Structural fabricator has trial-by-fire leadership succession

Casey Baum, 27, took the helm of Elizabethtown, Pa.-based Bass Mechanical in 2014. Photo courtesy of Amy Spangler.

Casey Baum was 7 when his father Aldus launched Bass Mechanical in 1996 as a design firm for mechanical systems in commercial buildings. He remembers lots of papers stacked in the living room. In the ensuing years, Aldus realized customers wanted more of a turnkey operation in which Bass not only did the design, but also the fabrication of those systems.

As Casey recalled, “It went from a small operation in our living room to a less small operation in our living room and garage. I remember my dad promising me $50 a month if I would come home from school and be quiet. But I wasn’t getting rich; I was a pretty energetic kid.”

Fifteen years ago Aldus bought the property where the company remains today, a 23,000-square-foot facility in Elizabethtown, Pa., about an hour west of Philadelphia. The building had five tenants, and as Bass grew, it continued to take over more bays and office space. By 2008 Bass had taken over the entire building.

Through the years the company expanded its in-house fabrication and, by February 2014, had started expanding into electrical services so the business no longer would have to contract out the electrical portion of the mechanical work.

Casey graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing in 2011 and at the time had no plans to join the family business. He had actually gotten a job offer from a company in California, but the start date was delayed, Casey couldn’t wait, and so in the end he joined Bass as director of business development. His father had recently launched a distributorship arrangement with Reglo, a manufacturer in Norway that made air-powered man lifts for paint booth applications, and during his first weeks on the job, Casey was in charge of marketing it to potential customers in the U.S.

Over the next few years he gained experience in sales and estimating, wearing, as so many do in small businesses, many different hats. Then the unthinkable happened. Al died in an ATV accident in May 2014. The company had no succession plan, and all eyes turned to Casey. Should he take over? Should someone else? Should the company be sold? In the face of tragedy, what would happen next?

As it turned out, quite a lot. Today Bass is an entirely different organization that, according to sources, has the management structure in place for scaling up. The younger Baum, now CEO, hopes to grow the business into something much larger than the 35-employee, $8.5 million shop it is today. Over the next 10 years, he plans to grow the revenue to $20 million, and even sees the potential (depending on general economic conditions) to acquire area mechanical contractors and fabricators.

Today the shop employs welders certified to American Welding Society’s (AWS’s) structural welding code, and the company recently achieved certification from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC).

As sources explained, the entire organization underwent a dramatic cultural shift. So how did the company ultimately accomplish such a feat in less than two years? According to Baum, much of it has to do with setting up a management structure and company culture that attract what no successful business can do without: talented people who fit with the company’s culture.

The Launch Stage Versus the Growth Stage

After Baum’s trial by fire in 2014 and deciding to assume the CEO role at Bass, he started attending leadership roundtable meetings at the S. Dale High Business Center, launched at Elizabethtown College by local business leader Dale High. Everyone attending these meetings runs a family business of some sort, and they all have stories to tell.

Bass Mechanical now certifies its welders to AWS D1.1 and has two certified welding inspectors on staff. Photo courtesy of Bass Mechanical.

“I was 25 at the time [in 2014], and it really helped me to be around such high-caliber people,” Baum said, adding that some people in his peer group led family businesses with annual sales of more than $100 million. “To get through it all, it was such a huge help to get that kind of mentorship and support.”

Baum has talked at length with Mike Mitchell, The High Center’s executive director who once owned a family enterprise in the grocery industry. Although Mitchell’s previous business is very unlike metal fabrication, the challenges of running and sustaining a family business are strikingly similar.

“I think Casey has worked through a lot of the challenges that happen in a lot of family businesses,” Mitchell said. “But he’s a great young guy who has really embraced the things he needs to do to professionalize his organization. I think that’s what’s going to make him a success.”

Baum learned that, besides the recent tragedy, Bass Mechanical wasn’t unusual. “Typically, with first-generation companies, succession planning is rarely taken into consideration,” he said, particularly when the founder is in his prime working years.

From these discussions, Baum learned not only about how to steer a business through tough times, but also about how businesses start, grow, and evolve into larger organizations. So many businesses get off the ground thanks to a tenacious entrepreneur abounding with ideas on how to better serve customers. They have their hands in every aspect of the business; they usually have no choice, because there’s no one else to do the job.

“It’s very common to have the entrepreneurial person that pushes ahead, and everyone else follows behind and makes it happen, without many systems or processes in place,” Baum said.

