Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
No. 8
Revenue growth FY 2021 to 2023: 147.3%
2023 revenue: $14.4 million
For a self-described “unapologetic capitalist,” Neil Myers is quick to credit the value of the human capital of Williams Creek Management, an employee-owned firm that builds environmental solutions such as riparian restorations, riverbank stabilizations, rain gardens and nature parks. The company president refers to a “balance sheet of its people,” how their character, commitment and values contribute to the value of the company but also to their own professional and personal goals. The company, in fact, is just the “tool” to bring about that personal enrichment, he says. “We just happen to do really, really cool construction,” he says. “We like to say we’re bringing sexy back to construction.”
Planning for growth: When his ecological engineering design firm Williams Creek Consulting merged with Illinois-based engineering consultant V3 in 2018, Myers focused his attention on the construction company. He and his core team committed to a plan for growth. “We’re in our second phase of earning our right to grow,” he says. “We’ve passed a couple of benchmarks internally. And now we’re really focusing on our processes. We’re focusing on logistics. We’re focusing on facilities. We’re focusing on retention.” How are they doing? In an industry that averages about a 65% turnover rate, he says, Williams Creek Management’s turnover rate is less than 20%.
Straight talk: Myers says the company builds long-term relationships with clients through trust versus seeking any short-term gains. The team looks for potential pitfalls in a client’s design plans before they get started. “We don’t want to let our clients down,” he says. “We want to give them the best solution possible—whether that solution is currently in the set of plans that they gave us, the price or not.”
The green in being green: The foundation of the firm is based on the Clean Water Act. So with each project, Myers says, the firm is rebuilding the natural world, considering the environmental context, “but more in a natural capital perspective, not so much an activist perspective, per se. But that’s really just what we do. And that’s our value set for what we do.”•
Check out more of IBJ’s ranking of Indy’s fastest-growing companies.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.