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No. 5
Revenue growth FY 2021 to 2023: 158.1%
2023 revenue: $304 million
Chris McCracken started as a project engineer at Meyer Najem, a Fishers-based construction company that builds nationwide for a variety of industries. He is now chief operating officer. His own career growth, he says, reflects what makes Meyer Najem such a good place to work and, in turn, why the employees make the company so successful. “We think if you’ve got a good culture, then project performance follows that,” he says.
Means to an end: Three years ago, the company identified investing in its people as a strategic initiative. One simple example is what the company does to improve employee communications. Internally, “The Weekly Dirt” email keeps employees informed. “The Blueprint” magazine is mailed to their families. Those are small steps toward developing a workplace culture in which high performers are the norm. “One of our consultants that does some training, he told us that average sticks out here,” McCracken says.
One thing leads to another: Meyer Najem began operations in 1987 mostly focused on the health care industry. How the company values and appreciates its customers was noticed, McCracken says. “It takes a lot of effort and energy to get a client,” he says, “and you know we believe it takes even more effort and energy to keep one.” Now Meyer Najem does projects for a host of industries, including K-12 education, government, hospitality and multifamily. It is looking toward life sciences next. “We think that once people started figuring out that we had done a project or two in a certain category, but we weren’t really the key players, then our phone started ringing,” he says.
The Goldilocks realization: “Some people see us as a smaller contractor, you know, that some jobs are too big, and some people see us as a big contractor that some jobs are too small. And when we have the ability to sit down with them and go through our portfolio and our experience, no project for us is too small and no project is out of our realm.”•
Check out more of IBJ’s ranking of Indy’s fastest-growing companies.
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