammeen started the company in 1986. In the beginning, he was the smallest distributor of Plantronics headsets in the nation. By 1991, however, the year SKC first made the Cor-porate Report 100, it was reporting a healthy $1,570,000 in gross revenue.
For most people, the idea that the “world is growing smaller” every year is mere cliché. For SKC that notion has meant real opportunity. The company’s five core businesses—Avaya telephony solutions, Polycom voice and video conferencing sys- tems, conferencing ser-vices, custom room integration, and Plan-tronics headsets—have made the shrinking of the world a paying proposition. In addition, SKC relentlessly scours the marketplace for new and more effective communication devices.
Nor does the company just sell telephony and conferencing products. It works with its clients to create specific solutions for their distinct communications needs, and it services what it sells. Those clients range from home-based businesses to Fortune 500 companies.
In the year 2000, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce named SKC as the top small business of the year in the Kansas City area. In 2002 Ernst & Young bestowed its Entrepreneur of the Year Award on SKC. By 2004, the company was reporting gross revenues of $91 million, a real dollar growth of 5,471 percent from 1991.
Tim Webster first came to American Italian Pasta as a consultant for Ernst & Young in 1987, and he has never left. The company appointed him CFO in 1989, President in 1991 and CEO in 1993. Under Webster, this Northland company has grown to become the largest producer of dry pasta in America.
American Italian Pasta splashed onto Corporate Report 100 as the No. 1-ranked company in 1992. It had 1991 gross revenues of about $28.5 million. Twelve appearances later, the pasta producer is stirring up more than a $400 million a year in revenue, a real dollar growth of 1,363 percent.
To be sure, the last few years have not been easy. Webster, in fact, calls 2004 the worst year in pasta history. The low-carb craze was the culprit, but like all crazes, that too is losing momentum, and the retooled American Italian Pasta is prepared to take advantage. After just missing the list this year (the company’s growth since 2001 would have placed it 102nd), expect to see them back on the list in the coming years.
Henderson Engineers was founded in 1970, and this low-key Lenexa-based company has quietly been accumulating honors and new customers ever since. The company, which provides mechanical, electrical, plumbing and civil design services, is licensed in all 50 states and has branch offices in Houston; Bentonville, Ark.; and Phoenix.
The company first made the Corporate Report 100 list in 1994. At the time of its first appearance Henderson Engineers was reporting revenues of just over $3 million. They since have built that number up to $29.4 million, a real dollar increase of about 830 percent. It has not been above 20th spot since its second year on the list, but consistent growth has landed the company on the list for the 12th straight year in 2005. With more than 275 employees and 60 licensed engineers, the company has made an impact around the nation and the world.
Coby Gaulien founded All About Travel/Travel Quest in 1982, and the company has been growing ever since. The Mission-based company has negotiated the stormy seas of the travel business by staying ahead of the technology curve and providing superior service. The firm’s designated Corporate Travel Center has proved to be particularly popular and one reason why All About Travel has made 11 appearances on the list. It just missed its 12th appearance, finishing 101st this year.
The company first surfaced in the Cor-porate Report 100 in 1991. That year it reported gross revenues of $18 million. This past year All About Travel did just over $50 million in business, a real dollar increase of 178 percent.
Applebee’s International first showed up on the Corporate Report 100 in 1991. Back then it was doing $38 million a year in gross revenues. Eleven appearances later, the company is generating more than $1 billion a year in revenue, a real dollar growth of more than 2,000 percent. For each year since 1993, in fact, the company has opened 100 or more new restaurants.
In the way of background, Bill and T.J. Palmer opened the first Applebee’s in Atlanta in 1980. The Palmers sold the concept to W.R. Grace and Co. in 1983. In 1988 Kansas City franchisees Abe Gustin and John Hamra purchased the rights to the Applebee’s concept from W. R. Grace, and a year later went public. Today, the stock trades on The NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol APPB.
When the Kansas City duo acquired Applebee’s in 1988, there were “only” 54 restaurants. In 1998, Applebee’s became the first casual dining operation to exceed 1,000 restaurants. Today, under the guidance of Lloyd Hill, Chairman of the Board and CEO, there are more than 1,600 restaurants, making Applebee’s the world’s largest casual dining operation.
Since its founding in 1974, Gould Evans Affiliates has grown both up and out. The firm specializes in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and urban planning. It also offers construction services and graphic design. And it does so, with the help of more than 200 professionals, from offices in Kansas City, Overland Park, Lawrence, Tampa, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Antonio and Salt Lake City. Among the many awards the firm netted along the way is the Small Business of the Year Award in 1997 from the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
Gould Evans first popped up on the Corporate Report 100 list in 1989. That year it posted gross revenues of $1,260,000. Although its pace has slowed slightly, keeping it off the Corporate Report 100 list this year, the company’s revenue in 2004 was $38,577,213, a real dollar growth of nearly 3,000 percent.
Boulevard Brewing was born and brewed right here in Kansas City. Founder John McDonald assembled his brewing operation in a turn-of-the-century brick building on Southwest Boulevard, whence the company derives its name. McDonald installed a vintage Bavarian brewhouse in the building and brewed up his first kegs of Pale Ale in 1989.
Boulevard Brewing first appeared in the Corporate Report 100 in 1995. At the time, it was reporting revenues of $2.2 million. Ten appearances later that number has fermented up to $14.25 million, a real dollar increase of about 420 percent.
Boulevard fans might mark key dates like 1990 when Boulevard Wheat first hit the market or 1999 when the Gold-Medal winning Bully Porter first appeared. In 1999, the brewery embarked on a $2.5 million expansion.
Today, Boulevard is Missouri’s second biggest brewery and is growing much quicker than the state’s No. 1 brewery. McDonald doesn’t expect Boulevard to overtake Anheuser Busch in the immediate future, but one never knows.