As the business grows, quite often the business structure doesn’t grow with it. Processes and procedures aren’t documented. This works early on, particularly for businesses employing just a handful of people. But if a business continues to grow, eventually sales start to suffer until the company builds a sustainable structure for scaling up into something larger.

Sitting in those roundtables, Baum thought of his father, the natural entrepreneur—outgoing, eager to please customers, a driving force in the business. That drive got the business off the ground and helped it grow. A quote from Aldus on Bass’ website gives a sense of that “outward,” extroverted focus to help others.

“Strive to put yourself in a position with friends, family, community, and occupation where you will see your life as a gift and appreciate the fact of your existence. Help others appreciate their life.”

Casey heard other business leaders tell stories about the transition into becoming a larger enterprise: about letting go, about hiring talent with ownership over the work they do, about building a business to last.

On its structural fabrication side of the business, Bass recently achieved AISC certification. Photo courtesy of Bass Mechanical.

He also recalled a meeting about six months before his father died. Casey had proposed a few business systems and processes. At the time they looked at the plan as something to consider down the road, when the company was larger.

That day came sooner rather than later. Revenue jumped from $3.8 million in 2013 all the way up to $7 million in 2014. “We basically doubled in size the year my dad died, as a result of adding our electrical division,” Casey said, adding that Bass went from having fewer than 20 employees in 2013 to about 45 employees in 2014.

“So when he died, and I began my new role, it was really baptism by fire. Having no plan in place, it was very challenging.”

At that point Baum said he felt that, in the face of tragedy, he had an opportunity to change Bass’ management structure and culture—one that, perhaps, would be sustainable for generations.

“It was actually a good opportunity for us to put processes in place,” he said, “but it was just really hard to do because of our rapid growth.”

The Right People, Right Business Systems

To make it happen, Baum first knew that he needed to define how he worked best. He abhors micromanagement, but he also knew he needed the people, procedures, and business systems in place so that micromanaging wouldn’t be necessary.

First comes having the right people. Bass had three vice presidents in 2014, two of which are no longer with the company. “In fact, to give you an idea of the amount of change we’ve had here, excluding myself and my mother, we only have two employees in the company left who were with us in January 2014. It’s now like an entirely new business.

“My dad was the entrepreneur,” Baum continued. “He was everything. He was the salesman. He ran the finances. He did the strategic planning and made the budget.

“My goal has been to build systems that allow me to step into a role where I have a 2,000-foot view, and can think strategically for the long term so I can support and empower those around me to run the company. Because of my lack of experience in the industry, I really rely on people supporting me and vice versa. It’s been a team effort. And I have an open-book policy; we’re very transparent with where we are with our finances.”

Meanwhile, when Baum began hiring, he looked not only for hard skills but the soft skills as well. “We were looking for good character, beyond whether they could just turn the wrench or not,” he said. “My passion really is psychology, as well as working with and coaching people.”

Baum’s aunt, Elli Zeamer, who consulted with High Steel Structures in Lancaster, Pa., came in to help and, in doing so, introduced Bass Mechanical to the Myers-Briggs personality test. “She had interviewed more than 1,200 ironworkers with the Myers-Briggs to try to create that cohesiveness and teamwork and help communicate how other people work.”

Bass Mechanical started offering electrical services in February 2014. It is now part of the company’s industrial services division. Photo courtesy of Bass Mechanical.

To implement changes, Baum brought on a new leadership team, including Jerry Miller, an AWS certified welding educator and inspector (CWE and CWI) with decades of experience in structural and defense industry fabrication, both on the shop floor and in quality control. He even worked on some of the structural steel used for the new Freedom Tower in New York.

So what drove Miller to work with Baum? Miller said that he appreciated Casey’s hands-off style. He was giving him a clean slate, an opportunity to build a new fabrication program from scratch.

“It was just a wide-open opportunity to build the fabrication side of the business,” Miller said. “It sounded like a worthwhile journey. I really love my trade, I love what I do. And it’s been great to be appreciated and to be allowed to make the changes we’ve made. It’s just very rewarding.”

To certify welders to the AWS structural welding code, Miller wrote a welding procedure specifications (WPS) manual and instituted procedure qualifications.

“Now we qualify and certify all of our welders in-house,” Miller said.

He wrote the quality manual, documented work procedures, and instituted a culture in which welders and fabricators inspect and sign off on work before it goes on to the next process. This being code-level work, they also need to sign out their welding filler metals.

Many welds are critical, and welders now need to manage preheat and postweld heat treatments carefully. Outside inspectors come in to look at their work, and welds undergo nondestructive testing, including ultrasonic and magnetic particle testing for the full-penetration welds.

“He [Miller] really is the brainchild behind our quality control and our AISC certification,” Baum said. “And because of that, we now can reach out to high-caliber customers that demand that kind of quality control in the process.

“That doesn’t happen very often with a company our size,” he added. “And we already have two CWIs on staff, and we’ll be developing a third during the next two years.”

Bass’ management team, including Miller, has many connections throughout southeast Pennsylvania, which in turn has helped the shop find talent. “We’ve been really fortunate,” Baum said. “We’ve been able to hand-select some of the best welding and fabricating talent in the area. That’s why having such good managers with good leadership is such a big deal.”

Despite being in a very good position after the two-year transition, Baum doesn’t sugarcoat the process either. “Change didn’t happen overnight. It was a grueling process of hiring and firing people for two years straight.”

Miller added, “Casey has had to learn very quickly, and get a thick skin very quickly, to figure out who’s onboard and who’s not.”

Considering skilled tradespeople are in such short supply, did the fabricator think twice before letting go skilled people who didn’t buy in to the new company culture? “Typically, those people just left on their own,” Baum said. “If they’re really talented, you grit your teeth and you want to make it work. But eventually everyone realizes it’s just not a fit, and we have an open conversation.”

In the long run, Bass Mechanical benefits, he said, because hard skills ultimately can be taught—and the shop’s growing list of CWIs is proof of that. Soft skills and attitude, on the other hand, are tougher to change.

A New Structure

Today the company operates under two business units: industrial services and fabrication and erection. The industrial services division consists of the mechanical as well as an electrical division, which tackles wiring and PLC work. This isn’t residential HVAC or plumbing; instead, Bass focuses on mechanical work for plants and commercial buildings: process piping, compressor installation, industrial paint finishing systems, paint booth installation, duct extraction, and more. Outside of these two main divisions, Bass Mechanical has continued its distributorship arrangement with the Norwegian man lift manufacturer.

With a shear, a saw, a few press brakes, welding, several overhead cranes, and a wet paint bay, the fabrication and erection division primarily performs miscellaneous metals and structural steel fabrication. The electrical division also has a custom panel shop located in a separate area of the fabrication shop that wires enclosures. Besides that, most of the electrical and mechanical work occurs on-site at customers’ facilities.

Shaping Roles

Miller is Bass’ chief operations officer, and Robert Binford, an executive with companies like MapQuest on his resume, is chief financial officer. “So we have pretty serious talent and experience in upper management,” Baum said. “If I would get hit by a bus, they could keep the company going without me without skipping a beat.”

Of course, this would apply only to tomorrow through about the next five years, when both may be nearing retirement. Thinking ahead, Baum is strategizing about developing the next leadership team.

“We have so much talent within our management team that we can pretty much promote from within. And since we have open-book management, everyone knows what’s going on in the company, which I feel is very important for the executive and management team. Everyone has to be on the same page.”

Bass’ COO has decades of experience in fabrication. The CFO has decades of business experience. Larry Brown, the head of sales of the fabrication division, has more than 35 years of experience in estimating and sales in the steel industry. Andy Bachert, his fabrication and erection operations manager, has 21 years in the industry. His shop foreman of the fabrication and erection division has 38.

So how has the company recruited such experienced people? Baum said he can’t say for sure, but he has theories. Circumstances may have played a role. With his father’s death, experienced businesspeople, both inside and outside fabrication, were eager to lend a hand.

But he also attributes part of it to the company culture, with no secrets, financial or otherwise, and where people are given free rein as to how best to move a project forward, within the confines of documented work and quality procedures. There is no burdensome bureaucracy, no fiefdoms between departments. At the same time, there’s enough structure in place so that, despite Bass’ small size, people don’t wear too many hats.

As Miller put it, “Casey allows us to come in and do our jobs. If he sees a fault, he’ll bring it to your attention. But for the most part, he allows the management group to really move forward. There’s a large amount of trust.”

He also said that roles are shaped by people’s strengths, and one’s promotional opportunities shouldn’t be limited.

“People can make their own destiny here, and if you work hard, you will reap the benefits of the company’s success.

“The atmosphere and culture we’ve built here is one of a kind,” Baum added. “I don’t think there are any other companies in our area, in our niche, that are doing what we’re doing.”

Bass Mechanical Inc., 717-367-9890, www.bassmechanical.com